The Tronsmart T1000 is a $30 wireless display adapter that lets you stream content from a phone, tablet, or PC to a TV or monitor. Just plug the tiny stick into the HDMI port on your display, hook up the USB power supply (which also has a WiFi adapter), and fire up the EZCast app on your Android, iOS, Windows, or OS X device to connect.

At least that’s the idea. In practice, the results are a bit hit or miss. While the Tronsmart T1000 did a good job streaming video from my phone to an external display, setting it up to work with a Windows tablet is a bit trickier.

tronsmart t1000_01

Update: An earlier version of this article was written before I figured out how to get the Miracast wireless display features working. The article has been updated to better reflect the performance of the T1000 using EZCast and Miracast technology. 

A few weeks ago I wrote about my experiences connecting a mouse, keyboard, and speakers to the Dell Venue 8 Pro tablet and pretending it was a desktop PC. I didn’t hook up an external display because the tablet doesn’t have an HDMI or VGA port and I didn’t have a wireless display adapter.

So the folks at Geekbuying sent me one. They sell the Tronsmart T1000 Mirror2TV adapter for $30, which makes it about $5 cheaper than a Google Chromecast.

Setup is as simple as turning on your display, running the EZCast app on the device you want to connect, and entering the network ID and password shown on your screen.

You can use an Android, Windows, iOS, or OS X device to perform the setup and connect the T1000 to your local network. Once you’ve done that, you’ll still need to keep a device with the EZCast app around so that you can switch modes on the T1000 (and decide whether to use EZCast or EZMirror for Miracast, for example).

tronsmart t1000_02

It takes only a few seconds to pair the Tronsmart T1000 with my Google Nexus 5 smartphone, but getting it to work with the Dell Venue 8 Pro is a bit trickier.

First you need to open the EZCast app. Then you have to select EZMirror to put the T1000 into Miracast mode. Then you have to search for wireless displays on the Windows tablet — and that’s the tricky bit. Sometimes it finds the Tronsmart T1000 and sometimes it doesn’t… and even when it does, it sometimes fails to connect.

Ultimately, it might take a few minutes and a few tries, but it is possible to connect the T1000 as an external display.

Once you’ve done that, you can use it as a second monitor, letting you duplicate or extend your desktop. The connection is good enough to stream videos, play games, or perform other tasks — but there seems to be a tiny bit of lag, so if you were going to do serious gaming you might want a wired connection.

There is another option for connecting a Windows device to the T1000: You can use the EZCast app instead of Miracast mode. This enables a direct connection that lets you mirror your display — but it’s slow. In my tests, I got less than 10 frames per second, which means that videos looked like slideshows.

There’s also enough lag when using EZCast to make typing, scrolling, and even using a mouse distracting.

ezcast

Interestingly the EZCast app works quite nicely with an Android phone — without mirroring your entire screen, you can use it to surf the web, watch videos, or even stream content from YouTube or a handful of other supported sites.

tronsmart t1000_03

But you’ll probably get better performance if your phone or tablet supports Miracast. In that case, you can use the EZCast app to switch the T1000 to EZMirror mode, add it as a wireless display, and stream anything happening on your phone or tablet to your TV.

That lets you watch videos from Netflix or Hulu Plus, play games, and do much more than you could using the EZCast’s simple video tools.

netflix miracast

In some ways a device like the Tronsmart T1000 is more versatile than a Roku, Apple TV or Chromecast, since it allows you to mirror a PC display, surf the web using a mobile device, or stream local videos from your phone or tablet to a TV. On the other hand it’s not quite as easy to use as those other streaming media apps and the PC screen mirroring can be tough to configure on a Windows device — and you may have to spend a few minutes setting it up every time you want to connect the display.

If you’re really looking for a way to hook up Dell’s 8 inch Windows tablet to an external display, you’d probably be better off using a USB DisplayLink adapter and a docking station like the $129 Plugable UD-3900. While I haven’t personally tested that setup, the folks at Plugable used the docking station and DisplayLink adapters to hook Dell’s little tablet up to 4 monitors at once without any difficulty.

Here’s a video I shot before I figured out how to get Miracast working — but it shows the EZCast app running on Android and Windows.

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25 replies on “Tronsmart T1000: Wireless display adapter for Android, iOS, Windows, OS X (updated)”

  1. I’d like to know the steps you followed to get your nexus 5 to work with mirrorcast. I’ve tried with mine and so far no luck. It sees the troncast AFTER the 60 seconds, but not before. I should have paid the extra fiver for chromecast instead of this POS.

