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Kanex back to school giveaway: Win an ATV Pro and Sydnee
Kanex makes a lot of great Mac and iOS accessories, many of which we've reviewed here on TUAW in the past. With kids, teachers, and administrators heading back to school, Kanex approached TUAW about giving away two products each to two winners of a special giveaway. The products are perfect for anyone using iPads in education, so be sure to enter if you're in that esteemed category. Kanex has two packages to give away, each consisting of an ATV Pro (US$59.95) and a Sydnee ($149.00). The ATV Pro (image below) is an adapter that lets a standard VGA PC projector use Apple AirPlay mirroring from an iPad or a Mac running Mountain Lion to an Apple TV. Plug the ATV Pro into your Apple TV's HDMI port, then use a standard VGA cable to connect to your projector. For details of how the ATV Pro works, check out our review from earlier this year. The other part of the giveaway packages consists of the very cool Sydnee (image at top), which is billed by Kanex as a "Smart Recharge Station" for iPads and other devices. With a unique shape and four high-power USB ports, you can keep up to four iPads charged up at a time. Put one of these in your classroom or teacher's lounge, and make sure that all of the iPads are ready to go at any time. As you can tell from our review, it works quite well and can easily accommodate iPads in third-party or Apple cases. Here are the rules for the giveaway: Open to legal US residents of the 50 United States, the District of Columbia and Canada (excluding Quebec) who are 18 and older. To enter, fill out the form below completely and click or tap the Submit button. The entry must be made before August 25, 2012, 11:59PM Eastern Daylight Time. You may enter only once. Two winners will be selected. Both will receive a Kanex ATV Pro valued at $59.95 and a Sydnee Smart Recharge Station valued at $149.00. Click Here for complete Official Rules. Loading...
Kanex ATV Pro connects Apple TV to VGA projectors
Kanex has just released the US$59 ATV Pro HDMI to VGA adapter. This little video adapter may well be a hit with teachers and presenters who want to mirror their iPad screens to VGA projectors -- without tethering the iPad to a clunky VGA cable. Up until now, if you intended to display your iPhone or iPad screen on a projector without HDMI inputs, your choices were few. First, you could use an Apple or third-party Dock connector to VGA cable. That, of course, limits your mobility to the length of the cable you're using to connect to the projector; the Apple VGA dongle is also prone to falling out if you're wandering around. Putting an Apple TV into the mix (and an accessible local WiFi network) lets you can leverage Apple's AirPlay mirroring, making it simple to send iPhone or iPad screens to a big screen with no cable clutter. Unfortunately, a lot of legacy projectors out in the field aren't equipped with HDMI inputs -- and it's a bad moment when you show up at your meeting without the right connections. If you have your Mac and a copy of either Reflection or AirServer, you can mirror your iOS device to your laptop... but that's a lot of gear to lug around if all you want to do is present and/or demo from your iPad. [In theory, if you wanted to show a Keynote presentation from your iPad and control it while walking about, you could connect the iPad to the VGA projector using one of the aforementioned cables and then use Apple's Keynote Remote app on a handy iPhone or iPod touch to run Keynote remotely. That doesn't solve the mirroring issue, though.] Now Kanex makes it possible to grab a $99 Apple TV, attach it to the ATV Pro and then to a VGA projector, and pump anything on an iPad or iPhone out of that projector. [Note that Monoprice sells a similar HDMI to VGA adapter for slightly less, but it's much larger and clunkier. –Ed.] Unlike the Apple TV, the ATV Pro doesn't require a nearby power outlet, so you don't need to worry about having more than two plugs available -- one for the Apple TV and one for the projector. There's also a 3.5mm audio connector that splits out the HDMI audio signal so you can play it over your analog speakers. So, how does it work in reality? Very well, thank you. I taught a class last night at a nearby community college using an Apple TV and ATV Pro, and I zapped all of my content from an iPad to the big screen as I walked around the room. Setup was drop-dead simple; the classroom has a VGA cable that I normally connect to the Mini DisplayPort on my MacBook Air using an Apple adapter. Instead, I plugged the VGA cable into the VGA port on the ATV Pro, plugged the ATV Pro's HDMI cable into the HDMI port of the Apple TV, and just plugged the Apple TV into the wall. A little bit of simple configuration of the Apple TV to join the college's network, and I was ready to go. [Be aware that some enterprise or educational wireless networks use captive portal authentication, which does not play nicely with the Apple TV's connection setup; others may block mDNS or ZeroConf/Bonjour peer-to-peer communications, required for AirPlay's magic. Be sure to test in advance of any critical presentations. –Ed.] Until projectors start arriving on the market with the ability to accept AirPlay input directly from iOS devices, the Kanex ATV Pro is definitely the way to go. It's a well-made and reasonably-priced product, and the setup is a no-brainer. The ATV Pro is currently on pre-order from Kanex, and should be available starting next Monday (May 14, 2012).
Kanex unveils ATV Pro, gives VGA projectors the power of AirPlay mirroring
If you wish you could use your legacy projector with your iPad for educational or business purposes, then crack a smile. Kanex has released the ATV Pro, a HDMI-to-VGA adapter that will allow older gear to get access to AirPlay mirroring. It's designed to get iPads into the classroom and even offers a 3.5mm audio-out port for stereo sound. Its available from today and will set you back $60.
