Gadgets: Filehub wireless travel router

The Filehub is small and weighs only 7 ounces.

As the name suggests, the Filehub is a Wi-Fi router. It is designed to take the internet in via Ethernet cable and send it out to the world wirelessly. This is handy if you are traveling and stay in a hotel that has a wired port in the room.

The Filehub can also act as a Wi-Fi bridge and wireless extender. It can be joined to your existing Wi-Fi network to extend it, although it doesn't give very much extra range.

Filehub would not be a good replacement for a home Wi-Fi router, but for a hotel room or backyard use, it will do just fine.

The Filehub is powered by a 6,700 mAh battery, which is big enough to power the router all day. The Filehub has a standard USB port to connect a flash drive or external hard drive. Using the free Filehub app on your iOS or Android phone or tablet, you can use the connected USB storage with your mobile devices.

The Filehub really shines when you use it to move files around, especially from an SD card. Photographers will be thrilled to find out the Filehub can automatically copy the contents of an SD card to storage attached to the USB port — without a computer (just check the contents of the USB drive to verify that the photos made it before deleting from the SD card).

One of the Filehub's most useful features is its media streaming. Once connected to an iPhone, iPad or computer, any music or video in the connected storage can be played. Think about storing all your kid's favorite movies on a thumb drive and turning the Filehub into your own personal media server for those long road trips.

The Filehub can also act as a media server. You can use it to connect up to five devices to your home media storage to play back on Chromecast, Roku or other DLNA devices.

A very handy feature is the ability to put the Filehub into bridge mode, thus connecting your home internet through the Filehub to your connected devices.

All these features, along with the travel router and backup battery, make the Filehub a no-brainer purchase. It has too many handy uses.