Mini M8S II is one of the first Amlogic S905X TV box to hit the market, with the new processor adding 4K VP9 hardware video decoding and HDR support compared to Amlogic S905 processor. I’ve already taken pictures of the device and torn it apart to check its hardware & thermal design in the first part of the review, and in the second part, I’ll boot it up, check performance, features, and video playback capabilities.

First Boot, Settings and First Impressions

I plugged-in a USB hard drive into one USB port, but since the device only fetures two ports, I had to use a USB hub to connect two RF dongles for MINIX NEO A2 Lite air mouse, and Tronsmart Mars G01 gamepad, as well as a USB keyboard to take screenshots. I completed the hardware setup by connecting HDMI & Ethernet cables before starting the device by connected the provided power adapter.

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Booting takes around 40 seconds, and you’ll be greeted by the very common launcher below found on most Amlogic based Android TV boxes.

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A few seconds later, the system showed me a “USB drive connected”. It’s not to know my drive is working, but since it happened every single time I booted the TV box this was more annoying than useful.

The settings are again about the same as on other TV boxes, and if you want to see an in-depth review of the launcher and settings I recommend you check out K1 Plus review. There were some noticeable differences however which I detail below.

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The first difference is that HDMI-CEC option is missing. It’s not a feature I’d use in Android anyway, but the problem is that it seems enabled somehow, and if my AV receiver is turned on at the same time as MINI M8S II, I won’t be able to turn off my AV receiver, as the box will turn it back on as soon as I turn it off…

HDR support in the Display section is the second difference, and you can enable or disable it. It’s not something I could test however since my current 4K TV does not support high dynamic range.

The final difference I noticed is that the Storage & reset menu will now show removable storage too.

The screenshot above show my hard drive with four partition is correctly detected (USB3_XXXX are volume names), and exFAT and NTFS partition mounted.

While the eMMC flash has 8GB capacity, the system takes some, and the internal storage partition is just 4.70 GB in size with 598MB used at the beginning of the review.

HDMI output support a wide range of resolution and refresh rate, and my system was first automatically set to 4K SMPTE (24 Hz) despite my TV supporting 4K @ 60 Hz. I could manually change the output to that setting, but I’ve noticed the TV box does not always remembers the user-defined value, and a few times I saw video output set to 1080p60 after a reboot.

I can access Android Marshmallow settings by clicking or selecting “More settings”, where you can access some extra options like Printing, Date & Time, Backup & Reset and so on. So I went to the  “About MediaBox” to find out a bit more about the firmware, and “MINIM8S II” model number runs Android 6.0.1 on top of Linux 3.14.29. Please note that the firmware is NOT rooted.

I also quickly tested the included IR remote control, and the range is very good, as it works very well even 10 meters away. However, for most of the review I used NEO A2 air mouse as IR remote controls are completely useless outside of the launcher and Kodi in Android.

The Google Play Store worked for most apps required for the review, except Antutu Video Tester, Vidonn Smart Band & Xiaomi Mi Fit (both require BLE support), BitTorrent and a few others from my list. Apps requiring GPS and/or phone/SMS support, such as Whatsapp, would not install either, but this is not really an issue. I had no troubles installing Riptide GP2 through Amazon Underground.

Power handling is OK with power on working from the IR remote control, and power off from the remote control or Power icon on the status bar. There’s no standby/sleep mode, so  I’ve measured power consumption with and without USB hard drive (HDD) in the two available power modes:

• Power off – 1.2 watt
• Idle – 2.2 watts
• Power off + HDD – 1.2 watt
• Idle + HDD – 5.0 watts

There are two good news here: USB power is turned off in powered off mode, and idle power consumption really low. The downside is that the system draws 1.2 watts in power off mode, while the best devices don’t draw anything noticeable by my power meter, or at least well below 1 watt.

MINI M8S II does not overheat, and after Antutu 6.x, the maximum temperature on the top and bottom of the case was respectively 39°C and 45°C max, and after over 15 minutes playing Riptide GP2 this went up a little to 43°C and 56°C. I did not notice any throttling / slowdowns during game play.

MINI M8S II feels responsive, and the firmware is stable, with the only small issues I had were the Windows appearing at each boot to tell me my USB drive was connected, and the box will automatically turn on my A/V receiver when I turn it off likely because of HDMI-CEC feature which can’t be disabled in the settings. The mouse pointer is also rather small when 4K output is selected.

OTA firmware update

One of the first thing I did before checking out the settings and Google Play as described above was to check out for new firmware. So I went to the UPDATE&BACKUP app, to check for new firmware, and the system did get an update for 2016-07-04 to 2016-07-07, which is kind of unexpected for a low cost device.

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I went ahead with the tiny 14.13MB download, before clicking on Update now to reboot and complete the firmware update.

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But it did not work, and failed with error. So I decided to disconnect my USB hard drive, reboot the system, and re-try the update and it went smoothly. So remember remove external storage (USB and/or micro SD card) before upgrading the firmware to avoid this issue.

However, some people mentioned they had manually installed 2016-07-19 firmware, so I went to UPDATE&BACKUP app again, and it found another larger 2016-07-19 firmware update, which went without issue.

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I check again for a third firmware update before carry on with the review, but that was it.

Audio & Video Playback in Kodi 16.1

Kodi 16.1 (or a fork) is pre-installed on the device, and the manufacturer also included several piracy add-ons.

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All videos, except otherwise stated, were played over Fast Ethernet from a SAMBA share. I’ve first played some videos found in Linaro media samples, as well as Elecard H.265 samples:

• H.264 codec / MP4 container (Big Buck Bunny) – 480p/720p/1080p – OK
• MPEG2 codec / MPG container –  480p/720p/1080p – OK
• MPEG4 codec, AVI container 480p/720p/1080p – OK
• VC1 codec (WMV) – 1080p – 480p/720p/1080p – OK
• Real Media (RMVB), 720p / 5Mbps – OK (software decode)
• WebM / VP8 480p/720p/1080p – OK (ff-vp8 software decode)
• H.265 codec / MPEG TS container  – OK

While all videos played, please note that automatic refresh rate does not work even after enabling it both Kodi and Android settings (HDMI self-adaptation).