  2. I’d like to use wireless display, but I am completely lost! I googled wireless display and found this article but you guys are much more tech savvy that me! Can you talk this old guy through the process? First how do I find out if my device can do this? I have an HP Pavilion HDX laptop with the Windows XP operating system installed. I also have a Samsung Galaxy tablet, SM-T310 with Android version 4.2.2. Can either of these devices make use of this process? If so, what must I do? I don’t want to buy a new computer, so I hope you can give me some workable solutions.

  3. I am really interested in how you managed to get the miracast to work. I have the tronsmart device and have tried everything. no luck. any clues where to start?

  4. Did you try it with OS X? The post mentions it should work but the tests don’t seem to have included how well it works to mirror a Mac to your TV…

  5. Try a recognized brand like the Netgear PTV3000 or even the Actiontec Screenbeam, both work well with the Dell. Did you also install the latest chipset drivers from Dell? And why do you have to use an app instead of going through the charms> devices> project option? Is it even possible to use Miracast on Windows 8.1 with an app like this requires?

    I dont think a cheap no-name adapter is the best way to field test a new standard like Miracast on an OS which has just added support for it. I tested with the Netgear and firmware 2.4.26 and it worked much better than your experience,

    1. how well does the netgear work? I tried the rocketfish one with the dell, and it connected in mirror mode no problems, but full screen video (netflix) was a little choppy

  6. Doesn’t the T1000 have the option of using Miracast? Venue 8 Pro has native Miracast support.

    1. Theoretically yes, but I’ve been unable to get Miracast streaming to work with the Dell Venue 8 Pro. I did get it to work with my phone (enabling support for Netflix and screen mirroring, among other things), but the only time the tablet even sees the T1000 as an available device is when it’s already connected to the phone. When I disable that connection, it doesn’t show up in the add device area at all.

      Other users have also reported problems with getting Miracast to work on the Venue 8 Pro.

      1. Did you try searching wireless displays on the Venue 8 Pro while the T1000 is active?
        I questioned geekbuying on the Amazon listing for this device. They said it works well but I didn’t get any details.

        1. That brings up the same dialog box as the add devices option. My contact at Geekbuying tells me he’s still waiting for his Venue 8 Pro to arrive.

          1. Got it. Thanks for the explanation. Both the Venue 8 Pro and T1000 are new devices and should mature in time. Hopefully geekbuying will help resolve.

          2. I’ve been trying to update the drivers on the Venue 8 to see if that helps… but so far I’ve run into more problems than solutions. Now I’m going to go eat dinner. 🙂

          3. Alright… got Miracast working… once. I recorded a video which I’ll upload and at to the post in a few minutes. I’ve been unable to repeat the experience. When it works, the frame rates are significantly better and video plays smoothly — but there’s a tiny bit of lag when moving a mouse.

            It’s an imperfect solution — primarily because it’s a pain in the behind to connect and stay connected. But it is possible.

          4. Brad, thanks for taking the time to research the Miracast option. I have the Venue 8 Pro and have been looking for wireless display options. None of them look good but this might be the one I go with. I plan to use for travel on hotel room LCD’s. Not sure of the bandwidth requirements but I’ll guess I’ll find out.

          5. I’m still looking for a good solution here. I tried to order the T1000 from Amazon but after 11 days, they canceled the order as “not available”. Perhaps I’ll order the Netgear and try that.

      2. Not quite related but y’never know, I’ve had troubles with my cheap chinese miracast dongle, in practice when the phone is connecting the dongle acts as a wifi direct host and gives the phone an IP address, everything works. When my laptop (W7, intel widi) tries to connect the laptop acts as the host, gets as far as allocating an IP address for the dongle but for some reason the dongle doesn’t actually pick that up. Miracast seems to basically work if the wifi direct networking side works so have a close look at that.

        1. Yeah, I was thinking possible firewall related problem but doesn’t prompt to allow.

          1. Presumably you can add it to the allowed list yourself if you can find the name of the program that’s doing the work

      3. Alright, after some extensive testing, I’ve extensively updated the post — it is possible to get this thing to work as a Miracast adapter. It’s just kind of a pain and might take a few tries. So it’s kind of like a wireless HDMI cable that you have to plug in and unplug repeatedly for 2-3 minutes until it works. 🙂

        1. I was thinking about your test procedure. Why not try removing the Tronsmart EZCast software and let the Venue 8 Pro find and install drivers for the Realtek RTL8188 Wifi chipset. Maybe there is a conflict with the Tronsmart software using Miracast.

          1. I was thinking win 8.1 would recognize it as a wireless display and all settings would be on the tablet. I’m being optimistic here. The other thought is installing EZCast after the drivers are installed.

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