There's a lot of hearsay, but I'm most interested in hearing from people with first-hand knowledge, who have used both ethernet and wifi, about their experience.
There's a lot of hearsay, but I'm most interested in hearing from people with first-hand knowledge, who have used both ethernet and wifi, about their experience.
I found playing even modest files from my NAS over wifi onto Kodi on the MiBox was stuttery. With Ethernet, it was perfect. It costs almost nothing to get a USB hub that also does Ethernet, so if you need extra USB at all (I did) and have cable handy (I did), it's a no-brainer.
If I needed to run cable, maybe I would have tried harder to troubleshoot the issues I was having over wifi.
My mibox is next to my switch, it would be no problem using Ethernet Except it works well on my 5ghz band so haven't bought an adapter.
1080p / 4K Netflix on Mi Box is Ok if you have a decent N or AC - dual band home WiFi router with the Mi Box is reasonably close with the router and WiFi signals do not need to penetrate thru numerous concrete walls.
You really need to use 5GHz WiFi - too much interference in a house with 2.4GHz WiFi only.
Really you should not use WiFi at all for reliable 1080p / 4K streaming anything on ANY media player. I bet that is the root cause of many Mi Box video streaming complaints you always read about.
For reliability and especially for 4K get one of these highly Mi Box compatible
Ugreen USB3 > Gigabit - Hub adapters:
I use 5G wifi until I can get another Ethernet switch
I use ethernet only because I know it's a solid connection 99.9% of the time. I have a UniFi AC-Pro access point covering my house and even with that beast, wifi is still unreliable. So I don't expect it to work all the time with the Mi Box either.
Get a USB 3.0 adapter. You won't get gigabit speeds but there are issues with the 2.0 adapters when the Mi Box goes to sleep. Sometimes the adapter won't wake up with the Mi Box and you have to hard reboot it.
I use Ethernet, but I didn't need to until I started playing around using hdhomerun. All of the standard streaming apps worked fine with my WiFi.
Hdhomerun buffered and produced artifacts like crazy until I hardwired everything.
Could you post the ethernet adapters you are using? I know there are issues with some going to sleep.
I like it when video files load faster, specifically HDHomerun Prime streams, otherwise WiFi works just as good. However the freaking audio hiccup/stutter issue actually gets worse when I use ethernet, it happens way more frequently.
I use the ugreen one from Amazon works fine. even if the mibox goes to sleep.
If you can get the mibox still at walmart for 69 bucks, it makes a really good plex or emby client. I even have a shield Amazon prime APK installed on it works ok, get 4k but it does buffer/stutter once in awhile.
This... After playing with two mibox’s I’ve learned that the mibox’s have a terrible Wifi radio; if you place the mibox close to or right next to your WiFi router, then it functions well and Ethernet is not required for a stutter and buffer free viewing experience.
For a best in class Kodi and Android TV experience the NVidia Shield TV Rocks! Nothing out there, not even the mibox comes close. It’s worth the extra few dollars for the gaming ecosystem alone.
I'm on Wifi, and I have zero issues streaming 5-15GB movies in Kodi from my server.
Never had the need for an ethernet adapter.