If you’re living in a web of wires as you connect and power a smorgasbord of electronics with crisscrossing cables, it’s likely you’ve considered wireless options on more than one occasion. The Nyrius Aries Pro is a premium wireless video solution that can cut out one more cable from your setup — the HDMI cable. At $249 (See it at Amazon), the Aries Pro comes at a serious price, so it will prove a hard sell for anyone who doesn’t have cash to burn and a clear need for its capabilities.

A wireless HDMI transmitter sounds great thanks to that word, “wireless.” But, that description isn’t perfectly applied here. The Aries Pro is comprised of two core components: a transmitter and a receiver. The transmitter is a chunky, plastic dongle 3.4 inches long and 1.3 inches wide. When attached to an HDMI port on a gaming PC or gaming laptop, it can and likely will get in the way of neighboring ports. Thankfully, Nyrius includes a 90-degree angle adapter that helps resolve the situation. The adapter is also necessary on the PlayStation 4.

In some setups, the size could still get in the way. For instance, with or without the angled adapter, I couldn’t get the Aries Pro to slot into the HDMI port on the Nintendo Switch dock. In those cases, a flexible HDMI dongle may work, but will be an extra purchase.

The receiver is even larger at 3.7 x 3.8 x 1.1 inches, and sports a plastic shell. It stands on four short legs, though it can also be wall mounted. The Nyrius includes two screws and two drywall plugs, and it has little slots so it can sit on the screws.

Here’s where things take a turn: you'll need to connect three more cables to use the transmitter and receiver. The transmitter and receiver both need Mini USB for power (Nyrius includes a USB-A to Mini USB cable for the transmitter and a wall adapter for the receiver.). Then, to connect the receiver to your monitor, TV, or projector, an HDMI cable is necessary. Though Nyrius provides one, it feels odd to use an HDMI cable with a product geared for replacing an HDMI cable.

So, if your hope was to see an overall reduction in cables, the math isn’t working in your favor. What is eliminated, though, is the need to have a cable connecting your display to the source of your video or game content. The Aries Pro will wirelessly send that signal up to 100 feet with line of sight, carrying video up to 1080p at 60Hz and uncompressed audio with DTS and Dolby Digital Surround Sound support. And, that signal is transmitted with less than 1ms of latency.

One perk of the Nyrius Aries Pro is that it doesn’t rely on any software. It’s plug-and-play. While using it with a computer, it acted like any other HDMI cable, with the TV or monitor on the other end showing up in the list of connected displays.

The Nyrius Aries Pro’s support for 1080p video at a 60Hz refresh rate makes it perfectly suited for quality video game content. And, because of its sub-1ms latency, it’s up to the task.

For gaming, the latency is almost imperceptible. The only time I could perceive it was while using it to mirror the display on a laptop that had a 120Hz panel. In that case, the visuals on the gaming TV I was mirroring to were noticeably behind, but not far enough behind that I couldn’t still play successfully. And, that latency can be chalked up to the TV’s own latency.

I played several hours of Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice over the connection, and I could still land Mikiri Counters, block quick attacks, and successfully beat the occasional boss.

The visual quality holds up marvelously as well. At the outset, I had wondered if there would be any compression of the wireless video signal. I’ve used Android phones’ built-in screen mirroring feature to cast content wirelessly (and occasional from Chrome Tabs on my computer) to a Chromecast, but compression was always noticeable.

With the Aries Pro, the only times I noticed compression was while viewing compressed content, like streamed video. I conveniently had a ripped Blu-ray on a laptop, and it transmitted flawlessly. A busy action scene with rain coming down and plenty of dark spots didn’t show the slightest hint of compression.

I didn’t see any compression playing Sekiro either, just the full 1080p image at 60 frames-per-second. I have a Steam Link running on a wired LAN with my desktop, and where that has shown noticeable compression, the Aries Pro doesn’t.

That’s not to say the picture is perfect. In one scenario, I could see flaws. Mirroring visuals from a computer shows a weakness. When the space around very fine lines, particularly text, suddenly changes color (like when I select a section of text), that area becomes grainy. It lasts maybe a half second at most, but it is still easy to spot. This may make it un-ideal for use as a way to connect a monitor for non-gaming use.

I also ran into one issue using the Aries Pro for my primary display. When the game launched and switched to fullscreen, the output resolution dropped to 480p, and I couldn’t use in-game settings to remedy this in fullscreen, nor did Alt-Tab cycling work. Switching to windowed borderless resolved it, but PC gaming in fullscreen is generally optimal. In this setup, with the devices close together, I also noticed the occasional odd glitch on screen, but nothing frequent.

Penetration is another weakness. While some user reviews on Amazon report long-range success even with walls in the way, I had no success. I lost the video and audio signal whether I had the transmitter 40 feet away with multiple walls in the way or 10 feet away with a single wall in the way. Obstacles in the same room didn’t have a noticeable impact on performance.

Nyrius Aries Pro Wireless HDMI TransmitterOn AmazonSee It