Most people are used to program Arduino compatible boards with the Arduino IDE that they’ve installed in their Windows/Linux/Mac OS computer, and manage everything locally. But Arduino introduced Arduino Create last year, which includes Arduino Web Editor allowing you to perform the same tasks in your web browser, and save your files in the cloud.

The company has now added Linux support to Arduino Create so that users can now program their Linux devices as if they were regular Arduino boards, and easily deploy IoT applications with integrated cloud services. The initial release has been sponsored by Intel, and currently supports X86/X86_64 boards, but other hardware architectures will be supported in the coming month.

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In the meantime, AAEON UP² board is the best platform to get started, as a complete getting started guide is available for the platform. But other mini PCs such as Intel NUC, Dell Wyse, Gigabyte GB-BXT are also supported, and you’ll find more generic instructions to get started.

Multiple Arduino programs can run simultaneously on a Linux devices and can communicate with each other thanks to MQTT based Arduino Connector. There are a currently three projects based on UP Squared board on the Project Hub, and if you need help, a dedicated forum has been launched.

Intel provided a few more details about the initiative in their announcement, highlighting the following points:

• Reduce set up time with native integration of UP Squared Grove Development Kit with Arduino Create
• Pre-installed custom Ubuntu Server 16.04 OS on the UP Squared Grove Development Kit
• Simple getting started experience in Arduino Create for Intel based IoT platforms running Ubuntu on Intel Atom, Intel Core, or Intel Xeon processors.
• Integrated libraries and SDKs such as UPM sensor libraries supporting over 400+ sensors, OpenCV, Intel Math Kernel Library, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, etc…
• Supports the ability to run multiple sketches / programs at the same time
• Export your sketch to a CMake project providing an easy development bridge to Intel System Studio 2018
• Integrates mraa, the hardware abstraction layer by Intel, into the Arduino core libraries enabling support for all Intel platforms

Tweet Most people are used to program Arduino compatible boards with the Arduino IDE that they’ve installed in their Windows/Linux/Mac OS computer, and manage everything locally. But Arduino introduced Arduino…

You may have heard a few things about Intel Management Engine in recent months, especially as security issues have been found, the firmware is not easily upgradeable, and the EFF deemed it a security hazard asking Intel for ways to disable it.

In recent days, I’ve seen several media reports about the Management Engine being based on an Intel Quark x86-based 32-bit CPU running MINIX open-source operating system. Keep in mind, there’s nothing nefarious about MINIX, it’s just that Intel keeps its own developments on top closed. One of sources for the information is a blog post explaining how to disable Intel ME 11, but ZDNET also points to one of the talks at the Embedded Linux Conference Europe 2017 entitled “Replace Your Exploit-Ridden Firmware with Linux” by Ronald Minnich, Google which explains the problem, and proposes a solution to (almost) disable Intel’s ME, and replace UEFI by a small open source Linux kernel and ramdisk.

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To better understand about the issue, we’ll first need to talk about rings… yes… rings. Protection rings with numbers from -3 to +3 indicate the level of privileges with Ring 3 being the lowest priviledge, and Ring -3 giving full access to all hardware. It’s unrelated to OS privileges and normal users and root are are part of the same Ring 3 privileges.

Ring 0 to 3 are well documented, Ring -1 is for hypervisors like Zen so “known to mankind”, but while we know something about Ring -2 CPU, the code for the UEFI kernel and SMM half kernel are not always known, and in the case of Ring -3 kernels which include the Management Engine, Integrated Sensor Hub (ISH), and Innovation Engine (IE) we know very little about the hardware and software, despite them having the highest privilege.

We do know the Management Engine Ring -3 OS provides the following features.

If you have no idea what some of the feature do, that’s OK, as even Richard is unclear. The important part is that the firmware has a full network stack, and web servers are running for remote management, which has recently become a serious problem as Intel found a vulnerability in “Intel Active Management Technology (AMT), Intel Standard Manageability (ISM), and Intel Small Business Technology” that can allow “an unprivileged attacker to gain control of the manageability features”.  It requires a firmware update, but considering this affect Intel’s first to seven generation, the bug is at least 9 years old, and most systems won’t be updated. Read this PDF for a detailed (71 pages) security evaluation of Intel’s ME

Beside the Management Engine, the presentation also goes through Ring -2 OS (UEFI), an extremely complex kernel (millions of lines of code) running on the main CPU, and whose security model is… obscurity. UEFI exploits also exist, and can be made permanent since UEFI can rewrite itself. The firmware also always runs, and exploits are undetectable by kernels and programs.

The solution proposed to address the privacy and security issues related to ME and UEFI is called NERF (Non-Extensible Reduce Firmware).

It’s only a partial solution because the system cannot fully boot without ME, but they’ve managed to reduce the size from 5MB to 300KB, removing the web server and IP stack in the process on Minnowboard MAX board thanks to me_cleaner. The SMM Ring -2 semi kernel can be disabled however.

UEFI stands for Unified Extensible Firmware Interface, so to simplify the code and make it less vulnerable to exploits they’ve made their implementation NON-extensible, and as a result it’s much simpler, as illustrated in the diagram below.

UEFI vs NERF

UEFI DXE stage is replaced with a single Linux kernel (tied to the BIOS vendor), and a 5.9MB firmware-based root file system written in Go (u-root.tk). If you are interesting in the details watching the 38 minutes ELCE 2017 presentation.
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You may also be interested in the slides.

Tweet You may have heard a few things about Intel Management Engine in recent months, especially as security issues have been found, the firmware is not easily upgradeable, and the…

$20 Android TV box promotions are fun. After last month, Rockchip RK3229 based A95X R1 TV box promotion, GearBest has another one with Allwinner H2(+) based Sunvell R69 TV box powered by Allwinner H2 processor sold for $19.99 with coupon R69GB.

If you have no interested in Android, the good news is that since it’s based on Allwinner H2+, you can likely run Armbian images, or the recently released RetrOrangePi 4.0 with minor modifications, to have a $20 Linux server or game console.

Sunvell R69 TV box specifications:

• SoC – Allwinner H2 quad core Cortex A7 processorwith Mali-400MP2 GPU
• System Memory – 1GB DDR3
• Storage – 8GB flash + micro SD slot up to 32GB
• Video & Audio Output – HDMI 1.4 output up to 1080p60, AV port (composite video + stereo audio)
• Video Codec – H.265 / H.264 up to 1080p
• Connectivity – 10/100M Ethernet, 802.11 b/g/n WiFi (via XR819 chipset)
• USB – 2x USB 2.0 ports
• Power Supply – 5V/2A
• Dimensions – 9 x 9.5 x 1.8 cm
• Weight – 200 grams

The box runs Android 4.4, meaning Kodi 16.1 is the most recent version you can run. With all the 4K TV box on the market now, it’s worth nothing this one is limited to Full HD.

A few reviews can be found on the web including the one below by Mr Baz Reviews.

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Tweet $20 Android TV box promotions are fun. After last month, Rockchip RK3229 based A95X R1 TV box promotion, GearBest has another one with Allwinner H2(+) based Sunvell R69 TV…

Amazon products are usually launched in the US, and a limited number of European countries, meaning most people can’t purchase or use their devices without going through various hoops.

But the company has now launched a basic edition of their latest Fire TV stick 2016 sold in over 100 countries. Basic means it supports Amazon Alexa voice services, and you pay around $10 extra for the privilege. Apart from that it looks exactly the same.

Supported languages are still quite limited with Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, French, Italian, German, or English, and the company mentions people will have access to videos from Amazon Prime Video with “unlimited access to critically acclaimed shows like The Tick, American Gods, and The Man in the High Castle as well as The Grand Tour Season 2″

Hardware looks the same with a quad-core processor coupled with 1 GB of memory and 8 GB of storage for apps and games. Network connectivity is achieved via  802.11ac Wi-Fi, and the stick supports 1080p HEVC streaming, as well as Dolby Audio.