The next step was to play some videos with various bitrates (HDD = USB hard drive):

• ED_HD.avi (H.264 / 10 Mbps) – OK
• big_buck_bunny_1080p_surround.avi (1080p H.264 – 12 Mbps) – OK
• h264_1080p_hp_4.1_40mbps_birds.mkv (40 Mbps) – OK
• hddvd_demo_17.5Mbps_1080p_VC1.mkv (17.5Mbps) – Stays in UI, but audio plays
• Jellyfish-120-Mbps.mkv (120 Mbps video without audio) – HDD: OK

I also tested stereo audio downmixing (PCM 2.0) via Kodi and MX Player/MoviePlayer app using my TV’s speakers, and HDMI pass-through in Kodi using Onkyo TX-NR636 receiver.

So you should not have problem if you play videos directly with your TV using Kodi, but some apps won’t have any audio for Dolby/DTS, and audio pass-through is limited to 5.1 channels with some bugs (audio cuts).

Now let’s see how well 4K playback works, especially for VP9 videos. Please note that some videos have been tested at both HDMI_4K_SMPTE (default) and HDMI_4K_60Hz video outputs as I had some interesting issues:

Sintek-4k.iso & amat.iso Blu-Ray ISOs could both play just fine, as well as two MPEG2 1080i videos. 10-bit H.264 is a normally an issue, but Kodi 16.1 here handle it by software decode, and the 720p video was fine (with very high CPU usage on all 4 cores), but the 1080p video was not always smooth or artifact-free. Maybe that’s something Amlogic S912 will be able to handle with its 8 cores.

My TV does not support 3D videos, but it’s still interesting to check whether videos can be decoded anyway. My A/V receiver is however capable of detecting 3D content (shows 3D icon) for MVC video as I demonstrated with Zidoo X1 II:

• bbb_sunflower_1080p_60fps_stereo_abl.mp4 (1080p Over/Under) – OK
• bbb_sunflower_2160p_60fps_stereo_abl.mp4 (2160p Over/Under) – Audio only, stays in UI.
• Turbo_Film-DreamWorks_trailer_VO_3D.mp4 (1080p SBS) – OK
• 3D-full-MVC.mkv (Full-frame packed MVC 3D MKV) – 2D only, 3D icon not shown on Onkyo receiver
• ISO-full3D-sample.iso (Full-frame packed MVC 3D ISO) – 2D only, 3D icon not shown on Onkyo receiver

Finally I played various VOB/IFO, MKV, AVI, MP4, XViD/DViX, and MKV videos from my library and all could play fine, with the only issue occurring when using DTS or Dolby HDMI audio pass-through with audio cuts in some, but not all, videos.

Beside Kodi, I’ve also run Antutu Video Tester 3.0 benchmark, with MINI M8S II getting a decent 909 points, while the best devices get a little over 1,000 points. All videos could be played, with 3 videos not playing smoothly.

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DRM support may be important for premium video services like Netflix, and Hulu, and MINI M8S II support Widewine Level 3 for SD resolution video playback, but no Level 1 which is one of the requirement for HD and 4K video support for this type of online video services.

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In case you wonder about YouTube, it only works up to 1080p. 4K YouTube video playback requires “Android TV” platforms.

Download links to video samples used in this review can be found in the comments section of that post.

Network Performance

I normally test both WiFi and Ethernet in my reviews, but I broke the WiFi antenna during the teardown, and could not properly re-solder it. So I only get a “fair signal” strength (about 2 bars out of 4), and throughput of around 1MB/s while using WiFi. This is quite poor, but likely due to the antenna issue. Other people also reported poor WiFi performance with earlier firmware, but firmware 2016-07-19 – used for this review – allegedly improved WiFi performance greatly. Note that only 2.4 GHz WiFI is supported by this device, not 5.0 GHz.

I’ve tested Fast Ethernet by transferring a 278MB file between a SAMBA share and the internal storage, and performance averaged 5.9MB/s placing it in the middle of the pack of devices limited to 10/100M Ethernet.

Throughput in MB/s

Miscellaneous Tests

Bluetooth

I could pair “MINIM8S II” to my smartphone in order to transfer some pictures over Bluetooth. However, the TV box could not find Xiaomi Mi Band 2 Bluetooth 4.0 LE activity tracker (not install any BLE app through Google Play), while the system could detect my “SH09” Bluetooth headset pairing would not work, and I had to skip Sixaxis PS3 Bluetooth game controller test since the firmware is not rooted.

Storage

We’ve already seen that a  Seagate USB hard drive was recognized in the upper part of this review with NTFS and exFAT file systems supported, and after adding a micro SD card, I could also confirm FAT32 is supported, but Android 6.0 permissions do not seem to allow write access to external storage.

This behavior is not suitable at all for TV box, so they’ll have to find a workaround.

I had to skip A1 SD bench with USB drives due to this read-only issue, but still checked out internal storage performance with the app, and the eMMC flash achieved 34.69 MB/s sequential read speed, and 15.87 MB/s write speed. Not a bad results.

Read and Write Speed in MB/s

Gaming

Candy Crush Saga was a little sluggish the very first few seconds, but then it could play the game with air mouse, and without any noticeable slowdowns.

I switch to the wireless gamepad to play Beach Buggy Racing which was smooth at all time, even after settings Graphics settings to the “highest resolution”.  Riptide GP2 was fairly smooth with the default settings, but once I switched to “highest resolution” settings, the frame rate went down a bit, and while it was still playable, I did not find as quite as enjoyable. It’s pretty typical for Amlogic S905 platforms though, and the good news is that the performance was constant over the 15 to 20 minutes I played the game.

MINI M8S II Benchmarks

So is Amlogic S905X processor clocked at up to 1.5GHz (like in the specs), or up to 2.0 GHz (like in marketing materials for TV boxes)? CPU-Z agrees with the latter as the maximum frequency is reported to be 2.02 GHz just like in Amlogic S905 processors.

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The board is p212 (useful if you want to try alternative firmware), the frame buffer resolution is set to 1920×1080, and there’s 1775MB total RAM for the system out of the 2GB RAM installed.

However, Antutu 6.1.4 score at 33,330 is slightly lower than on Amlogic S905 based devices (36,000 to 39,000 points) which looks more consistent with a lower CPU frequency… For example MINIX NEO U1 Antutu 6.0 score is 38,032 points.

Let’s double checked the results with Vellamo 3.x.

