Top pick
This system reliably sends 1080p HDMI video and 7.1-channel audio wirelessly, through walls, up to 100 feet away, and it’s loaded with helpful features. But it costs a bit more than other options.
If you want to send an HDMI signal wirelessly to a secondary location in your home, the Nyrius Aries Home+ is the best wireless HDMI video transmitter for the job. It delivers a clean, reliable signal through walls and other obstructions, and it has the best assortment of useful features to integrate into any type of AV setup. This system is a bit more expensive than the competition, but it has the flexibility to change with your AV gear in ways that other models don’t.
It offered the most reliable performance in our tests. This Wi-Fi–based system transmits over seven channels (or frequencies) between 4.9 GHz and 5.9 GHz, using dynamic frequency selection (DFS) to automatically switch to a different channel to stabilize the signal when necessary. It supports video resolutions up to 1080p 60 Hz, with a claimed range of 100 feet.
Even in my long-range torture test across the house, I didn’t see a lot of signal freezes or dropouts. The experience with the Aries Home+ was stable enough that I often forgot I was using a wireless system, which was never the case with some of the other models I tested.
Equally important is that the Aries Home+ delivered a particularly clean video signal, producing far fewer compression artifacts than we saw with any of the other Wi-Fi–based systems we tested. In our picture-quality test scene (chapter two from the Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation Blu-ray disc, where Ethan Hunt is chained up in a dark basement), I saw a tad more noise in the dark backgrounds through the Aries Home+ than with a direct HDMI connection, but the effect was minor enough that you may not notice such things. Only the Monoprice Blackbird Pro 16049 delivered cleaner picture quality, but that’s an in-room-only system.
It supports multichannel audio. In our tests, this system successfully passed a variety of multichannel soundtracks, including Dolby Digital 5.1, DTS 5.1, Dolby Digital EX, and 7.1 PCM—but not the highest-quality, uncompressed Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio formats. Most other Wi-Fi–based competitors are limited to stereo audio.
It has the best assortment of features. The transmitter unit has two HDMI inputs, so you can connect two AV sources and switch between them via the supplied remote. The box also has an HDMI output to connect directly to a nearby TV. When we used the HDMI output to feed a wired HDMI signal to a local TV, we detected minimal lag between the direct HDMI connection and the wireless connection in the next room.
The receiver unit can draw power from a USB port on your TV or projector (if your device has a powered port), which brings several benefits. You don’t have to position the receiver close to a power outlet, you get a cleaner look with a wall-mounted TV, and the receiver automatically turns on and off with the TV—so you don’t have to worry about its power and connection lights distracting you when the TV is off.
The receiver unit is small enough to tuck behind many wall-mounted TVs or to sit atop a projector, and a keyhole insert on the backside allows you to wall-mount it (the hardware to do so is included). The transmitter unit is more than twice as large as the receiver and sits vertically in its stand, but you could lay it on its side if you prefer, and it too has a keyhole insert for wall-mounting.
Unlike the other multiroom systems we tested, the Aries Home+ does not come with optional screw-in antennas, but in our tests it didn’t need them to improve signal performance, and the absence of antennas makes for a nicer, more discreet look.
The IR pass-through function worked fine with my Oppo UHD Blu-ray player and its IR remote; the Nyrius package includes an IR cable that plugs into the transmitter unit and connects via a sticky pad to your source’s IR window.
Setup is simple. Despite including so many features, the Aries Home+ has a straightforward setup process that does not require the use of an online portal (as many Wi-Fi systems do). Just connect your sources to the transmitter, connect the receiver to the desired TV, and power everything up.
Overall, the Aries Home+ distinguished itself from the pack with its consistent performance and its full list of features, all of which worked as advertised. If you’re certain you won’t need the transmitter’s HDMI output and second HDMI input, you can save a little money by getting the Nyrius Aries Home instead.
Flaws but not dealbreakers
The Aries Home+ isn’t perfect in its signal reliability. This is true of all wireless HDTV systems; inevitably you will encounter instability issues such as the picture freezing, disappearing, or breaking up for a moment. This system corrected itself pretty quickly in our tests, but your results will vary depending on the size and construction of your house, the sources of wireless interference, and the distance between the transmitter and receiver units.
It can be a little slow to lock on to the signal when you first power it up, if it detects interference. During most of our testing period, the system started up quickly, but on occasion it had to search for the most stable channel (frequency) to use. When the system is doing this, you can see the channel selection flashing on the screen. But once it found the most stable signal, everything was fine.
The package doesn’t include a USB cable to power the receiver unit. You need to supply your own Mini-USB–to–Type-A cable if you want to power the receiver via your TV or projector’s USB output.
Also, you don’t get an IR port or cable for the receiver unit, so you need to point the source remote directly at the receiver for it to work. That means you can’t hide the receiver behind a TV if you’re relying on IR pass-through to control the source.