Fire TV Basic Edition can be purchased for $49.99 on Amazon US (and other Amazon local websites). Visit the Amazon link, and select your country to check whether the stick can be shipped there.

So I checked to see what price I would have to pay to get such device, and total price is $84.09 including a $13.12 import fees deposit. Amazon estimates no taxes would have to be collected, but I would likely be asked to pay 7% VAT. Unless Amazon somehow bribed found an agreement with local authorities, I would also have to fly to the capital city to apply for a “broadcasting license” from a government entity (NBTC) in order for the package to go through customs. No thanks.

Via Liliputing

Tweet Amazon products are usually launched in the US, and a limited number of European countries, meaning most people can’t purchase or use their devices without going through various hoops….

HiMedia Q10 Pro Android TV box was launched in March of last year, equipped with a HiSilicon Hi3798CV200 quad-core ARM Cortex A53 processor, 2GB RAM, 16GB flash, and a SATA bay for 3.5″ drives. When I wrote a post about the Best Android TV boxes, on commenter mentioned that while NVIDIA Android Shield was the best box for streaming, he felt HiMedia Q10 Pro offered the best quality for media playback.

With now 18 months since launch, you may wonder why I would do a review now. That’s because Himedia keeps updating the firmware, and they asked me to check out and test their latest feature: 4K Blu-Ray navigation on Android 7.0 OS. As usual, I’ll start by checking out the hardware, and will publish a review focusing on Blu-ray playback in a few weeks.

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The package is more like a suitcase that your usual tiny box, but that’s common for high-end TV boxes. It also shows the main features like 4K HDR support, Dolby and DTS-HD audio and so so.

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The box ships with an IR remote control with IR learning function for 4 keys, a WiFi antenna, a HDMI cable, a 12V/2A power supply, and  quick guide describing the remote control functions, and explaining how to connect the device to a TV and/or amplifier.

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The build quality feels very good, and the box is entirely made of metal.

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The front panel includes a VFD display, IR receiver window, and several touch button for power, menu navigation, etc…

The left side features all USB host ports with one USB 3.0 port, and two USB 2.0 ports, as well as a SD/MMC slot.

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The rear panel has vents for the cooling fan, a WiFI antenna connector, a USB 3.0 device port to connect the box directly to your computer, optical and coaxial S/PDIF output, 3 RCA jacks for composite video and L&R audio, a Gigabit Ethernet port, HDMI 2.0a output, a recovery pin hole, and the DC jack.

The remaining side comes with a button which you can slide to open the SATA bay.

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Installation is super easy, just insert your 3.5″ SATA drive push the “Open” handle, and close the lid.

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At this point, I normally do a teardown, but I found it not to be so obvious, and since the device is old enough, somebody else already did one.

HiMedia Q10 Pro is sold for $159.99 shipped on GeekBuying, but you’ll also find it on eBay, Amazon US (for $299?), and likely in a local reseller in your own country. Now, I’ll need to find some 4K Blu-Ray ISO files to test on the device…

Tweet HiMedia Q10 Pro Android TV box was launched in March of last year, equipped with a HiSilicon Hi3798CV200 quad-core ARM Cortex A53 processor, 2GB RAM, 16GB flash, and a…

Khadas VIM2 board is the successor of Khadas VIM board, replacing Amlogic S905X by a slightly more powerful Amlogic S912, but that’s the connectivity features that really makes it stand apart from the first version with Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11ac WiFi and Bluetooth 4.2. It also exposes a few extra I/Os via pogopins. and among the three variants, two comes with 3GB RAM, and up to 64 GB storage.

The company (Shenzhen Wesion) sent me one of the boards, together with various accessories, and I’ll start the review of the board by checking out the hardware and accessories, before testing the board further in another post.

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I received two packages: one book-like with Khadas marked on top, and another one with various other items.

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The first package includes the board, a USB to USB type C cable, and a card showing the main specifications, and supported operating systems: Ubuntu 16.04, Android 7.1. Buildroot build system is also another option to generate a minimal or custom image.

The second package comes with an IR remote control, a 12V/1.5A power supply, four stands, and VTV 2.2 tuner board.

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The board comes in a multi-layered acrylic case and exposes the same buttons and ports as its predecessor with 3 buttons (reset, function, power), USB type C port for power, HDMI output, Ethernet, and two USB 2.0 ports.

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The case has openings for the 40-pin header and VIN header behind the USB type C board. We can see Ampak AP6356S module is used meaning I’ve been sent Khadas VIM2 Basic version with 2GB DDR4 RAM and 16GB eMMC 5.1 flash.

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The bottom of the board has the remaining RAM chips, the micro SD card, and some ventilation holes. You’ll also notice some 20-pin and 7-pin pads, with the first one exposing USB, I2C, DVB bus, and I/Os, and the second for the small programmable MCU on the bottom right.

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Looking at DTV board we can see two antenna inputs with F connector and coaxial connector, Rafael Micro R848 universal tuner supporting DVB-T/T2/C, ISDB-T/C, DTMB, ATSC,J.83B, and DVB-S/S2, ABS-S, as well as Availink AVL6862TA demodulator. That’s the same chips combination as in KI Plus T2 S2 TV box supporting satellite dish and aerial antenna inputs.

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The bottom side of the board has one pogo pin rows to connect to the 20-pin row on the board, and 6 other pogo pins for power. In order to connect the VTV board to Khadas VIM2, we’ll have to disassemble the case, and align the VTV board with the pogo pings and mounting holes on Khadas VIM2.

We can now screw the four stands on the top of VIM2 board to secure both boards together.

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We now have an interesting development platform with dual tuner support.

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I’d like to thank Shenzhen Wesion for sending the kit for review. Khadas VIM2 Basic board can be purchased for $72.99 shipped on GearBest, and the VTV extension DTV board with power supply, remote control, and stands costs $39.99 extra. For the second part of the review, I’m considering using the board as DVB video server taking live TV input from my antenna / satellite dish, and broadcasting the video over my local network. That’s provided it can be done within one or two days.

Tweet Khadas VIM2 board is the successor of Khadas VIM board, replacing Amlogic S905X by a slightly more powerful Amlogic S912, but that’s the connectivity features that really makes it…

Qualcomm Centriq 2400 ARM Server-on-Chip has been four years in the making. The company announced sampling in Q4 2016 using 10nm FinFET process technology with the SoC featuring up to 48 Qualcomm Falkor ARMv8 CPU cores optimized for datacenter workloads. More recently, Qualcomm provided a few more details about the Falkor core, fully customized with a 64-bit only micro-architecture based on ARMv8 / Aarch64.

Finally, here it is as the SoC formally launched with the company announcing commercial shipments of Centriq 2400 SoCs.

Qualcom Centriq 2400 key features and specifications:

• CPU – Up to 48 physical ARMv8 compliant 64-bit only Falkor cores @ 2.2 GHz (base frequency) / 2.6 GHz (peak frequency)
• Cache – 64 KB L1 instructions cache with 24 KB single-cycle L0 cache, 512 KB L2 cache per duplex; 60 MB unified L3 cache; Cache QoS
• Memory – 6 channels of DDR4 2667 MT/s  for up to 768 GB RAM; 128 GB/s peak aggregate bandwidth; inline memory bandwidth compression
• Integrated Chipset – 32 PCIe Gen3 lanes with 6 PCIe controllers; low speed I/Os; management controller
• Security – Root of trust, EL3 (TrustZone) and EL2 (hypervisor)
• TDP – < 120W (~2.5 W per core)

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The SoC is ARM SBSA v3 compliant, meaning it can run any compliant operating systems without having to resort to “cute embedded nonsense hacks“. The processor if optimized for cloud workloads, and the company explains the SoC are already been used demonstrated for the following tasks:

• Web front end with HipHop Virtual Machine
• NoSQL databases including MongoDB, Varnish, Scylladb
• Cloud orchestration and automation including Kubernetes, Docker, metal-as-a-service
• Data analytics including Apache Spark
• Deep learning inference
• Network function virtualization
• Video and image processing acceleration
• Multi-core electronic design automation
• High throughput compute bioinformatics
• Neural class networks
• OpenStack Platform
• Scaleout Server SAN with NVMe
• Server-based network offload

Three Qualcom Centriq 2400 SKUs are available today

• Centriq 2434 – 40 cores @ 2.3 / 2.5 GHz; 50 MB L3 cache; 110W TDP
• Centriq 2452 – 46 cores @ 2.2 / 2.6 GHz; 57.5 MB L3 cache; 120W TDP
• Centriq 2460 – 48 cores @ 2.2 / 2.6 GHz; 60 MB L3 cache; 120W TDP

Qualcomm Centriq 2460 (48-cores) was compared to an Intel Xeon Platinum 8160 with 24-cores/48 threads (150 W) and found to perform a little better in both integer and floating point benchmarks.