M8S II got 1,491, 910 and 1,855 for respectively Multicore, Metal and Browser benchmarks, while MINIX NEO U1 achieved 1,586, 1,235 and 2,157 points. If we compared it to a cheaper model like Videostrong K1 Plus with 1,572, 763, and 2,002 the difference is not as clear, but performance of Amlogic S905 does seem higher than Amlogic S905X in most cases. We also have to take into account that all devices I tested with Amlogic S905 were based on Android 5.1, while MINI M8S II is running Android 6.0.1, which should be a little faster than Android Lollipop.

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3D graphics performance does not seem to be affected as much as Amlogic S905 TV boxes would normally get around 4,300 points in 3DMark ICE Storm Extreme, while Amlogic S905X based M8S II got a similar 4,183 points.

Conclusion

MINI M8S II TV Box has a good performance/features to price ratio, a responsive Android 6.0 firmware, decent video playback in Kodi for 10-bit and 8-bit H.265, H.264, and VP9 videos up to 4K @ 60 fps, but there are still a few firmware issues such HDMI audio pass-throguh, Bluetooth issue, read-only USB storage, etc.. to solve.

PROS:

• Stable and responsive device with recent Android 6.0 firmware
• Good (although not quite perfect) video playback in Kodi 16.1 with support for 4K 10-bit H.264, H.264 and VP9 videos
• HDR (High dynamic range support) for compatible TVs (not tested as my 4K TV does not support it)
• Proper power handling, and low idle power consumption
• Relatively fast internal storage leading to 40 seconds boot, few slowdowns during operation
• OTA firmware update
• Device stays cool under load
• exFAT, NTFS, and FAT32 file system support for external storage
• IR remote control working with long range (at least 10 meters)

CONS:

• External storage (USB and micro SD) are read-only due to permissions.
• Some Kodi issues: HDMI audio pass-through not working well, even for Dolby / DTS 5.1 or 2.0 audio, automatic frame rate switching not working, 24 fps videos may not be smooth when played using 24 Hz video output.
• Lack of Dolby & DTS licensed for downmixing to PCM 2.0 (stereo audio) in apps other than Kodi
• Bluetooth issues – No Bluetooth LE support, problem pairing with Bluetooth headset. (File transfer with smartphone is OK)
• DRM: Only supports Widevine Level 3
• Some apps (that should) can’t be installed via Google Play (e.g. Antutu Video Tester, Bittorrent…)
• TV box will force my AV receiver to turn on, even as I manually turn it off (likely HDMI CEC issue)
• USB device connected full screen window shows up after each boot if you have connected an USB drive

So not a bad start, but you’ll have to rely on firmware updates to get fixes for some of the issues listed above.

I’d like to thank GearBest for sending a sample for review, and if you are interested, you could consider buying the device for $35.99 including shipping (if the price has gone up, GBM8SII coupon might help) from their online shop. Other shopping options include Banggood, Aliexpress, and Amazon US, but they are roughly $10 more expensive at this time.

Tweet Mini M8S II is one of the first Amlogic S905X TV box to hit the market, with the new processor adding 4K VP9 hardware video decoding and HDR support…

We’ve already compared the main features between Amlogic S905, Amlogic S905X and Amlogic S912, with Amlogic S905X being an upgrade of Amlogic S905 with the same quad core Cortex A53 cores and Mali-450MP GPU but adding VP9 hard ware decoding, HDR support,  and integrating 10/100 Ethernet PHY and audio codec to lower the cost. The CPU frequency was also said to be lowered to 1.5 GHz in early document, but TV manufacturers keep promoting Amlogic S905 as a 2.0 GHz processor, and I noticed CPU-Z and Antutu also reported the maximum frequency to be 2.02 GHz.

In that case the performance should be about the same for both processors. Let’s find out by comparing benchmark results between Amlogic S905 based MINIX NEO U1 and Amlogic S905X powered MINI M8S II using Antutu 6.x, Vellamo 3.x, and 3DMark Ice Storm Extreme 1.2. A ratio greater than one means Amlogic S905X is the fastest for a given test.

Please note that currently most S905 TV boxes run Android 5.1, while Amlogic S905X devices are already running Android 6.0, so the latter may benefit from some small performance boosts due to more recent firmware. But in any case, that represents an side-by-side comparison that you can expect from devices sold on July/August 2016, although some Amlogic S905 devices are now getting Android 6.0 Marshmallow firmware updates.

The main takeaway is that you should expect slightly lower performance from Amlogic S905X compared to S905, so the new processor is only interesting if you need 4K VP9 hardware decoding (not usable for YouTube 4K, except in the upcoming Xiaomi Mi Box), and/or High Dynamic Range support, or if the price is cheaper compared to an equivalent S905 TV box.

Tweet We’ve already compared the main features between Amlogic S905, Amlogic S905X and Amlogic S912, with Amlogic S905X being an upgrade of Amlogic S905 with the same quad core Cortex…

Last month, I wrote about WiThumb a USB WiFi adapter based on ESP8266 processor which can conveniently be plugged into any USB port for power and programming. However, the hardware design was questionable with the WiFi PCB antenna placed close to other components, and a temperature sensor likely to get pretty hot inside the case. There’s now another device based on a similar concept with vESPrino USB stick that also expose a few I/Os through its enclosure.

ESPrino specifications:

• WiFi module – ESP-12 FCC & CE Certified module based on Espressif ESP8266
• USB – 1x micro USB port, 1x USB port
• Expansion – 6-pin female header with 4 GPIOs, 5V and 3.3V
• Programming & debugging – Via USB through CH340G USB 2 Serial adapter
• Misc – Push button (GPIO0), WS2812b RGB LED (GPIO2), temperature sensor connected to ADC? (not visible on schematics)
• Power Supply – 5V through micro USB or USB port; 500 ma 3.3v LDO
• Dimensions – N/A

The board has been designed with Cadsoft Eagle, and the schematics and PCB layout file have already been released. There are also various add-on boards made for the board including light sensors, temperature/humidity/pressure sensors, gesture sensors, OLED or LCD displays, as well as a relay module, micro servo, and PIR sensor. There are currently two enclosure available the small one as show in the first picture, and a bigger one to allow one or two add-ons modules.

