Leyio's UWB storage device tested

FROM THE COMPANY responsible for ViaMichelin's SatNav comes Leyio, a portable 16GB storage device that beams data between devices over Ultra Wideband - one of the very first products to hit the market to do so.

Launched at the INQ's new favourite pub in London is a device that's roughly the same size as a box of matches. It can transfer information up to 10 Megabytes a second up to 10 metres away.

Ultra Wideband isn't as massively popular as some would have hoped by now, even though this product has an implementation that's around a 100 times faster than Bluetooth and four times faster than WIFI. It's good to see companies starting to use this tech and not just benching it for something which may or may not come down the pipeline later on.

Besides beaming its data from device to device, there are other ways of getting data on to and from the Leyio over its two USB ports. There's one microUSB socket for charging and connecting up to a PC, plus another standard USB port for plugging in the likes of a USB flash drive.

It's in the latter in which it could very well prove to be a tad useful. Instead of  booting up a PC in order to copy across data from a USB memory stick you've just been handed, you can just simply plug it in to the Leyio and copy across its data to the 16GB memory - hurrah!

Just in case you need to get data off the Leyio and no one else around you has one, as the UWB feature is heavily dependent on someone else also having a Leyio - there's a removable 2GB USB flash stick built in. This doesn't even impact on the 16GB already onboard, so effectively you have 18GB of room to play about with.

There's a useful little OS running from Linux providing access to anything and everything onboard plus handling the transfer of data, with a decent OLED display.

Security comes in the form of a biometric fingerprint scanner, protecting unauthorised access to the device from muggles.

We have it on good authority this is just the start for Leyio, as the parent company initially wanted a device that could beam data to every possible wireless standard known to man. This could very well still be on the cards, with this being just a taster of what's to come next.

All in all, it's a very good attempt for a new product with new technology to start something new in the personal storage market and all for just £159 - it smells like there's potential here, expect to hear more from Leyio later on this year. µ