The most important metrics for server SoCs are performance per thread, performance per watt, and performance per dollars, so Qualcomm pitted Centriq 2460, 2452 and 2434 against respectively Intel Xeon Platinum 8180 (28 cores/205W  TDP), Xeon Gold 6152 (22 cores/140W TDP), and Xeon Silver 4116 (12 cores/85W  TDP). Performance per watt was found to be significantly better for the Qualcomm chip when using SPECint_rate2006 benchmark.

Performance per dollars of the Qualcomm SoCs look excellent too, but…

Qualcomm took Xeon SoCs pricing from Intel’s ARK, and in the past prices there did not reflect the real selling price of the chip, at least for low power Apollo Lake / Cherry Trail processors.

This compares to the prices for Centriq 2434 ($880), Centriq 2452 ($1,373), and Centriq 2460 ($1,995).

Qualcomm also boasted better performance per mm2, and typical power consumption of Centriq 2460 under load of around 60W, well below the 120W TDP. Idle power consumption is around 8 watts using C1 mode, and under 4 Watts when all idle states are enabled.

If you are wary of company provided benchmarks, Cloudflare independently tested Qualcomm Centriq and Intel  Skylake/Broadwell servers using Openssl speed, compression algorithms (gzip, brotli…), Go, NGINX web server, and more.

Multicore OpenSSL Performance

Usually, Intel single core performance is better, but since ARM has more cores, multi-threaded performance is often better on ARM. Here’s their conclusion:

The engineering sample of Falkor we got certainly impressed me a lot. This is a huge step up from any previous attempt at ARM based servers. Certainly core for core, the Intel Skylake is far superior, but when you look at the system level the performance becomes very attractive.

The production version of the Centriq SoC will feature up to 48 Falkor cores, running at a frequency of up to 2.6GHz, for a potential additional 8% better performance.

Obviously the Skylake server we tested is not the flagship Platinum unit that has 28 cores, but those 28 cores come both with a big price and over 200W TDP, whereas we are interested in improving our bang for buck metric, and performance per watt.

Currently my main concern is weak Go language performance, but that is bound to improve quickly once ARM based servers start gaining some market share.

Both C and LuaJIT performance is very competitive, and in many cases outperforms the Skylake contender. In almost every benchmark Falkor shows itself as a worthy upgrade from Broadwell.

The largest win by far for Falkor is the low power consumption. Although it has a TDP of 120W, during my tests it never went above 89W (for the go benchmark). In comparison Skylake and Broadwell both went over 160W, while the TDP of the two CPUs is 170W.

Back to software support, the SoC is supported by a large ecosystem with technologies such as memcached, MongoDB, MySQL, …, cloud management solutions such as  Openstack and Kubernetes, programming languages (Java, Python, PHP, Node, Golang…), tools (GVV/ LLVM, GBD…), virtualization solution including KVM, Xen and Docker, as well as operating systems like Ubuntu, Redhat, Suse, and Centos.

Qualcomm is already working on its next generation SoC: Firetail based on Qualcomm Saphira core. But no details were provided yet.

Thanks to David for the links.

Tweet Qualcomm Centriq 2400 ARM Server-on-Chip has been four years in the making. The company announced sampling in Q4 2016 using 10nm FinFET process technology with the SoC featuring up…

Hardkernel teased us with ODROID HC1 Home Cloud server, and ODROID MC1 cluster last August with both solutions based on a cost down version of ODROID-XU4 board powered by Samsung Exynos 5422 octa-core Cortex-A15/A7 processor. ODROID-HC1 Home Cloud server was launched shortly after in September for $49.

It took a little longer than expected for the cluster to launch, but ODROID-MC1 (My Cluster One) is finally here with four ODROID-XU4S boards, and a metal case with a cooling fan. The solution is sold for 264,000 Wons in South Korea, and $220 to the rest of the world.

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ODROID-MC1 cluster specifications:

• Four ODROID-XU4S boards with
  • SoC – Samsung Exynos 5422 quad core ARM Cortex-A15 @ 2.0GHz quad core ARM Cortex-A7 @ 1.4GHz with Mali-T628 MP6 GPU supporting OpenGL ES 3.0 / 2.0 / 1.1 and OpenCL 1.1 Full profile
  • System Memory – 2GB LPDDR3 RAM PoP
  • Network Connectivity – 10/100/1000Mbps Ethernet (via Realtek RTL8153 USB 3.0 to Ethernet bridge)
  • USB – 1x USB 2.0 port
  • Misc – Power LED, OS status LED, Ethernet LEDs, UART for serial console, RTC backup battery connector
  • Power Supply – 5V/4A via 5.5/2.1mm DC jack; Samsung S2MPS11 PMIC, Onsemi NCP380 USB load switch and TI TPS25925 over-voltage, over-current protection IC
• Dimensions – ~ 112 x 93 x 72 mm

ODROID-XU4S is software compatible with ODROID-XU4 board, so you could just use the Ubuntu images (Linux 4.9 or Linux 4.14), and instructions from the XU4 Wiki, but to make things easier,  they’ve provided several tutorials specific to the cluster use case:

Note that the cluster is not sold with accessories by default, so you’ll need to make sure you also get a Gigabit switch with at least 5 ports,  five Ethernet cables, four micro SD cards (8GB or greater), and four 5V/4A power supplies (or other 80W+ power supply arrangement as shown below).

Tweet Hardkernel teased us with ODROID HC1 Home Cloud server, and ODROID MC1 cluster last August with both solutions based on a cost down version of ODROID-XU4 board powered by…

Zidoo H6 Pro is the very first Allwinner H6 based 4K TV box. The Android 7.0 device support H.265, H.264 and VP6 4K video decoding, comes with fast interfaces such as USB 3.0, and network connectivity with Gigabit Ethernet and 802.11ac WiFi.

I’ve already checkout the hardware in the first part of the review entitled “Zidoo H6 Pro (Allwinner H6) TV Box Review – Part 1: Unboxing & Teardown“, and since then, I’ve had time to play with the TV box, and report my experience with Android 7.0 in this second part of the review.

First Boot and OTA Firmware Update

I’ve connected a USB keyboard and a USB dongle with RF dongles for an air mouse and gamepad on the two USB ports, a USB 3.0 hard drive to the single USB 3.0 ports, as well as HDMI and Ethernet cables before powering up the TV box. I also added two AAA batteries to the IR/Bluetooth remote control.

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Boot to the background image takes around 20 seconds, but to reach the actual launched it normally takes around one minute and 25 seconds when I have the hard drive connected (with 4 partitions and many files). If I remove the hard drive, the full boot can complete within 23 seconds. Not that much of an issue, but it still may be something Zidoo wants to optimize.

On the very first boot, a few seconds after the launcher showed up, I also had a pop-up window informing me that Firmware v1.0.11 update was available, with a neat changelog listing the main changes including support for Netflix 1080p playback, and YouTube 2K/4K playback.