While the board could likely support any ESP8266 firmware, the developer also developed vESPrino open source firmware (no code yet) that can configure ESP8266 over the serial port, setup a WiFi connection, upload data over HTTP or MQTT, and support online services such as IFTTT, Dweet.io, Thingspeak, Ubidots, as well as OTA firmware update. A Chrome-based app will also be provided to find vESPrino and configure it visually.

The short video below does a good job at showing the board and add-ons capabilities, and the web configuration interface.
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The project has launched on Indiegogo aiming to raise at 3,000 Euros, but since the developer has selected flexible funding he’ll get the fund whatever amount is collected. You’ll need to pledge at least 6 Euros (+ 3 Euros shipping) to get vESPrino board with a small enclosure. You can also order various combination of vESPrino and add-on boards selecting various “credits” rewards using the perk calculator. Delivery is scheduled for September 2016.

Tweet Last month, I wrote about WiThumb a USB WiFi adapter based on ESP8266 processor which can conveniently be plugged into any USB port for power and programming. However, the…

I published pictures of Amlogic S912 TV box boards just over a month ago, and it appears companies have started to take orders from resellers for Amlogic S912 TV boxes with products such Videostrong KM8 Pro, or the one I’m going to cover in this post: QINTAIX Q912.

QINTAIX Q912 specifications:

• SoC – Amlogic S912 octa-core ARM Cortex A53 processor @ up to 2.0GHz with ARM Mali-820MP3 @ up to 750MHz
• System Memory – 2GB  DDR3
• Storage – 8GB or 16GB eMMC flash + micro SD slot
• Video Output – HDMI 2.0 and AV ports
• Audio Output – HDMI, AV, and optical S/PDIF
• Video codecs – VP9 profile 2 up to 4K @ 60 fps, H.265 [email protected] up to 4K 60fps, H.264 AVC up to 4K @ 30 fps, H.264 MVC up to 1080p60, MPEG-4, WMV/VC-1 SP/MP/AP,  AVS-P16(AVS+)/AVS-P2 JiZhun Profile, MPEG-2 MP/HL, MPEG-1 MP/HL, and  RealVIDEO 8/9/10 all up to 1080p60
• Audio codecs – MP3, AAC, RM, FLAC, Ogg, support for 7.1/5.1 down-mixing; dual stereo output
• Connectivity – Gigabit Ethernet, dual band WiFi 802.11 b/g/n + Bluetooth 4.0
• USB – 3x USB 2.0 ports
• Misc – IR receiver, power button, front-panel LCD display, LEDs
• Power Supply – 5V/2.5A
• Power consumption – 5 watts typical; less than 0.02W in standby mode (TBC)
• Dimensions & weight –  N/A (aluminum enclosure)

The TV box runs Android 6.0, and by default ships with one IR remote control, one HDMI cable, a power adapter, and a quick install guide.

If you’ve checked QINTEX Tech Alibaba page linked in the introduction, you may have noticed their enclosures are very similar to EWEAT TV boxes, so it’s quite possible both companies use the same manufacturer, or one of them is the actual manufacturer for the device. I should also be getting an early S912 TV box sample from Shenzhen Shiningworth this week or next, and GeartBest is taking pre-orders for Beelink GT1 for $80.22, so that likely means Amlogic octa-core TV boxes will start shipping to end-users by late August or September.

Tweet I published pictures of Amlogic S912 TV box boards just over a month ago, and it appears companies have started to take orders from resellers for Amlogic S912 TV…

We were made aware of a potential ARM based ESP8266 competitor last week with Realtek RTL8710 WiFi modules selling for about $3.5 shipped per unit, and under $2 per unit for larger orders (100+ pieces). Hardware is good, but for a platform to be successful, or even just useful, you also need software support. So I started doing some research into IoT-Tech BBS and asked ICStation for an “SDK” for the module they sold.

RTL8710 single band 802.11n (1×1) and NFC Tag Solution block diagram

I ended up on this forum post providing an “Realtek RTL8710 SDK” via Baidu (password: brwp), which turned out to be about the same as the Google Drive link provided by ICStation, and only contain minimal documents, as well as cracked Windows IAR Embedded Workshop and JLink tools. There are also some more technical details in Chinese only in another forum post, and well as B&T RTL8710 module datasheet (PDF).

However, if you don’t read Chinese that’s pretty challenging, and you may not want to use cracked software for development. I’ve soon come to the conclusion that RTL8710 was part of Realtek “Ameba” family also including RTL8711AF/AM and RTL8185AF, with the latter used in Ameba Arduino IoT board ($25), and supported by Ameba IoT community, where you’ll find both a “Standard SDK” and an “Arduino SDK” with several documents to get started.

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The short comparison table above shows that RTL8195AM and RTL8711AM support 2MB SDRAM + 512KB SRAM, while RTL8711AF only supports 512KB SRAM, and RTL8710AF appears to be similar to RTL8711AF but lacks USB OTG. The not-so-good news here is that the Arduino SDK currently relies on the 2MB SDRAM lacking in the cheaper versions of the chips, and that’s the reason given by Realtek for the lack of implementation on RTL8710/RTL8711. The good news is that Realtek confirmed that the “Standard SDK” based on FreeRTOS and LWIP supports RTL8185, RTL8711 and RTL8710 processors.

Ameba SDK Software Architecture

You can freely download the standard SDK after registration on Ameba IoT community website, and you’ll find source code (component folder), documentation, sample code (project folder) and tools for Windows, as well as Android and iOS configuration apps (source + apk binary).

You may have noticed that the SDK name ends with “without NDA” which unfortunately means some documents – such as RTL8710 datasheet – are not publicly available at this time. However, Realtek has noticed the interest raised by their low cost WiSoCs, and hopefully the company will decide to become more open, at least for RTL8710/8711 to allow the community to fully leverage WiFi IoT modules based on Realtek low cost wireless processors.

Ameba IoT community appears to focus on their Realtek RTL8185AM based Ameba Arduino board right now, but you can always try to get more details or help in their forums. Alternatively, “dpape” has very recently created RTL8710 forums, and #rtl8710 IRC channel where interested developers and users can share ideas and more information about Realtek RTL8710/RTL8711 solutions.

