Software

As we saw before, the WiGig adapter has an integrated 8 GB flash drive that houses the installer for the required drivers. The sample I received had fairly old drivers, and you are better off finding the most recent one on the support page here. At the time of writing, the HIVE driver (Millidock) had version 1.2.6.0 available, which is 47 MB in size for the installer. Installation is fairly trivial, although note that it automatically adds a shortcut to your desktop without giving you the option to choose otherwise. We also see here that Millitronic is using Peraso WiGig hardware in the form of the W120 chipset for the 60 GHz radios themselves. The final set of drivers takes up under 60 MB in total, with a single executable called "Millidock" being relevant.


Once done, the Millidock program will automatically load and scan for the HIVE dock itself. This happens with the creation of a 60 GHz wireless AD local network the two communicate over, and there is a weird step to getting it going in that you actually have to disconnect from the generated network connection in Windows first and wait for the Millidock program to scan and recognize the dock again, at which point the start button is no longer grayed out. Clicking start initiates the connection, and the dock is now connected to the adapter at a maximum of 2 Gbps throughput with a rated sub-10 ms latency.

Performance

Let's note right away that the adapter requires a Windows 10, 64-bit system on version RS3 v1709 or newer. I did attempt to use the adapter with an older Windows 7 machine, and while most of the driver components installed, the Windows 10-compliant driver for the Peraso chipset did not, and that was the end of that experiment. You also have to be aware of the spatial constraints when it comes to 802.11ad, which is mostly why it never took off in the retail space for consumer networking. The 60 GHz radios in the dock and adapter both have different beamforming FOVs, so Millitronic errs on the side of caution and recommends no more than an uninterrupted distance of 5 meters horizontally between the two, as well as no more than 1 meter in height differential. This does limit applications a lot, although it is still plenty enough for the marketed applications of a living-room connection from a laptop for gaming, or in a conference room for wireless presentations.


You would also have the dock powered on and connected to the external display via VGA or HDMI before initiating Millidock, but can still form the connection without any video output, at which point you get an error message instead. Since both devices connect via the formed 60 GHz network, your laptop or other mobile device is no longer connected to an Internet-providing WiFi network. As such, you need to connect the dock to the Internet via the Ethernet port on the back in order to retain Internet connectivity, which is a limitation in that it removes the whole mobile aspect of the mobile device. As a compromise of sorts, the USB Type-A port on the dock now means you can use any other USB device on the dock instead of your laptop, such as a webcam (1080p or lower recommended to avoid losing bitrate) or laser pointer adapter. This is effectively a wireless expansion dock and not just an external display capable of low latency 1080p/60FPS video out. Hitting stop in the Millidock program kills the connection, and you can also completely exit the program if you do not want to have it running at all. This also where you can change the SSID to connect to a different dock, should you have more than one in the vicinity, as well as hide the SSID itself if there are other wireless AD clients around that may not want to try to connect to this one.


The presence of LEDs on both and the user manual going over what each LED status refers to is handy. It is also helpful in quickly diagnosing if something is wrong with the connection and where the fault lies if so.

I am not really set up for videos in my living room, and testing at work in the conference room is all fine and dandy, but cameras are not allowed. So, I am happy to again share Millitronic's own demo videos as they reflected my own findings completely, all the way down to needing the laptop within 2 meters of the dock to be able to really game without any noticeable latency. This was especially true for fighting games such as MK11, and the tremendous drop in signal strength once past a meter between the dock and adapter is important for those planning on couch gaming wirelessly. It worked fine for most games at even 3–4 meters away, however, which is where VR and AR headsets come in. Indeed, as an example, I was even able to connect my desktop HTPC to my living room TV wirelessly, which took two HDMI cables to first initiate the connection and only another between the dock and the TV. WiGig connectivity is how most such VR wireless adapters work today, so it is capable of more than just duplicating a display.

There is a dedicated backhaul between the two radios as well, and two-way communication in that input on a smart external display is also reflected on your client display as seen in the demo video above. The biggest strength of course comes to light with enterprise and conference room presentations, without any interference from devices in the 2.4 and 5 GHz networks, and it worked better than I gave wireless AD credit for, with a distance of 6–7 meter not being a problem, including having a random person get up and interrupting line-of-sight for a brief period of time—the radios held up the connectivity by enough not to disconnect in such a typical scenario.