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I clicked on the Update button to start downloading the new firmware…

… an cliked Update again after downloading, to complete the firmware update with MD5 check and installation to the eMMC flash.

The system will then reboot, and we can get access the Zidoo ZIUI launcher.

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The launcher is identical to the one in Zidoo X7 except for two extra icons on the bottom for BT remote, and “Box RC” app, but more on that later.

Beside those two new remote apps, we’ll also notice HappyCast app used by Airplay/Miracast, and the lack of ZDMC (Zidoo’s Kodi fork), as we are told to use Kodi from Google Play instead.

Settings & Google Play

The settings section looks the same as Zidoo X7 settings, so I will only go through it quickly.

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We have four main section with Network, Display, Sound and Other. I could connect to WiFI and Ethernet with no issues, and Bluetooth worked with my smartphone and a pair of headphones. Display can be set up to a resolution / framerate of 3840×2160 @ 60 Hz, and PCM 2.0 output, HDMI & S/PDIF audio pass-through options are available. Looking at the Other section, About tab, and Android Settings about TV box reveals ZIDOO_H6 Pro is running Android 7.0 on top of Linux 3.10.65, and the firmware I tested for the review is v1.0.11, as we’ve seen from the OTA firmware update part of this review.

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Android security patch level is dated November 5, 2016. Not the most recent, and you won’t get monthly to bi-monthly security updates like in Android One phones such as Xiaomi Mi A1. The firmware is rooted by default.

Looking into storage options, I had 418MB free out of 10.22GB internal storage partition at the very beginning of the review, and NTFS and exFAT partitions of my USB hard drive could be mounted, but not the EXT-4 and BTRFS partitions.

I could install all apps I needed for review using Google Play, and I also installed Riptide GP2 game with Amazon Appstore since I got it for free there.

Remote Control – IR/Bluetooth, and Box RC Android App

One way Zidoo H6 Pro differs from most competitors is that it comes with a Bluetooth remote control. By default it works with the IR transmitter, and Bluetooth is disable, but you can enable Bluetooth by launching Bluetooth Remote app, or selecting BT Remote icon on the launcher.

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Hold the back and menu keys for a few seconds until the LED on the remote start flashing. The app will then show the Bluetooth remote is connected, and the battery level. Bluetooth does not enable air mouse function, and you’d still need to use the arrow keys to move the cursor in mouse mode, so the main advantage of Bluetooth over infrared is that it does not require line of sight. You can hide the box being the TV, or inside a furniture, and the remote would work. You do not need to point the remote control towards the TV box either, it works in any directions. I successfully tested the remote control up to a distance of 10 meters. Once I lost control of the OK and Back keys, but they came back later on after a reboot, and could not reproduce the issue.

I also tested MINIX NEO A2 Lite air mouse / keyboard / remote control, and again no problem. It’s my favorite way to control an Android TV boxes, since it works with all sort of user interfaces and most apps, excluding some games that require touch support.

Another way to control the TV box is to install Box RC  Android app in your smartphone. Launch Box RC app in the TV box, and you should see the QR Code below.

It redirects to RC Box apk file. +  Screenshots of smartphone app.

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After installation, you’ll be presented with the “key mode” pad. Tap on “My Device” and select ZIDOO_H6 Pro to connect to the TV box. Clicking on the icon in the top left corner will give you a few more remote modes, including “Handle model” for gaming…… as well as mouse and gesture mode – both of which look like the left screenshot below -, and an Applications with a complete list of apps installed in the TV box. Simply select the app you want to launch in the TV box.

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Finally, you’ll have an About section showing the version number, and checking for app updates, and a Screenshot option to remotely take screenshots. Everything worked well. I’m just not quite sure how to use the gesture mode.

Power Consumption & Temperature

Power control is just like on Zidoo X7 with a short press on the remote control power button bringing a menu to select between Power off, Standby, or Reboot. A long press will allow you to configure the behavior of the power button: Off, Standby, or Ask (default).

I measured power consumption in various mode, and here it works better than X7:

• Power off – 0.0 Watt
• Standby – 3.2 Watts
• Idle – 4.0 ~ 4.4 Watts
• Power off + USB HDD – 0.0 Watt
• Standby – 6.0 to 6.4 Watts
• Idle + USB HDD – 6.0 to 6.4 Watts

With regards to temperature, the box itself stays fairly as after playing a 2-hour video in Kodi, I measured 45 and 43ºC max measured on the top and bottom with an IR thermometer, and 47ºC on both sides after playing Beach Buggy Racing & Riptide GP2 for about 30 minutes. However, right after playing, CPU-Z reported respectively 86°C and 80°C CPU & GPU temperatures, which should be close to limit of the SoC. The ambient temperature was around 28°C, and 3D performance was contant while playing.

Some people reported that Kodi installed from Google Play is working well in the box, so I installed Kodi 17.5 from Google Play, enabled automatic frame rate switching, setup the connection to my SAMBA share over Ethernet, and started playing my 4K video samples:

• HD.Club-4K-Chimei-inn-60mbps.mp4 (H.264, 30 fps) – Not smooth, and some parts of the picture are very red
  
• sintel-2010-4k.mkv (H.264, 24 fps, 4096×1744) – Not perfectly smooth
• Beauty_3840x2160_120fps_420_8bit_HEVC_MP4.mp4 (H.265) – Plays fine, but woman face is more red than usual
• Bosphorus_3840x2160_120fps_420_8bit_HEVC_MP4.mp4 (H.265) – Not perfectly smooth
• Jockey_3840x2160_120fps_420_8bit_HEVC_TS.ts (H.265) – Not perfectly smooth
• MHD_2013_2160p_ShowReel_R_9000f_24fps_RMN_QP23_10b.mkv (10-bit HEVC) – Not perfectly smooth
• phfx_4KHD_VP9TestFootage.webm (VP9) – 2 to 3 fps (software decode)
• BT.2020.20140602.ts (Rec.2020 compliant video; 36 Mbps; 59.97 Hz) – OK
• big_buck_bunny_4k_H264_30fps.mp4 – Not super smooth
• big_buck_bunny_4k_H264_60fps.mp4 – Not very smooth, audio delay (OK, as not supported by Allwinner H6)
• Fifa_WorldCup2014_Uruguay-Colombia_4K-x265.mp4 (4K, H.265, 60 fps) – OK
• Samsung_UHD_Dubai_10-bit_HEVC_51.4Mbps.ts (10-bit HEVC / MPEG-4 AAC) – Plays OK, but red parts are over-saturated?
• Astra-11479_V_22000-Canal+ UHD Demo 42.6 Mbps bitrate.ts (10-bit H.265 from DVB-S2 stream) – OK
• 暗流涌动-4K.mp4 (10-bit H.264; 120 Mbps) – ~2 fps (software decode – OK, as not supported by hardware)
• Ducks Take Off [2160p a 243 Mbps].mkv (4K H.264 @ 29.97 fps; 243 Mbps; no audio) – Not smooth
• tara-no9-vp9.webm (4K VP9 YouTube video @ 60 fps, Vorbis audio) – 2 to 3 fps (software decode), lots of buffering
• The.Curvature.of.Earth.4K.60FPS-YT-UceRgEyfSsc.VP9.3840×2160.OPUS.160K.webm (4K VP9 @ 60 fps + opus audio) – 2 to 3 fps (software decode), lots of buffering

Automatic frame rate switching is not working, but that’s only a small issue compared to the disastrous results above. As shown in the screenshot above, H.265 is hardware decoded, but for some videos the CPU usage is really high, close to 100% on all four cores, so something is clearly wrong. H.265 / H.264 1080p videos fare better, so maybe that’s why other people think Kodi works well. Maybe ZDMC, Zidoo’s fork of Kodi is coming soon.

