Miracast is a fantastic technology, when you can get it to work. I've been successful with it, but a lot of people have reported problems getting it to work consistently. I use the Netgear PTV3000 to push my Surface Pro 3 (and the original Surface Pro before that) screen to any TV in the house and also to any hotel TV when traveling. That means I can skip the hotel movie prices and just watch what I normally do streaming from Amazon, Netflix, Hulu Plus, Crackle, and others.
Microsoft has been rumored to be working on its own Miracast device since the Surface 2 series was released. The first reports came along in March of this year. Now, things are starting to get real. A recent FCC filing shows that such a device has been approved by the commission and could be heading to production.
The original rumor suggested the name for the device would be the Surface Wireless Display Adapter, but the FCC filing tells a different story, giving it the name of, simply, Microsoft Dongle. The Wi-Fi Alliance has also similarly outed the pending device. A downloadable interoperability certificate categorizes the device as a Media Adapter with full Wi-Fi capability, including Wi-Fi Direct, WPA Personal, WPA2 Personal, Wi-Fi Protected Setup, WMM optimization, and B, G, and N network competency.
The more interesting tale from the Wi-Fi Alliance certificate is that the operating system is listed as Linux.
The certificate is date-stamped for August 19, 2014. No pricing has been reported, nor any clue as to the footprint or design or an actual release date. Something like this, you might think Microsoft would have already started promotions along with a placeholder page on the online Microsoft Store for preorder.
A Microsoft Dongle could simplify Surface use for business workers that need to easily and magically push presentations to a remote screen. Price will be a factor, though, considering Google's Chromecast is only $35 and already has a customer base.