Tweet We were made aware of a potential ARM based ESP8266 competitor last week with Realtek RTL8710 WiFi modules selling for about $3.5 shipped per unit, and under $2 per…

While you probably know what you want in an Android TV box, it’s quite difficult to find out what the market wants exactly, so I’ve been asked to run a short survey about Android TV boxes, the importance of Android apps like Kodi, Plex, or Netflix, brands, and support.

It will run for about 7 days, the results will be public, so I’ll post them once they become available. The survey is short – 5 questions -,  and anonymous, except if you want to participate in the lucky draw to win one Android TV box, as you have to leave an email address.

Tweet While you probably know what you want in an Android TV box, it’s quite difficult to find out what the market wants exactly, so I’ve been asked to run…

Embedded Linux Conference & IoT summit 2016 first took place in the US in April, but the events are now also scheduled in Europe on October 11 – 13 in Berlin, Germany, and the schedule has now been published. Even if you are no going to attend, it’s always interesting to find out more about the topic covered in that type of events, so I had a look, and created my own virtual schedule with some of the sessions.

Tuesday, October 11

• 10:40 – 11:30 – JerryScript: An Ultra-lightweight JavaScript Engine for the Internet of Things – Tilmann Scheller, Samsung Electronics

JerryScript is a lightweight JavaScript engine designed to bring the success of JavaScript to small IoT devices like lamps, thermometers, switches and sensors. This class of devices tends to use resource-constrained microcontrollers which are too small to fit a large JavaScript engine like V8 or JavaScriptCore.

JerryScript is heavily optimized for low memory consumption and runs on platforms with less than 64KB of RAM and less than 200KB of flash memory. Despite the low footprint, JerryScript is a full-featured JavaScript engine implementing the entire ECMAScript 5.1 standard. It is actively used in production and runs already on hundreds of thousands of smartwatches!

JerryScript is an open source project and has been released under the Apache License 2.0. The talk will include a demo showing JavaScript code executing on top of JerryScript on a resource-constrained microcontroller.

• 11:40 – 12:30 – Read-only rootfs: Theory and Practice – Chris Simmonds, 2net

Configuring the rootfs to be read-only makes embedded systems more robust and reduces the wear on flash storage. In addition, by removing all state from the rootfs it becomes easier to implement system image updates and factory reset.

In this presentation, Chris shows how to identify components that need to store some state, and to split it into volatile state that is needed only until the device shuts down and non-volatile state that is required permanently. He gives examples and shows various techniques of mapping writes onto volatile or non-volatile storage. To show how this works in practice, he uses a standard Yocto Project build and shows what changes you have to make to achieve a real-world embedded system with read-only rootfs. In the last section, Chris considers the implications for software image update. Expect a live demonstration.

• 14:00 – 14:50 – Comparison of Linux Software Update Technologies – Matt Porter, Konsulko

The update of software in an embedded Linux system has always been an important part of any product. In the past, however, planning and design for software update was often an afterthought in system design. Further, software update mechanisms for embedded Linux products were typically implemented as ad hoc one-off projects within each product company. As the requirements for products have matured to include security updates at a frequent intervals, software update strategy has become a focal point of product development. This session will explore a number of different Linux software update technologies that are FOSS projects, comparing each for their strengths and weaknesses. In order to better understand the applicability of these technologies, we will also deep dive into both common and uncommon use cases that drive requirements for these software update mechanisms.

• 15:00 – 15:50 – Building a Micro HTTP Server for Embedded System – Jian-Hong Pan

Apache HTTP Server, NGINX .. are famous web servers in the world. More and more web server frameworks come and follow up, like Node.js, Bottle of Python .., etc. All of them make us have the abilities to get or connect to the resources behind the web server. However, considering the limitations and portability, they may not be ported directly to the embedded system which has restricted resources. Therefore, we need to re-implement an HTTP server to fulfill that requirement.

Jian-Hong will introduce how he used the convenience of Python to implement a Micro HTTP Server prototype according to RFC 2616/HTTP 1.1. Then, re-write the codes in C to build the Micro HTTP Server and do the automated testing with Python Unit Testing Framework. Finally, he’ll explain how he combined the Micro HTTP Server with an RTOS, and lit the LEDs on an STM32F4-Discovery board.

• 16:10 – 17:00 – Stuck in 2009 – How I Survived – Will Sheppard, Embedded Bits Limited

When developing Linux based products it’s desirable to use the latest version of the Linux kernel – however this is not always possible. In this presentation Will Sheppard will enlighten you with his experiences in developing a product based on a 2.6.28 kernel. Throughout the presentation he will share with you the reasons why you can be stuck with an old kernel, the issues this causes and the surprising and unexpected benefits that also arise. The presentation will also give you an indication as to how far the kernel has developed since 2009 and perhaps some hope if you too are also stuck working in the past.

• 17:10 – 18:00 – Power Management Challenges in IoT and How Zephyr RTOS Meets Them – Ramesh Thomas, Intel

An OS that runs on tiny IoT devices is already meeting several challenges. These challenges are due to the limited resources in these devices and the diverse nature of the applications and the ecosystem. These same reasons make adding an effective power management infrastructure extremely complex. These devices that run on tiny batteries for extensive periods, mostly unattended, have a very critical need to conserve power.

Zephyr is a RTOS from Intel, designed for IoT and wearable devices. It is open source and supports x86, ARM and ARC SoC platforms. It has a small footprint and can run with very less memory. Power management is built in the core of its scheduling and idling design. It exports infrastructure for PM services to implement custom power policies.

This presentation will give an insight into the Zephyr power management design and the philosophies behind it.

• 18:10 – 19:00 – BoF: Linux Device Performance Framework – Michael Turquette, BayLibre

Complex system-on-chip processors provide performance levels for their devices and peripherals. The same chips also provide interconnects with performance knobs connecting these devices. For years, Linux has not provided a way to express the relationship between a device and its performance states, nor a uniform method for drivers to change these states. There are many solutions to this in downstream vendor trees. Let’s fix that.

The purpose of this BoF is to start a discussion around the topic with a wide audience, solicit feedback on the currently proposed approach and move forward with consensus. This BoF will discuss the types of performance states that need to be modeled, existing Linux driver frameworks that can be re-used, new code that needs to be written and how Device Tree plays a role. Will we write a new DVFS or Interconnect Framework? Attend and find out!