In the meantime, I switched to Media Center, and it’s night and day compared to my experience with Kodi, also played from the same SAMBA share:

• HD.Club-4K-Chimei-inn-60mbps.mp4 (H.264, 30 fps) – OK most of the time, but the end is a bit choppy
  
• sintel-2010-4k.mkv (H.264, 24 fps, 4096×1744) – OK
• Beauty_3840x2160_120fps_420_8bit_HEVC_MP4.mp4 (H.265) – OK
• Bosphorus_3840x2160_120fps_420_8bit_HEVC_MP4.mp4 (H.265) – OK
• Jockey_3840x2160_120fps_420_8bit_HEVC_TS.ts (H.265) – OK
• MHD_2013_2160p_ShowReel_R_9000f_24fps_RMN_QP23_10b.mkv (10-bit HEVC) – OK
• phfx_4KHD_VP9TestFootage.webm (VP9) – OK
• BT.2020.20140602.ts (Rec.2020 compliant video; 36 Mbps; 59.97 Hz) – OK
• big_buck_bunny_4k_H264_30fps.mp4 – OK
• big_buck_bunny_4k_H264_60fps.mp4 – Plays but not smoothly, plus audio delay (OK, as not supported by Allwinner H6)
• Fifa_WorldCup2014_Uruguay-Colombia_4K-x265.mp4 (4K, H.265, 60 fps) – OK
• Samsung_UHD_Dubai_10-bit_HEVC_51.4Mbps.ts (10-bit HEVC / MPEG-4 AAC) – OK
• Astra-11479_V_22000-Canal+ UHD Demo 42.6 Mbps bitrate.ts (10-bit H.265 from DVB-S2 stream) – OK
• 暗流涌动-4K.mp4 (10-bit H.264; 120 Mbps) – Massive artifacts  (OK, as not supported by Allwinner H6)
• Ducks Take Off [2160p a 243 Mbps].mkv (4K H.264 @ 29.97 fps; 243 Mbps; no audio) – OK
• tara-no9-vp9.webm (4K VP9 YouTube video @ 60 fps, Vorbis audio) – OK
• The.Curvature.of.Earth.4K.60FPS-YT-UceRgEyfSsc.VP9.3840×2160.OPUS.160K.webm (4K VP9 @ 60 fps + opus audio) – Not too bad, but not 100% smooth in all scenes. (Note: Most TV boxes struggle with this video).

I’m pretty happy with the results, and automatic frame rate switching works, it just need to be enabled in Advanced menu.
Switching audio tracks and subtitles are supported by the app, and work well. SmartColor engine is specific to Allwinner processors, and may help improve the video quality, or adjust the image to your taste.

Let’s carry on testing with PCM 2.0 (stereo) output to my TV, and HDMI audio pass-through to Onkyo TX-NR636 A/V receiver, with some advanced audio codec in Media Player.

Audio works pretty well with the only downside being a lack of support for DTS HD MA/HR which all fallback to DTS 5.1. My receiver does not support Atmos, so the box outputs TrueHD 7.1 as it should.

I’ve also tested HD videos with various bitrates:

• ED_HD.avi (MPEG-4/MSMPEG4v2 – 10 Mbps) – OK (except running scene that is not smooth)
• 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) – OK
• Jellyfish-120-Mbps.mkv (120 Mbps video without audio) – HDD: OK

Most Linaro media and H.265 elecard samples are playing fine in Media Center:

• H.264 codec / MP4 container (Big Buck Bunny) – 1080p – OK
• MPEG2 codec / MPG container – 1080p – OK
• MPEG4 codec, AVI container – 1080p – OK
• VC1 codec (WMV) – 1080p – OK
• Real Media (RMVB), 720p / 5Mbps – Media Center app returns “Can’t play video”
• WebM / VP8 – 1080p – OK
• H.265 codec / MPEG TS container – 1080p – OK

The full HD Blu-ray ISO files I tested (Sintel-Bluray.iso and amat.iso) played fine, so were 1080i MPEG-2 samples. I had the usual artifacts with Hi10p videos, but audio and subtitles were displayed correctly.

I also tested a bunch of 720p/1080p movies with various codecs/containers such as H.264, Xvid, DivX, VOB / IFO, FLV, AVI, MKV, MP4, etc… Most could play, except some of my FLV video samples, and DVD Rips would show the “This is a Blu-ray folder” pop-up…

… but the app would also report “Can’t play video”. If I browse to the folder, and select the IFO, it does not work, and the only way to start is to select a VOB file. However, it does not automatically switch to the next file. So there’s a problem with DVD rips in Media Center app.

YouTube app could play videos up to 1440p, but 4K (2160p) is not an option.

I’ve shot a video to show issues in Kodi, as well as Media Center app which work pretty well, and YouTube playback up to 1440p.

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DRM Info app shows Widevine DRM L1 is supported, meaning one of the requirements for Full HD Netflix is fulfilled.

Click to Enlarge

The company – as we’ve seen in the firmware changelog – claims support for Netflix 1080p, but since I don’t have an account I could not confirm that. It’s also unclear whether this has been achieved through a hack, or a partnership with Netflix. The latter would be permanent, while the former may not work in a few months. Based on info gathered on Zidoo forums, I can see other boxes like Mecool M8S Pro Plus TV box can play Netflix 1080p through a “3rd party Android TV Firmware”, so it’s likely something similar has been implemented for H6 Pro.

Network & Storage Performance

Zidoo X7 had a somewhat asymmetrical performance while copying a 278 MB file over 802.11ac + SAMBA, and Zidoo H6 Pro appears to have the same issues:

1. Server to flash (average): 51, or around 5.45 MB/s
2. Flash to server (average): 3 minutes 22 seconds, or around 1.37 MB/s

So excellent download performance, but weak upload performance with SAMBA. The average is around 2.24 MB/s.

Throughput in MB/s – Click to Enlarge

It’s probably a SAMBA configuration/implementation issue, as testing with iperf shows good performance in both directions:

• 802.11ac download:

• 802.11ac upload:

Throughput in Mbps

I also tested Gigabit Ethernet with iperf:

• Full duplex:

• Upload only:

• Download only:

That’s pretty good, and fairly close to the results I got with ROCK64 Board (RK3328).

Switching to store benchmarks with A1 SD Bench.

Click to Enlarge

The cached read is due to the incredibly low exFAT write performance (1.52 MB/s). Read speed is quite weak to at 16.37 MB/s with this file system, but poor exFAT performance is a common to most Android TV boxes. NTFS is much better at 59.07MB/s read, and 42.12 MB/s but still far from the ~100MB/s R/W, I achieved with the same hard drive on ROCK64 board. Nevertheless the performance will be good enough for TV box use case. However, if you need hardware with fast storage (through USB 3.0) and Ethernet, RK3328 processor looks to be better.

Internal performance is good, and helps explain relatively fast boot (when no HDD is connected), fast app loading, and the lack of “app not responding” issues.

Gaming

I installed three games: Candy Crush Sage, Beach Buggy Racing (BBR) and Riptide GP2. I played Candy Crush with my air mouse, and no problem here. I played the two racing games with Tronsmart Mars G01 game controller, and BBR played very smoothly even with max graphics settings. Riptide GP2 was quite playable with max “resolution”, maybe at 25 to 30 fps, but not quite close to 60 fps. I feel Allwinner H6 might be a little better at playing games than Rockchip RK3328, and somewhat comparable to Amlogic S905/S905X. I played both games for around 30 minutes in total, and I did not notice any drop in performance over time, so no obvious throttling/overheating, despite the rather high CPU/GPU temperatures reported by CPU-Z.

Bluetooth

I’ve used Bluetooth more than on any other TV boxes simply because of the Bluetooth remote control. But I could also pair the TV box (seen as petrel-p1) with Xiaomi Mi A1 smartphone, and transfer a few photos over Bluetooth, watch some YouTube video using X1T Bluetooth earbuds, but while I was able to see and pair my BLE fitness tracker in the Bluetooth settings, I was never able to locate the smart band from within “Smart Movement” app.

