The audiophile's choice – Sonos wireless audio
If you care more about the music on your GALAXY Note 3 than watching videos or browsing photos, you may not want to listen to it through your TV. For audiophiles who have spent time assembling their own Hi-Fi sound system with hand-picked components and even specially-made speaker cables, Sonos Connect is an easy way to play music from your Note 3 through your gear, wirelessly.
Sonos Connect is a wireless device that connects to your stereo, Hi-Fi or home theatre set-up using standard digital, analogue or optical audio connectors and then to your Note 3 using Wi-Fi. You can control the playback of your music as well as sound levels using the free Sonos Controller app from Google Play. The app also allows easy streaming of thousands of internet radio stations and services like Spotify, Last.fm and Rdio.
Google's little helper – Chromecast
Google's forthcoming Chromecast dongle takes a slightly different approach to getting multimedia onto your TV using your Note 3. Rather than letting the Note 3 do all the work, this nifty little device slots into one of the HDMI ports on your TV and uses its own Wi-Fi connection and CPU to fetch content for you – freeing the Note 3 up to do other things once you have chosen what to watch.
Compatible apps such as YouTube and Netflix offer support for streaming to the dongle.
Chromecast is lacking a UK release date at the moment, although it is expected to launch in the next few months.
House of the future – Samsung HomeSync
Another device that is yet to receive a UK release date, but one we are particularly looking forward to. HomeSync is the innovative new media-streaming hub from Samsung that promises to act as a complete multimedia helper for your lounge.
The HomeSync box plugs into your TV and connects to your home Wi-Fi. Using this, it can talk to the Note 3 – or other Samsung devices such as the GALAXY Note 8.0 – as well as accessing the internet directly to surf the web and stream video from third party services like YouTube.
You can stream video, music and games straight from the Note 3 and HomeSync will display them at full 1080p resolution on your HDTV, also allowing you to use the Note 3 as a remote control or gamepad.
HomeSync also supports using your phone as a motion-sensitive 'mouse', making it ideal for web surfing on the big screen. The Note 3's screen can even act as a touchpad to make it easy to play touch-centric games.
HomeSync supports screen mirroring so almost any app running on the Note 3 can be used on the big screen. The HomeSync box will come with 1TB of local storage that you can fill up with your photos and videos as well as downloaded movies.
Finally, the HomeSync app for the GALAXY Note 3 will automatically upload your files, and it supports up to eight login IDs for the whole family so you don't get your personal content mixed up.
