Take the heat off your smartphone

We can use WiFi almost anywhere now, and most of the time it is stable and reliable. We are used to it working well and consistently. But when you are trying to connect while you are on the move, it’s not always so easy.

Most of us have a built-in hotspot on our mobile phones and, if we have a decent data allowance and we can pick up a 4G signal, this will provide good connectivity for a short time. This is really useful when you are travelling by train or in the car and want to use your laptop or tablet.

While most trains have WiFi connectivity, it is not always provided free and it often gets very busy, so it will slow down. Also, on some services, there will be a limit to what you can do. You won’t necessarily be allowed to watch videos or films, to stream audio or download large files.

No limits

Sometimes then, it’s preferable to use your phone, because there are no limitations. But using a mobile phone hotspot also has its disadvantages. To begin with, you do need to make sure you have a sufficient data allowance, and if you are doing quite a lot through the hotspot – such as watching TV or playing games, you may soon start to use up a lot of data. If you allow other members of your party – family or friends – to make use of your connection, the allowance will run down even faster.

Also, when you use the hotspot, your phone’s battery life will get used up faster. If you can plug it into a mains connection, that’s fine, but if that’s not an option, the power will soon start to run down. The phone may also become quite hot – and while this should not be dangerous (mobile phones are built to be safe) it is probably not a good idea to allow the device to get too hot, too often.

For car travellers, it’s even more of a problem. When you are moving down a highway at 110 kmph or 70 mph, you can’t connect to a local WiFi, hotspot, so you need to use your mobile.

Made for sharing

But for those who travel frequently with their family or groups of friends and associates, by train or road, taking a portable LTE router like Zyxel’s WAH7706 or WAH7608 is a very good idea. It will allow you to share a single 4G data connection between multiple devices and – as long as you can get a decent signal – provide consistent, reliable coverage for everyone.

You need to have a data allowance of course, but this is easy enough to buy and top-up, and that way, no-one else needs to use up their own personal data allowance, batteries don’t get drained so quickly and smartphones won’t get too hot.

Compact and lightweight, our mobile hotspot is designed to be easy to carry and with its superior data forwarding capability, will deliver better performance that you would get from a mobile phone hotspot. Using Zyxel’s WAH7706 or WAH7608 is the smart way to stay connected – and take the heat off your smartphone.