Zidoo H6 Pro (Allwinner H6) System Info and Benchmarks

CPU-Z still shows a quad core Cortex A53 r0p4 processor clocked between 480 MHz and 1.80 GHz, and a Mali-T720 GPU. Note that I never saw the frequency goes over 1488 MHz, so that 1.80 GHz may only occur during short bursts if at all.

Click to Enlarge

1906 MB total memory was reported, and 10.22 GB storage. Screen resolution was 1920×1080. As with most Allwinner platform you’ll never get a recent kernel (Linux 3.10.65).

The device achieved 40,467 points in Antutu 6.x, or about 5,000+ more compared to competitors based on RK3328 or S905X.

Click to Enlarge

One of the big jump is with 3D graphics, but there’s an easy explanation: Rockchip RK3328 and Amlogic S905X SoCs rely on Mali-450MP GPU which does not support OpenGL ES 3.1 used by “Marooned” benchmark, meaning Allwinner H6 just gets 3,510 points extra just for supporting OpenGL ES 3.1… So in reality, there’s not so much performance difference between the performance.

Vellamo 3.x confirms Allwinner H6 is that much faster with the following scores: Browser: 2,546 points, Metal: 930 points, and Multicore (836 points). I’ll put aside Multicore as on the test failed because of an issue with sysbench: “issue with Finepar: Invalid CPU mode”. But when comparing the metal score result against Amlogic S905X (910) and Rockchip RK3328 (937), the differences are minor.

Click to Enlarge

The Ice Storm Extreme score (3,951 points) is about the same as Amlogic S905X (4,183 points), but quite better than Rockchip RK3328 (2,252 points). We can also see the CPU frequency never surpassed around 1.5 GHz, so I’m wondering whether the 1.8 GHZ reported by CPU-Z might just be for show/marketing…

Conclusion

Despite Allwinner H6 SoC being pretty new, I have not found any really critical bugs in Zidoo H6 Pro TV Box. 4K video playback is working well in Media Center app with automatic frame rate switching, and HD audio pass-through, and overall performance is good, including for Wifi, Ethernet and storage.Widevine Level 1 DRM is installed, and the device is also supposed to support Netflix HD playback (not tested). 3D graphics performance is closer to the one of Amlogic S905X ,and quite better than on Rockchip RK3328 SoC.

The biggest issues I’ve found is poor support for Kodi with most 4K videos I’ve tried not playing well, and red color is over-statured in many videos. Media Center app also have a few limitations such as no support for DTS HD HR/MA pass-through (fallbacks to DTS 5.1), and IFO (DVD Rip) & Real Media video files are not supported. Other issues include poor exFAT performance, and WiFi SAMBA upload speed.

PROS

• Android 7.0 operating system – Stable and responsive
• Eye-pleasing ZIUI launcher / user interface
• Very good support for 4K videos played in Media Center app with automatic frame rate switching support; Smart Color Engine for post-processing
• HDMI pass-through for Dolby, DTS, and Dolby TrueHD working in Media Center app
• Relatively fast eMMC flash storage (fast boot/app loading)
• Very good networking performance for Gigabit Ethernet and 802.11ac WiFi (except for SAMBA uploads)
• Bluetooth remote control
• Decent 3D graphics performance
• Widevine Level 1 DRM; Netflix HD support (not tested)

CONS (and bugs)

• Kodi 17.5 from Google Play struggles to play 4K videos and color issues (too much red)
• MediaCenter – No DTS HD pass-through support (DTS 5.1 instead); IFO (DVD rip) and Real Media (RM) videos not supported, some FLV files can’t play.
• YouTube limited to 1440p (no 2160p option for me)
• Poor SAMBA upload performance when using WiFi
• exFAT file system performance poor -> use NTFS instead on external hard drive
• Slow boot time (~1 minute 30 seconds) when hard drive with many files connected
• “OK” button stopped to work on the Bluetooth remote control once (despite still working on the air mouse). Reboot fixed the issue.

Zidoo kindly sent the review sample from a local distributor. Resellers can contact the company via H6 Pro’s product page. GeekBuying currently has a promotion for the device where you can get it for as low as $79.99 (only for the first 50 orders), but it’s also sold on other websites for about $85 to 100 including GearBest, Amazon, or Aliexpress.

Tweet Zidoo H6 Pro is the very first Allwinner H6 based 4K TV box. The Android 7.0 device support H.265, H.264 and VP6 4K video decoding, comes with fast interfaces…

I have reviewed two Android smart pico-projectors in the last couple of years, namely Doogee Smart Cube P1 and Rikomagic RKM R1. Both are battery powered, and worked well in the dark, but the Rikomagic model is my favorite of the two because it works without any major bugs, and I really like the touchpad on top as it made configuration and control really easy.

There’s now another model on Indiegogo that’s been very popular so far with over one million dollars raised. Nebula Capsule may look like a soda can, but it integrates a pico-projector, a 360° speaker, a board running Android 7.0, and a battery allowing you to carry it around and use it on any a flat surface.

Capsule projector specifications:

• SoC – Quad core Cortex A7 processor with Adreno 304 GPU (likely Snapdragon 210/212)
• System memory – 1GB DDR3
• Storage – 8 GB eMMC flash
• Projector
  • 0.2″ DLP technology up to 100 lumens
  • Resolution – 854×480 (WVGA)
  • Lamp Life – 30,000 hours
  • Projection – Area – 20 to 100″; distance: 0.58 to 3.08 meters; throw ratio: 1.3:1
  • Keystone correction – automatic, vertical: -/+ 40 degrees
  • Manual focus
• Video Input – HDMI 1.4 port
• Audio – Built-in 360° speaker (5W)
• Video Codecs – 8-bit H.265, H.264, MPEG-4, Divx 4x/5x/6x, and VP8 up to 1080p, H.263 up to VGA resolution
• Connectivity – Dual band 802.11 b/g/n/ac WiFi, and Bluetooth 4.0
• USB – 1x micro USB OTG port also used for charging
• Misc – IR receiver; power/volume/mode switch buttons on top of device, cooling fan (<30 dB @ 25 dB environment)
• Power Supply – 5V via micro USB port
• Battery – 5,200 mAh @ 3.85V; Quick Charge 2.0 support with full charge in 2.5 hours @ 9V/2A; good for 2.5 hours video playback @ 100 lumens
• Dimensions – 12cm (h) x 6.8cm (Ø)
• Weight – ~420 grams

The projector runs Android 7.0, and can also work as a Bluetooth speaker. It supports OTA firmware update, screencast from your phone, and Google Play store. A Bluetooth remote control working for Android and iOS will also be provided.

The projector will ship with an IR remote control, and power supply with cable. The crowdfunding campaign is almost finished with about one day to go. All easrly bird rewards are long gone, but you can still pledge for the projector for $269, or $299 if you want a tripod and carry case. Shipping adds $15, and delivery is scheduled for December 2017.

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Tweet I have reviewed two Android smart pico-projectors in the last couple of years, namely Doogee Smart Cube P1 and Rikomagic RKM R1. Both are battery powered, and worked well…

Intel Gemini Lake processors should be officially launched in a few weeks with Pentium & Celeron SKUs. We already have a good idea about the new processors’ features, but AFAIK so far there’s been no official announcement of products based on the new processor family, since companies must still be under embargo.

FanlessTech noticed three new FUJITSI FUTRO thin clients (S540, S740, and S940), and upon further research found they were based on mini-ITX and mini-STX motherboards equipped with Intel Celeron J4005/J4105 or Pentium J5005 Gemini Lake SoC.

