The Wireless Home: Building Physical Hubs

In Part 1 of my Wireless Home guide I wrote about getting all your media in place to make its sharing as easy and seamless as possible. In Part 2: Building Physical Hubs, I will be talking about actually setting up the devices you want to keep in sync and how to organise them to get maximum utility.

As I have done in my own house, I will be separating these devices into four "Physical Hubs."

Hub 1: The Mothership

This consists of two components, namely your wireless router and the main computer which holds and controls all your content. These are the two most integral components of your wireless home, as one controls the contents and the other is the means to distribute the content. While they are part of "The Mothership," both can be placed anywhere and integrated into other Hubs for convenience. The components you'll need are:

a) Router - For those of you who have routers 4 or more years old, I recommend an upgrade. For the best performance the router should run on 802.11 - N.  For most people any standard router should do the trick, but you should make sure it has a unique name and is encrypted with the best possible encryption. I personally upgraded to the Belkin Share N300 prior to starting this series and an very happy with the boosted performance
    Approx Rs 1,500 upwards

b) Central Computer -  The computer need not necessarily be the most powerful computer on the planet. Any computer with low power consumption will do as it needs to be on all the time. The computer should either have a hard drive with high storage capacity or an external hard drive as digital content tends to accumulate very quickly.
    Approx Rs 10,000 upwards for the computer; approx Rs 4,000 upwards for a 1 TB hard drive

Hub 2: The Music Hub

We all love listening to music and we all have homed music systems that have been languishing in misery now that our phones and iPods give us our music on the go. It's time to resuscitate our music systems with a few accessories that allow us to make full use of our devices in our Music Hub. 

Items required: 

a) One or more Aux cables based on your need.
    Approx Rs 200-300 each

b) Universal iPod dock from your music system's manufacturer - this can sometimes get very expensive (almost Rs. 6,000 with my Bose system) but allows you to control the music playing with the music system's remote control rather than having to physically choose the song on the iPod.
    Approx Rs 1,000 upwards  

c) Other specialized media docks for important devices - I was gifted an iPad dock and didn't use it much at first but I have found it is an extremely convenient way to use my iPad as a large touch screen device for selecting songs (more in Part 3).
    Approx Rs 1,000 upwards

d) Aux cable splitter - If you have multiple docks, use a cable splitter to avoid having to switch the cable between docks.
    Approx Rs 200-500
e) Power strip - By plugging all the devices into a single power strip, you can turn on the entire Hub with just one switch. For more control you can get a power strip with power buttons for each plug point.
    Approx Rs 500

Set up is simple. Just plug the aux cables into the aux splitter and the aux splitter into your music system's aux port. Plug the other end of the aux cables into your various docks and plug your docks' chargers into the relevant sockets. Always try to set up the components so the extra lengths of wires are tied up and the wires are as out-of-the-way as possible.

Hub 3: The TV Hub

Now that we have our audiophilic needs satisfied, it's time to set up the dock around the center of our lives, the TV hub. By setting up this hub we will have a convenient way to stream and play all our videos as well as watch all our TV. As this is a very subjective hub, I will talk about how I have set mine up as it should cover most people's bases.

a) DVD player - The purpose of the DVD player is quite self explanatory: it plays DVD's. As long as you bought your DVD player in the last 5 years, you should be OK. For those whose DVD player is bordering on prehistoric and love watching HD movies, I recommend looking into a Blu-ray player if you have the money to spend.
    Approx Rs 1,500 - 2,500 for a DVD player; Rs 8,000 - 12,000 for a Blu-ray player

b) Set-top Box - As you may know from my earlier review ,I have, and love, the Tata Sky + HD box. If you are really serious about setting up a top-notch hub, you should definitely pick up one of these for your TV Hub as it is, in my opinion, the best in the Indian market at the moment.
    Approx Rs 1,000 - 4,000

c) Streaming box/Game console - I've purposely clubbed these two together because in India there aren't too many options when it come to streaming digital media. For me the two best options are the XBox 360 and the PS3, both which of offer great gaming experiences as well as allow you to wirelessly stream your digital content. As this article relates to the best way to experience your content, I'll lean towards the PS3 as it offers a built in Blu-ray player. 
    Approx Rs 15,000 for the base model of the Xbox 360 or PS3
d) Computer - The TV Hub is a great place to keep your central computer (if possible) as it will make viewing content on your TV much easier. Note: The computer should either be a small laptop or media PC like the Mac Mini else it might be too large to keep near the TV.
    Approx Rs 10,000 upwards
e) Power strip - By plugging all the devices into a single power strip you can turn on the entire Hub with just one switch. For more control you can get a power strip with power buttons for each plug point.
    Approx Rs 500


Set up is relatively easy if you are familiar with the different types of wires needed to connect all the devices. Wherever possible you should use HDMI wires but otherwise the regular RGB wires will work just fine. Most of the wires have colour coded tips or are labelled so you know where to plug them in. If you aren't able to visually identify the wires and can't see any clear markings on them, it's time to break out the manuals so that you don't make any mistakes. Always try to set up the components so the extra lengths of wires are tied up and the wires are as out-of-the-way as possible.


Hub 4: Various Computers

Most people have multiple computers around the house. So this hub isn't a physical amalgamation of computers but a way to share the data among these computers. I'll elaborate in sharing data and the software you'll need in Part 3. Just make sure these computers have something to keep them juiced (read: charged) but other than that there isn't much you need on these computer apart from iTunes. I know many people have both PC's and Macs at home so I will give methods of sharing data between the two.


Thanks for reading and I hope this helped you get all the items you need to set up your physical hubs.


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NOTE: You will already have most of these items available at home so don't buy something without checking whether something else can be converted for use.