Wednesday, October 12

• 09:00 – 09:50 – Supporting the Camera Interface on the C.H.I.P – Maxime Ripard, Free Electrons

Every modern multimedia-oriented ARM SoC usually has some kind of camera interface to be able to capture a video (or photo) stream from an external camera. The framework of choice to support these controllers in Linux is the Video4Linux subsystem, also called v4l2.

This talk will walk through the v4l2 stack, the architecture of a v4l2 driver and the interaction between the SoC driver and its camera’s. The presentation is based on the work Free Electrons has done to develop such a driver for the Allwinner SoCs, as part of enabling the C.H.I.P platform with the upstream Linux kernel.

• 10:00 – 10:50 – How to Develop the ARM 64bit Board, Samsung TM2 with Exynos5433 – Chanwoo Choi, Samsung Electronics

In the last period of twenty years ARM has been undisputed leader for processor’s architecture in the embedded and mobile industry. With its 64 bit platform, ARM widens up its field of applicability. The ARMv8 introduces a new register set, it is compatible with its 32 bit predecessor ARMv7 and suits best those system that try to be amongst the high end performance devices. Tizen OS is an open multi profile platform that can run on TV, mobile, cars and wearables. Samsung TM2 board based on Exynos5433, which patches has been recently posted to mainline, is an ARM 64-bit board supported by Tizen 64-bit. However, during the bring-up, the kernel developers have faced many challenges that will be presented in this session. The presentation will go through a number of issues and the way they have been solved in order to make Tizen run on a 64 bit platform.

• 10:45 – 11:35 – Devicetree Hardware Autoconfiguration – Hans de Goede, Red Hat

One can buy 7″ android tablets for around $35 now, assuming one gets the standard Q8 Allwinner based model, these are actually supported by the mainline linux kernel now. These tablets use a standard case + SoC + display, which get paired with a different touchscreen-controller, accelerometer and wifi chip for every other batch.

This talk will outline my experience in making a single devicetree file covering all variants using an in kernel hardware auto-detection module which creates and applies devicetree changesets depending on the detected hardware. This talk will give the audience an idea what is and is not possible wrt dynamic devicetree usage as well as give does and don’ts for people who want to use dynamic devicetree themselves.

• 11:45 – 12:35 – Wyliodrin STUDIO: An Open Source Tool for IoT Development – Alexandru Radovici, Wyliodrin

Have you been using your development board (like the Raspberry pi for example) as a glorified computer? Are you tired of needing to hookup your boards to a display and keyboard any time you want to program them?

Wyliodrin STUDIO is a software development tool especially created for the design of IoT projects. It comes as an open source Chrome extension so that programmers can use it independently of their specific OS platform and with little setup overhead.

Wyliodrin STUDIO abstract away many of the issues regarding setting up your development boards and allows programmers to directly focus on their projects. It offers a friendly programming environment with many of the features of advanced IDEs, like Eclipse. For beginners, Wyliodrin STUDIO offers a large range of tutorials to help people take their first steps in IoT development. MagPi gave Wylidorin STUDIO a 5/5 rating.

• 14:00 – 14:50 – ASoC: Supporting Audio on an Embedded Board – Alexandre Belloni, Free Electrons

• 15:00 – 15:50 – Cameras in Embedded Systems: Device Tree and ACPI View – Sakari Ailus, Intel

Cameras in embedded systems are often collections of different components rather than monolithic devices such as USB webcams. They consist of sensors, lenses, LED or xenon flashes and ISPs, each of which are individual devices with their specific drivers.

Once the prevalent solution for supporting hardware variation between different ARM based systems was platform data. Since around 2011 new platform data files have had hard time getting to mainline, the preferred solution being the Device tree. However, Device tree support in the V4L2 framework was not around until over a years after that, additionally help from the V4L2 async framework is also required in order to achieve the same functionality as with platform data.

This talk shows how the frameworks are used in drivers and Device tree source, reviews the status of ACPI and discuss potential future developments.

• 16:30 – 17:20 – Swapping and Embedded: Compression is the Key – Vitaly Wool

Ever since Linux started running on embedded devices, having a swap for such had been considered a misconfiguration rather than a method for overcoming RAM shortage or performance booster. This attitude started to change with the spread of Android devices which usually don’t have a problem utilizing virtually any amount of memory. An with the introduction of ZRAM the usage of a compressed swap in RAM became more useful and more popular. This talk will give a comprehensive description of ZRAM and its counterpart, zswap, a summary of pros and cons of both. This talk will also cover a brand new z3fold compressed memory allocator which can be used for both zswap and ZRAM, of course presenting measurement results for these, obtained on various devices, ranging from set top boxes to laptops, not to forget Android phones.

Thursday, October 14

• 09:00 – 09:50 – Time is Ready for the Civil Infrastructure Platform – Yoshitake Kobayashi, Corporate Software Engineering Center & Urs Gleim, Seimens

The Civil Infrastructure Platform (CIP) – launched in April – CIP defined and started to realize a super long-term supported open source “base layer” for industrial grade software. This base layer aims to be used for current and future industrial systems which supports machine-to-machine connectivity for digital future. This kind of systems, being the field for decades, should have long-term support for security and robustness reasons. In this talk, we will show the first steps on CIP development. This includes initial set of components for the base layer and its maintainers. Are you ready? It’s time to start your development with and for the CIP.

• 10:00 – 10:50 – Introduction to Memory Management in Linux – Alan Ott, Signal 11 Software

All modern non-microcontroller CPUs contain a memory management unit and utilize the concept of virtual memory. This presentation will describe the different types of virtual memory spaces and mappings used in the Linux kernel, the cases in which they are useful, how they are implemented in the kernel, and how they differ from user space memory. Concepts such as the hardware memory-management unit (MMU) and translation lookaside buffer (TLB) will be discussed, as well as software concepts like kernel page tables. User space concepts such as growable stacks, memory paging, memory mapping, page faults, exceptions, and other memory-related conditions will be covered as well.

• 11:15 – 12:15 – MinnowBoard Delta: Fishing for Easy IoT Hardware – David Anders, Intel

With the introduction of the Zephyr Project, a small scalable real-time operating system for use on resource-constrained systems, the need for an easy to use platforms to enable Internet of Things development has grown. With the idea of enabling both hardware and software developers to quickly prototype and develop proof-of-concept, as well as transitioning directly to product, the MinnowBoard Delta was designed as an open source hardware platform to highlight the Zephyr Project. This presentation will cover design considerations as well as implementation methods for creating open source hardware specifically for open source software.