Let’s have a look at one of the models’ specifications (FUTRO S940):

• Mainboard – D3543-A mini-ITX board
• SoC – Intel Pentium Silver J5005 quad core processor @ up to 2.8 GHz with Intel Gen9 HD Graphics supporting DirectX 12, OpenGL 4.4, Open CL 1.2, OpenGL ES 3.1, Vulkan; 10W TDP
• System Memory – 2 GB – 16 GB via SO-DIMM slot (DDR4, 2400 MHz)
• Storage – 8 to 128 GB M.2 SSD module
• Interfaces
  • Video Output – 2x DisplayPort (DP) 1.2a,
  • Audio – 1x LINE In, 1x LINE Out, headphone and microphone jacks; Realtek ALC671 audio codec
  • USB – 2x USB 3.1 Gen1 ports, one optional USB 3.1 Gen1 type C port, 4x USB 2.0 ports, 1x USB 2.0 internal header
  • Networking – 1x Gigabit Ethernet (RJ-45) via Realtek RTL8111G chipset, optional Intel Wireless-AC 9260 WLAN (
  • Misc – 1x Kensington Lock slot, 2x PS/2 ports for mouse & keyboard, 1x optional Parallel por
• Dimensions (W x D x H) 52 x 195 x 250 mm

The mini-ITX boards also include eDP & 24Bit dual-channel LVDS interface which are not used in the thin clients. The three devices support eLux RP 6 or Windows 10 IoT Enterprise, and come with 2-year warranty.

Availability and pricing information have not been disclosed, but since those are enterprise products, they won’t be cheap. Consumer grade Gemini Lake laptops / mini PCs will certainly be announced in the weeks ahead.

Tweet Intel Gemini Lake processors should be officially launched in a few weeks with Pentium & Celeron SKUs. We already have a good idea about the new processors’ features, but…

Ugoos UM3 was launched in 2014 with Android 4.4 on Rockchip RK3288 processor, and could be described a a tiny TV box, or large TV stick. That form factor must have had some success, and they later launched AM2 model powered by Amlogic S905 plus Android 6.0.

The company has now just launched Ugoos UM4 with the same form factor but with Rockchip RK3328 processor running Android 7.1.2. Ugoos likes to add some software features often not found on other devices, and that would normally require hacking the firmware, or purchasing apps.

Ugoos UM4 specifications:

• SoC – Rockchip RK3328 quad core Cortex A53 processor with ARM Mali-450MP GPU
• System Memory – 2GB DDR4 memory
• Storage – 16 GB eMMC flash (8GB optional) + micro SD card slot up to 32 GB
• Video & Audio Output – HDMI 2.0a female port up to 4k @ 60 fps with CEC and HDR support, 3.5mm AV output with composite and stereo audio
• Connectivity – Dual band WiFi 802.11 b/g/n/ac and Bluetooth 4.0 with external antenna
• USB – 1x USB 3.0 port, 1x USB 2.0 OTG port (USB type A receptacle)
• Misc – 2.5mm IR jack
• Power Supply – 5V/2.5A via micro USB port
• Dimensions – 109 x 60 x 20 mm
• Weight – 80 grams

The device ships with a user manual, a power adapter, a  short HDMI cable, an IR remote controller, and a extension cable with IR receiver. I’ve not found the latter in that many TV stick, and it allows you to use an IR remote control with the stick even if it is connected behind your TV. But what could be the most interesting with this device are the extra Ugoos settings in the firmware.

You’ll get a choice of 7 submenus with some options that are not commonly found in other TV boxes:

• Root – Enable/disable root access which can be useful as some apps require a system without root, while others won’t work with root
• File server/client – NFS and SAMBA client, and SAMBA server. I understand the clients make your SAMBA/NFS server accessible from any apps.
• Hardware Monitor – Shows network usage, CPU info, RAM info in notification bar
• (Fireeasy) Wireless Assistant – Remote control app for Android / iOS (download)
• Gamepad settings – Gamepad buttons mapping app. Profiles are shareable among users
• Debug settings – WiFi/USB Adb access, log files management, etc…
• User scripts – Create init.d directory is enabled, and allows advanced user to run scripts at boot time without rooting the device.

The device also supports automatic frame rate switching (AFRS) with 3 modes: system resolution, video resolution priority, and frequency resolution priority. This does not affect AFRS function in Kodi, which handle this on its own. Finally, digital signage users will be happy to find an option to switch between landscape and portrait mode.

The firmware might be at the beta stage right now, as reviewers and customers are only starting to get samples right now. If you’d like to give it a try yourself, Ugoos UM4 can be purchased on Aliexpress for $89.99 shipped.

Tweet Ugoos UM3 was launched in 2014 with Android 4.4 on Rockchip RK3288 processor, and could be described a a tiny TV box, or large TV stick. That form factor…

Gateworks is a US based company that provides embedded hardware solutions to mobile and wireless communications markets such as their NXP i.MX6 powered  Ventana single board computers, including Ventana GW5530 SBC with compact form factor making it suitable for robotics projects and drones.

The company has now launched a new family of single board computers with Newport boards based on Cavium Octeon TX dual and quad core processors, and targeting high performance network applications with up to 5 GbE copper Ethernet ports, 2 SFP ports for fiber.

GW6300/GW6304 SBC – Click to Enlarge

Eight boards from 4 board designs using the dual or quad core version of the processors will be launched in sequence until Q2 2018, but let’s first have a closer look at Newport GW6300/GW6304 boards’ specifications since they are available now:

• SoC
  • GW6300 – Cavium Octeon TX CN8020 dual core custom ARMv8.1 SoC @ 800 MHz
  • GW6304 – Cavium Octeon TX CN8030 quad core custom ARMv8.1 SoC @ 1.5GHz
• System Memory
  • GW6300 – 1GB DDR4 (default); optional up to 4GB
  • GW6304 – 2GB DDR4 (default); optional up to 4GB
• Storage – 8GB eMMC flash (4 to 64GB option), micro SD socket, 1x mSATA 3.0 (See expansion)
• Networking – 2x Gigabit Ethernet ports (RJ45)
• GNSS – Ublox ZOE-MQ8 GNSS GPS Receiver with PPS (optional on GW6300, standard on GW6304)
• USB – 2x USB 3.0 ports up to 5 Gbps
• Expansion
  • mPCIe socket 1 – PCIe or GW1608x expansion, USB 2.0
  • mPCIe socket 2 – PCIe or mSATA, USB 2.0
  • mPCIe socket 3 – PCIe or USB 3.0, USB 2.0, SIM

    Click to Enlarge

  • Connector for 2x RS232 or 1x RS232/422/485 serial port
  • Digital I/O, I2C, and SPI headers
  • CAN 2.0B bus header via Microchip MCP25625  (optional on GW6300, standard on GW6304)
• Security – Tamper switch support, optional Maxim DS28C22 Secure Authentication and Encryption
• Misc – Real Time Clock with battery backup, voltage and temperature monitor, serial configuration EEPROM, programmable watchdog timer, programmable fan speed controller, programmable shut-down and wake-up,
• Power Supply
  • 8 to 60V DC via barrel jack
  • Ethernet Jack Passive PoE with Input Voltage Range: 10 to 60V
  • Ethernet Jack 802.3at PoE with Input Voltage Range: 37 to 57V
  • Input Voltage Reverse and Transient Protection
• Power Consumption
  • GW6300 – 6W @ 25°C typ.
  • GW6304 – 8W @ 25°C typ.
• Dimensions – 105 x 100 x 21 mm (Compatible with Ventana GW5300 SBC)
• Temperature Range – -40°C to +85°C
• Weight – 96 grams

GW6300/4 Board Block Diagram – Click to Enlarge

The company provides OpenWrt and Ubuntu board support packages (BSP) for the boards. The company sells the board standalone, but also as a development kit (GW11042) with U-Boot bootloader, OpenWrt Linux BSP, Ethernet/ Serial/USB cables, passive PoE power injector and power supply, and a JTAG programmer. More technical details about software and hardware can be found in the Wiki.

Octeon TX Block Diagram

Octeon TX processors are specifically designed for networking applications, include networking acceleration engines & hardware virtualization, and can deliver IPSec performance of 8Gbps with only 2 cores.

