CES 2014: LaCie Announces 1TB 'Fuel' Wireless External Hard Drive for iOS/Mac Devices

Sounds like the RavPower device I already have:

http://www.amazon.com/RAVPower®-Wir...UTF8&qid=1388976531&sr=8-3&keywords=rav+power

This sounds like it has some more functionality though.

Read the review of the Seagate Media app on the App Store. These things are useless without good software support.

Also, are Seagate and Lacie the same company? I assume that's why Lacie doesn't have its own app.

not bad, at least it has usb3, wish the cost of thunderbolt was not so inhibitively astronomical.

I think 2014 will see a greater focus on efficient wifi / portable drives, cloud synced, hopefully more functional than what we got over the past few yrs

johnnyturbouk said:

not bad, at least it has usb3, wish the cost of thunderbolt was not so inhibitively astronomical.

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It's a wireless device. USB 2.0 speeds are useless even. I doubt you can stream more than 10MB/s or so.

Corrode said:

Read the review of the Seagate Media app on the App Store. These things are useless without good software support.

Also, are Seagate and Lacie the same company? I assume that's why Lacie doesn't have its own app.

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Had a terrible experience with a drive like this, I think it was Seagate. But you're absolutely right. Without a good interface and Mac OS file support, it quickly becomes a useless object.

Auto-Entertainment Hub Solution

This is to the DVD Player equipped auto what the VCR equipped auto was to the radio equipped world.

This is the solution I've been trying to cobble together in my mind for our mobile entertainment. My kids have iPods or iPads and plenty of digital media, but not nearly all of it fits on their devices and I'm not paying the iTax (nor would I prefer for them to do the same) for the larger capacity devices.

I'd dump it all on a portable HD, but need Wifi in the car...how do you boot THAT up every time you turn the car back on... then there's all the learning how to stream junk...blah...blah...blah.

If this is as functional as an iOS device, it's a sure sell for me. If it's the lame brick that I'm reading about here in the forum...pass. I'll wait for apple to take over the Auto OS next.

DrManhattan said:

It's a wireless device. USB 2.0 speeds are useless even. I doubt you can stream more than 10MB/s or so.

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Not if it's AC. I don't think they were talking about wifi G when they mentioned simultaneous HD streaming on up to 3 devices

What stops me from getting this is that it is another thing to charge. I want to have something like this along with a portable battery and a wearable tech but thats to many things to plug in at the end of the day.

For the love of God, Apple, just give us a file system (even an app-managed one!) and we won't need silly, stupid work-around apps like this.

If this thing can AirPlay to an Apple TV, I will be buying one. I don't know of any other devices that store media content externally and can stream to Apple TV (though I haven't done much research)

EDIT - When I mean AirPlay to an Apple TV, I mean the storage device itself streams to the Apple TV, not to an iDevice and then to an Apple TV

Problem 1: Since it creates it's own wireless LAN, you can't connect both "to the internet" and to that. It should have a "home mode" to connect to the router, and then back to the iDevice(s).

Problem 2: One more thing to charge.......

Doubt 1: Can it play music track after track uninterrupted?

DrManhattan said:

It's a wireless device. USB 2.0 speeds are useless even. I doubt you can stream more than 10MB/s or so.

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Sorry let me qualify my statement: USB3 will be useful if one is regularly adding and removing files, especially if they are large capacity, incompressible data like movie files - USB to upload the files from my mac would be a PIA; however, once the data is on the drive, yes the need for usb3 is less useful. Thus, if like me, you would be regularly transferring massive files, for use of my plethora of gadgets on the go, then yes usb3 in such context would most definitely be useful

I bought the Segate one about 2 years ago. The app has improved in stability since then but is still pretty shaky.
One big problem with the Segate is that it used an ntfs file system which this seems to solve.

For those wondering, it also allows you to wirelessly load the movies etc onto the device to watch later. This means that the battery thing isn't a big deal as long as you have enough memory to store the movie you want to watch on your device.

I used this extensively whilst backpacking as I had an iPad but not a laptop to sync it with. At home my girlfriend often just plugs it into the wall and streams tv shows to her iPad when I take the laptop to work.

Goodreader

BrianMojo said:

For the love of God, Apple, just give us a file system (even an app-managed one!) and we won't need silly, stupid work-around apps like this.

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Goodreader is almost what your looking for.

The device is nice, but the commercial encourages people to do all kinds of stuff to distract the driver

Tanegashima said:

Problem 1: Since it creates it's own wireless LAN, you can't connect both "to the internet" and to that. It should have a "home mode" to connect to the router, and then back to the iDevice(s)...

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This does have Internet pass thru - i.e. connected devices can access the Internet if the Fuel has a WiFi connection to the internet.

g4cube said:

This does have Internet pass thru - i.e. connected devices can access the Internet if the Fuel has a WiFi connection to the internet.

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Really? Thanks.

For the last 20 years, I've pronounced this company's name as 'Lacey'. And from this video, I find out it's pronounced 'Le See'. Mind blown. It's the small things.

BrianMojo said:

For the love of God, Apple, just give us a file system (even an app-managed one!) and we won't need silly, stupid work-around apps like this.

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what does the lack of a public facing file system have to do w/ it? iOS devices are great at displaying music collections to the user. apple doesnt make a 1TB iOS device, but if they did it would solve this job-to-be-done w/o adding a file system.

the lack of a file system is what makes my 72-year-old father able to use his iphone proficiently where he struggled on OS X.

not everybody needs a truck. iOS is marketed as a car, and does quite well.

Has anyone found out if this device supports external subtitle files (.srt)? I couldn't find any details in the LaCie homepage.

The functionality will hinge on my decision to buy. It may even mean there isn't a need for a 128GB iPhone...

Can you listen to music via the Apple Music app ?(i.e. like you can when you see your iTunes library though your network share on the Music App)

Looks like this is basically a rebranded version of the Seagate Wireless Plus that is already out ($182 on Amazon*— http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AQRUW4Q?tag=13r-20)

It works pretty well…the internet pass-through is convenient when on the road and you have several devices you want to use, especially for hotels who seem to think it's ok to charge you $10 per day for your iPhone, iPad, etc. all separately.

It does work with Airplay and with iTunes-purchased items…as long as the device you are playing it on is authorized to play the video, it will work just fine.

The standard interface and app do pretty much suck though. However, there is HackGFS (http://www.hackseagatesatellite.com/) which some people in the community have developed which provides a much better experience and extends the functionality of the drive.

You do not need the app to play videos (with the standard firmware or the HackGFS) as you can access through a browser, which makes things very easy. It's perfect for storing some movies for road trips and having your kids or other passengers stream to their iPads, Kindles, etc. on the road.

The only complaint from my kids was because they thought "wifi" meant internet access and were a little disappointed at that! However, it did allow them to be able to play multiplayer games like Minecraft for iOS against each other…nice side-benefit!

Overall it has worked pretty well…but the HackGFS is a must-add in my opinion.

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musio — Check out the HackGFS page… on the home page they mention the iTunes server functionality (“How about bringing your iTunes Server everywhere you go with you?”)

Not sure if the standard firmware has that ability though.

bradbatt said:

musio — Check out the HackGFS page… on the home page they mention the iTunes server functionality (“How about bringing your iTunes Server everywhere you go with you?”)

Not sure if the standard firmware has that ability though.

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Thanks a lot for the link!

Sadly, it seems like you have to buy the device, hack it and then download a 3rd party music player to use it in the car http://www.hackseagatesatellite.com/wordpress/2012/08/20/itunes-server-on-the-goflex-satellite/

Seems a little too fiddly and looks as though i'll have to keep my spotify subscription