• 12:15 – 13:05 – Cloud Platforms for the Internet of Things: How Do They Stack Up? – Koustabh Dolui, Politecnico di Milano

With the advent of the Internet of Things (IoT), there has been a recent surge in the number of cloud platforms offering their services for data collection and processing from IoT devices. These platforms, open-source and closed, are diverse in terms of ease of use, architecture, data storage, privacy, security and communication protocols. However, how these cloud platforms measure up against each other, given the set of tradeoffs that they present, remains quite unexplored in existing literature. In this presentation, Koustabh will present a detailed study on the architecture that these platforms are based on and how the open source platforms compare against closed platforms. Koustabh will compare the platforms based on a real data-set generated from a sensor network deployed at the heritage site of Circo Massimo, Rome, as a part of an ongoing project at Politecnico di Milano, Italy.

• 14:30 – 15:20 – GPIO for Engineers and Makers – Linus Walleij

We will go over the changes to the GPIO subsystem in the recent years, including GPIO descriptor refactoring, new support for things like open drain, some words on device tree and ACPI hardware descriptions, and we will discuss the new userspace character device ABI for GPIO chips and how use cases such as those presented by the maker community or industrial control clients can benefit from it. We will also talk a bit about the future direction of the subsystem.

• 15:30 – 16:20 – FDO: Magic ‘Make My Program Faster’ Compilation Option? – Pawel Moll, ARM

Feedback Driven Optimisation (FDO), also known as Profile Guided Optimisation (PGO) is a well known code optimisation technique, employed by compilers since mid XX century, yet not widely used in the wild these days. It relies on providing runtime-captured information about code execution (eg. “branch taken or not?”) during next code compilation, improving quality of decisions made by compiler heuristics.

To be fair, there were good reasons for its demise which I hope to discuss, mainly time and complexity overhead and deployment difficulties, but there is some hope on the horizon, coming with new approach, called AutoFDO and originating at Google, based on statistical profiling (namely Linux perf + extra tools) and source code level attribution. I’ll discuss existing support for it available in mainline GCC and LLVM and give examples of real-life, successful deployments.

If you’d like to attend the event, you can do so by registering online, and paying the entry fee:

• Early Registration Fee: US$550 (through August 1, 2016)
• Standard Registration Fee: US$650 (August 2, 2016 – September 3, 2016)
• Late Registration Fee: US$850 (September 4, 2016 – Event)
• Student Registration Fee: US$175 (valid student ID required)
• Hobbyist Registration Fee: US$175

Tweet Embedded Linux Conference & IoT summit 2016 first took place in the US in April, but the events are now also scheduled in Europe on October 11 – 13…

In the old days, micro-controller programming was all done in assembly or C, but in recent years higher level languages, included interpreted ones such as Python and JavaScript, have made their ways into MCUs with projects such as MicroPython or Espruino (JS) often running on STMicro STM32 ARM Cortex M micro-controllers, but also other platforms such as ESP8266.

As I browsed through the Embedded Linux Conference Europe 2016 schedule, I discovered that Samsung worked on it own implementation of a JavaScript engine for the Internet of Things: JerryScript. It is a full implementation of ECMAScript 5.1 standard written in C that can run on micro-controllers with less than 64KB RAM, and less than 200KB storage (160KB footprint with ARM Thumb-2 compilation).

JerryScript is comprised of two main components: Parser and Virtual Machine (VM), with the parser performing translation of input ECMAScript application into byte-code than is then executed by the Virtual Machine that performs interpretation.

JerryScript High Level Design

Although JerryScript is designed for MCUs, and is said to be running on hundreds of thousands of smartwatches, you can easily build it and try in any machine running Linux:

You can also compile the code for full, compact or minimal implementation, use the C Api to integrate JavaScript support into your program, etc… Many more details can be found on JerryScript website and Github repository. JerryScript is also used in IoT.js framework for the Internet of Things that currently runs on Linux and NuttX RTOS platforms, as well as STM32F4-Discovery + “BB” (Beaglebone Black?) and Raspberry Pi 2, and will soon be ported to Samsung Artik 1 (MIPS), STM32F429-Discovery, STM32F411-Nucleo, and Intel Edison boards.

Tweet In the old days, micro-controller programming was all done in assembly or C, but in recent years higher level languages, included interpreted ones such as Python and JavaScript, have…

We often drive on a bridge fitted with some solar powered equipment, and recently they added a solar powered camera pointing towards the river, so I became curious and decided it would be fun to have a look, and find out what it was all about. There are now 3 solar powered and connected systems.

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The first system has a larger solar panel connected to a Bosch camera, and a white box…

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The sticker on the box gives away the purpose of the system: “National Disaster Warning Center”

If we look the other side of the system we’ll see an antenna (for 3G/LTE?) as well as a light pointing down to a scale to measure the water level… Probably not the most cost effective way of checking out the level, but it works, and they should have a live feed in case something goes very wrong, and it might be able to measure other characteristics like water velocity.

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The system in the middle of the bridge has a different antenna, like a TV antenna, and a cylinder that could be to measure the level of rainfall, and possibly contain temperature and humidity sensors too, as it looks a little similar to another older system.

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The control box also has a few stickers, explaining the device is used to check water and rain fall level automatically, that such systems are installed in 31 locations and 122 stations, and managed by the “Telemetry station department”. It has apparently been installed or manufactured by a company called Multiproof Co., Ltd specializing in “systems for the Environment instruments and GPS Fleet Management System”.

I’m less clear about the purpose of the last system with a solar powered meter, and a different type of antenna too. I guess it’s also made to measure rainfall, but I don’t quite understand how that would work.
I did check the solar panel details though. That’s a 140W, IP65 panel made by Ekarat Engineering Co. Ltd with an impressive 12 years material and workmanship warranty. All three systems are electrically inter-connected with cables going to the end of the bridge, possibly to some underground battery?

Since it’s a governmental project, I wondered if data could be available publicly online, but I could not find anything with live or recent data. The project appears to have a started a few years ago, with some more details available on “Mobile Telemeter Development” page.

