If you've ditched cable TV and are using an antenna for over-the-air channels, here are five ways to take it to the next level. You hook the $220 box up to your Wi-Fi router, plug in an. I cut the cable cord about 15 years ago. We then purchased an over-the-air (OTA) antenna to receive our basic channels and have done well enough with that and services like Netflix and Amazon Prime. OTA antennas can be a pain in the neck because you are constantly trying to find the best spot to place the antenna in order to receive as many channels as possible as clearly as possible. Inevitably, there are those channels that will not come in in that particular spot and will require you to adjust the antenna placement. I have reviewed a couple of HDTV antennas (,, ) and have found that they still have this problem. When the Gadgeteer was offered the WatchAir Smart (WiFi) Antenna to review, I volunteered to give it a try and found that even though it is a little finicky when trying to find the ideal spot, it is one of the more unique and promising antennas that I have tried. Design & Build Quality The WatchAir Smart Antenna (shown above) that was sent to me is made of a white, rigid, matte plastic. It came with a mounting bracket made of the same material. This is the back of the antenna and bracket. The bracket came with an adhesive that you could use to apply to a window if necessary. The WatchAir smart bar shown above is made of the same material as the antenna. Just outside of the silver circle is the LED status ring. The back of the smart bar has mounting indentations that slide onto the mounting bracket if you decide to use the bracket to place the WatchAir antenna in the vertical position. The top photo is the smart bar that was sent to me and the bottom photo is a stock photo with the ports labeled. One side of the smart bar contains an external antenna port to use your own existing antenna (desktop orientation mode), a micro-SD card slot for additional recording space (supports up to 32 GB), a reset button to reset the WatchAir antenna, a type A USB port for additional recording space, and two power ports available depending on how you wish to use the WatchAir Smart Antenna: in desktop mode or vertical mode. The other side of the smart bar contains air vents. The bottom of the smart bar contains the power port that you would use when the antenna and smart bar are mounted against a wall. One end of the smart bar slides out (this is Desktop Mode Bracket) so that you can attach the smart bar to the WatchAir antenna. The smart bar (top photo) attaches to the antenna (lower photo) via the gold connection. The smart bar slides onto the antenna and clicks into place. When fully assembled, the WatchAir Smart Antenna with the smart bar has the above measurements. Setup Setting Up a WatchAir App Account. I downloaded that WatchAir Android app onto my Nexus 6 phone and the WatchAir iOS app onto my iPod Touch 6G. The apps are very similar but do have a couple of important differences that I will point out later. Mac desktop folder location. All of the screenshots below are from the Android app unless otherwise indicated. Individual screenshots may be clicked on to view a larger size. Finding WatchAir Antenna Location. After creating your account, you’ll need to set up the WatchAir antenna to receive the OTA channels and connect it to your network. To start the process of setting up the WatchAir antenna (as opposed to using your own antenna to connect to the smart bar in desktop mode) from within the app, I tapped on the “Smart Installation” button located at the bottom of the left screenshot above. ![]() I then tapped on the short video that demonstrated how to use the GPS-based live antenna installation guide which helps you to find the optimal positions to place your antenna to receive the most channels available to you. After watching the video, you then tap on “I’m ready. Let’s go!” to start the location process. While holding your device in landscape mode (like you would in order to take pictures with your phone), you slowly turn around the room while pointing your device at each wall until the red portion of the compass needle comes nearest to the “Forward” position. Then walk to that wall, place your device flat on the wall in landscape position, slowly move it around on the wall until the rose compass turns red (like in the photo above), then tap on “I got it.” This MAY be a good place to try your antenna but I would NOT attach it to the wall or window just yet until you’ve scanned for channels and made sure that they tune in well enough. Connecting the WatchAir Antenna to Your WiFi. The next step is to connect to the WatchAir antenna to your network. To do this I needed to tap on the “Take me to ‘Settings'” button (shown at the bottom of the left screenshot). The antenna’s SSID name was identified as WA*******. The password is the same as the SSID name of the WatchAir antenna. After I connected my phone to the antenna in my WiFi settings, I hit the “Back” button on my phone to return to the WatchAir setup.
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