How to use Miracast to mirror your device’s screen wirelessly on your TV—even 4K?
Ever since the Wi-Fi Alliance announced the finalization of the Miracast wireless display standard at CES 2013, we’ve seen a plethora of Miracast-enabled devices and receivers, from Microsoft’s Surface Pro (Amazon) to Amazon’s Fire TV stick (Amazon). As of July 2017, we now know that Miracast hardware will support HD and 4K streaming via the wireless technology, too.
Users can now wireless mirror the display of their Miracast-certified phone, tablet, or laptop to any Miracast-capable receiver like a TV, projector, or monitor. What you see on your device is exactly what will be displayed on your TV.
At the core of this technology is the Wi-Fi Direct standard, which allows for point-to-point connections between devices without the use of a router. From there, Miracast adds a vendor-neutral wrapper that originally supported the streaming of up to 1080p video and 5.1 surround sound. Miracast also secures that connection using WPA2 encryption, so protected content like Blu-ray and Netflix videos can flow freely across it.
At the core of this technology is the Wi-Fi Direct standard, which allows for point-to-point connections between devices without the use of a router. From there, Miracast adds a vendor-neutral wrapper that originally supported the streaming of up to 1080p video and 5.1 surround sound. Miracast also secures that connection using WPA2 encryption, so protected content like Blu-ray and Netflix videos can flow freely across it.
Beginning in July 2017, Miracast began adding HD and 4K capabilities, operating via existing Wi-Fi network connections or Wi-Fi Direct. The technology has also added stricter latency standards and better A/V synchronization, to improve the A/V experience, the Wi-Fi Alliance said. As of this point, the Wi-Fi Alliance isn’t saying that there will be a special tier of 4K-capable Miracast hardware, but we certainly wouldn’t expect this capability to arrive right away.
The peer-to-peer nature of a Miracast connection means mirroring can be done securely and without an Internet connection. The apps and content are streamed directly from your device, instead of through an Internet service, as with Google’s Chromecast.