Tweet We often drive on a bridge fitted with some solar powered equipment, and recently they added a solar powered camera pointing towards the river, so I became curious and…

Most buyers who buy an Android TV box just want to use it to watch videos, browse the web, play games, and so on, so landscape mode seems to be the best choice, and orientation option in the firmware is often disabled. However, TV boxes can also potentially be used as digital signage players, which may require landscape or portrait modes if the screen is positioned vertically. Since I’ve just been asked that question, I’ve checked for a solution, and luckily there’s an app called Set Orientation that does the job.

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When you first start the app, it will show the option “Disabled”, but you can click on the arrow to reveal more options, and select Portrait to rotate the screen.

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In case the screen is upside down, simply select Portrait (reverse) option, click OK, and you’re done! Easy.

Tweet Most buyers who buy an Android TV box just want to use it to watch videos, browse the web, play games, and so on, so landscape mode seems to…

Windows IoT is a version of Windows 10 that’s optimized for smaller devices with or without a display, and was fist released for Raspberry Pi 2 and MinnowBoard MAX. Since then a few more boards are now officially supported, including DragonBoard 410c, and Raspberry Pi 3. But there’s been some recent developments as two Allwinner A64 64-bit ARM boards are now supported according to two wiki entries (here and there) explaining how to run a simple Csharp sample on Windows 10 IoT Core on either Banana Pi M64 or Pine A64 boards.

The guide shows how to configure Azure IoT Hub, register the IoT device, and build and deploy Azure IoT SDK on the board.

But basically if all you want to is to run Windows IoT core on either board, you’ll need to download either:

Then install and run IoT Dashboard in a Windows computer, select the Setup new device tab, then Customize, and load the FFU firmware file to flash it to an 8GB micro SD card. Once it’s done, insert the micro SD card into the board, and it should run Windows 10 IoT Core at next boot.

Windows 10 IoT Core has also been ported to few other Intel based embedded computers, as well as Toradex Colibri T30 Tegra 3 system-on-module.

[Update: Allwinner has uploaded a video showing Pine A64 with Windows 10 IoT Core

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Via Bird on SMEoT Facebook Group

Tweet Windows IoT is a version of Windows 10 that’s optimized for smaller devices with or without a display, and was fist released for Raspberry Pi 2 and MinnowBoard MAX….

Last week I publish the first complete review of an Amlogic S905X device with MINI M8S II TV box review, and while the device work in a smooth and stable manner, some features did not work as expect…

If you’ve been wanting minimal Ubuntu distributions for your server, IoT, or other headless projects, there are some good news from Hardkernel with the release of a minimal Ubuntu 16.04 image…

Low power in constrained spaces is a tricky business, even for ARM based SoCs with the Qualcomm 810 overheating saga a few months ago. Now it’s time for Intel to feel the heat, as the company…

CNXSoft: Bear in mind that there are multiple versions of Nexbox A95X. Yesterday, I published the review of Nexbox A95X with Android 6.0, with the model based on Amlogic S905X processor. In this…

Long time readers of this blog may remember that I organized a crowdfunding event aiming at raising funds to buy equipment to test 4K TV boxes and mini PCs in early 2015, and one of the items I ended…

Coowell V4 looks like another typical Rockchip RK3368 Android TV box with 2GB RAM and 16GB flash, except for one little detail: it features a retractable camera to use with Skype, Google Hangouts and…

Neither ESP8266 nor ESP32 support USB, so what am I babbling about? No, ESP8622 did not suddenly grow a USB PHY, but cnlohr decided to implement virtual USB support using two GPIOs (12 & 13) for the D+/D- USB signals, meaning you can connect any ESP8266 module through USB, or even update the firmware through USB without external hardware, apart from a single extra resistor.

The source code is available on espusb repo on github. Please note that the code is currently work in progress, and USB implementation currently only works at 1.5 Mbit/s, with potentially future support for 12 Mbit/s.

That’s the demo, and an explanation about the design process.
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Tweet Neither ESP8266 nor ESP32 support USB, so what am I babbling about? No, ESP8622 did not suddenly grow a USB PHY, but cnlohr decided to implement virtual USB support…

Karl here with Tanix TX5 Pro S905X review. This is my first s905x box. I am splitting this into 2 parts because software is not quite up to snuff yet. I ran into some issues with language reverting back to default which is Chinese. This happens so frequently it is unbearable. I can almost read Chinese now. Youtube only shows green square with audio, and finally most apps show incompatible in the Play Store. I have notified Gearbest who is going to contact the manufacturer. On the bright side I am very pleased with UI compared to the s905 boxes I have reviewed.

Specs pulled from GearBest Website

Unboxing Photo

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Teardown Photos

The box is a matte plastic and picks up fingerprints easily.

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AP6255 Wifi chip with 10/100 network. Storage is provided by Foresee ncefbs98-16g. I couldn’t find any specs on it.

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06:61:60 MAC address does not look up to any specific company.

Random Observations/Thoughts

I am pleased to see a new launcher…seems pretty nice and is easy to use.

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I haven’t stressed the box but the thermal design seems fine. Metal slab with thermal pad making contact with CPU.  Button to put the device in flash mode, which typically is in the AV hole, is on the bottom of the device. Registers as a worldcup device with the drivers that I already have installed. I did some initial testing with S/PDIF, Kodi, and passthrough settings seen below and I got digital audio on my 5.1 receiver on all of them but I did have some audio clipping.

I was also able to play most of my 4K test clips in either Kodi, MX Player, or built in players with the exception of the 60fps fluidly. I also found that the device had been booted once and factory test tool was in memory. I tried to find a way to launch it but was unsuccessful. I installed chrome and navigated to Youtube and requested the desktop site and was able to request 4k video but again green screen.

This is promising. I believe that once they get some of the bugs worked out it will be a good box. But until then I would wait. I can’t find a website for Tanix to give feedback. “Along” marking on the PCB could point to Shenzhen Along Electronics as the manufacturer.

I would like to thank Gearbest for sending the box for review. Hopefully they can light a fire under Tanix and get the software fixed.

In case, you’d like to purchase the device despite the current firmware flaws, you can do so on GearBest for $46.35 shipped. Other shopping options include eBay, GeekBuying, and Banggood.

Tweet Karl here with Tanix TX5 Pro S905X review. This is my first s905x box. I am splitting this into 2 parts because software is not quite up to snuff…