If Newport GW6300/GW6304 SBCs do not match your requirements, Gateworks have 6 more SBCs planned with different form factors and various combinations of Ethernet ports.

Newport Family Matrix – Click to Enlarge

As you can see from the table above, some boards are available now, with a rollout of other versions planned until Q2 2018. Price for GW6300/GW6304 boards is not publicly available, but you can request a quote, inquire for customization options, and find more details on the product page.

Tweet Gateworks is a US based company that provides embedded hardware solutions to mobile and wireless communications markets such as their NXP i.MX6 powered  Ventana single board computers, including Ventana…

Intel Bay Trail processors are mostly found in tablets, 2-in-1 hybrid laptops, and mini PCs, and they’ve often give placed to Cherry Trail processors, and in some cases Apollo Lake ones. x86 compatibility, low cost and low power are the main selling points of the Bay Trail processor family.

Colorful has found a different use case, as they designed a motherboard with 9 PCIe x16 slots, one for a card powered by an Intel Celeron J1900 processor, and 8 to add graphics card in order to mine cryptocurrencies.

Click to Enlarge

The blue PCI slot takes a PCI CPU card with an the following specifications:

• SoC –  Intel BayTrail J1900 quad core processor @ up to 2.42 GHz with 2M Cache, integrated Intel HD graphics; 10W TDP
• Memory – 1×DDR3L SO-DIMM, DDR3L 1333MHz/1066MHz
• Storage – 1x mSATA slot, 1x SATA 3.0 connector, 1x 4-pin SATA connector
• Video Output – HDMI
• Connectivity – Dual Gigabit Ethernet via RTL8111E
• USB – 2x USB 2.0 ports
• PCIe connector to manage graphics cards
• Power Supply – 4-pin header for 12V input

The main motherboard is equipped with 16x 6-pin PCIe power connectors with eight located on one side of the board, and eight placed close to each GPU PCIe slots. To complete the setup connect eight mining graphics cards, and you should be good to go.

Anandtech reports that pricing and availability information is unknown at this stage, and they expect the solution to become available to Colorful customers in the next few months. The product page only has some limited details for now.

Tweet Intel Bay Trail processors are mostly found in tablets, 2-in-1 hybrid laptops, and mini PCs, and they’ve often give placed to Cherry Trail processors, and in some cases Apollo…

Texas Instruments MSP430 16-bit mixed signal microcontroller has been around since at least 2004, and the last time I played with the MCU was with eZ430-Chronos wireless watch development kit in 2011.

Over the years, the company has added more parts to  its MSP430 MCU portfolio, and they recently added two new MSP430 Value Line Sensing MCUs that offer up to 25 functions (timers, I/Os, reset controller, EEPROM…) for as low as 25 cents, as well as a new MSP430FR2433 LaunchPad development kit .

Block Diagram – Click to Enlarge

MSP430FR2000 and MSP430FR2100 MCUs have the same features set, except for the memory (512 vs 1024 bytes):

• 16-Bit RISC Architecture up to 16 MHz
• Memory / Storage
  • MSP430FR2000 (new) – 0.5KB of Program Ferroelectric RAM (FRAM) + 512 Bytes of RAM
  • MSP430FR2100 (new) – 1KB of Program FRAM + 512 Bytes of RAM
  • MSP430FR2111 – 3.75KB of Program FRAM + 1KB of RAM
  • MSP430FR2110 –  2KB of Program FRAM + 1KB of RAM
• Supply Voltage Range – 1.8 V to 3.6 V
• Low-Power Modes (at 3 V)
  • Active Mode: 120 µA/MHz
  • Standby
    • LPM3.5 With VLO: 1 µA
    • Real-Time Clock (RTC) Counter (LPM3.5 With 32768-Hz Crystal): 1 µA
  • Shutdown (LPM4.5): 34 nA Without SVS
• Analog
  • 8-Channel 10-Bit Analog-to-Digital Converter (ADC) with integrated temperature sensor, internal 1.5-V Reference, sample-and-hold 200 ksps
  • Enhanced Comparator (eCOMP) with integrated 6-Bit DAC as Reference Voltage
• Digital Peripherals
  • 1x 16-Bit Timer With Three Capture/Compare Registers (Timer_B3)
  • 1x 16-Bit Counter-Only RTC Counter
  • 16-Bit Cyclic Redundancy Checker (CRC)
• Serial Communications – Enhanced USCI A (eUSCI_A) Supports UART, IrDA, and SPI
• Clock System (CS)
  • On-Chip 32-kHz RC Oscillator (REFO)
  • On-Chip 16-MHz Digitally Controlled Oscillator (DCO) With Frequency-Locked Loop (FLL)
  • On-Chip Very-Low-Frequency 10-kHz Oscillator (VLO)
  • On-Chip High-Frequency Modulation Oscillator (MODOSC)
  • External 32-kHz Crystal Oscillator (LFXT)
  • Programmable MCLK Prescalar of 1 to 128
  • SMCLK Derived From MCLK With Programmable Prescalar of 1, 2, 4, or 8
• General Input/Output and Pin Functionality
  • 12x I/Os on 16-Pin Package
  • 8x Interrupt Pins (4 Pins of P1 and 4 Pins of P2) Can Wake MCU From LPMs
  • All I/Os are Capacitive Touch I/Os
• Package Options – 16-Pin TSSOP (PW16); 24-pin VQFN (RLL)

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The MCUs can be programmed with free development tools such as Code Composer Studio IDE or Cloud IDE, as well as third party solutions like IAR Embedded Workbench Kickstart. TI has also launched a new MSP430FR2433 LaunchPad development kit based on MSP430FR2433 also part of MSP430 Value Line Sensing MCUs, but with more memory (4KB SRAM) and storage (16KB FRAM).

Click to Enlarge

The board includes EnergyTrace++ Technology available for ultra-low-power debugging, 20-pin LaunchPad kit standard leveraging the BoosterPack ecosystem, an on-board eZ-FET debug probe, and 2 buttons and 2 LEDs for user interaction.

MSP430FR2000 and MSP430FR2100 sells for respectively $0.29 and $0.39 in 1,000-unit quantities, and the former price drops to 25 cents in higher volumes. MSP430FR2433 LaunchPad development kit (MSP-EXP430FR2433) is sold for $4.30 with coupon code NewMSP430LP until the end of the year, after which the price will be $9.90.

Tweet Texas Instruments MSP430 16-bit mixed signal microcontroller has been around since at least 2004, and the last time I played with the MCU was with eZ430-Chronos wireless watch development…

This is a guest post by blu about his experience with OpenCL on MacchiatoBin board with a quad core Cortex A72 processor and an Intel based MacBook. He previously contributed several technical articles such as How ARM Nerfed NEON Permute Instructions in ARMv8 or OpenGL ES development on Ubuntu Touch.

Qualcomm launched their long-awaited server ARM chip the other day, and we started getting the first benchmarks. Incidentally, I too managed to get some OpenCL ray-tracing code running on an ARM Cortex-A72 machine that same day (thanks to pocl – an LLVM-based open-source OCL multi-platform implementation), so my benchmarking curiosity got me.

The code in question is an OCL (half-finished) port of a graphics demo from 2014. Some remarks of what it does:

For each frame: a single thread builds a sparse voxel octree from a dynamic voxel scene; the octree, along with current camera settings are passed to an OCL kernel via double buffering; kernel computes a screen-space map of object IDs from primary-ray-hit voxels (kernel utilizes all compute units of a user-specified device); then, in headless mode used in the test, the app discards the frame. Test continues for a user-specified number of frames, and reports the average frames per second (FPS) upon termination.

Now, one of the baselines I wanted to compare the ARM machine against was a MacBook with Penryn (Intel Core 2 Duo Processor P8600), as the latter had exhibited very similar IPC characteristics to the Cortex-A72 in previous (non-OCL) tests, and also both machines had very similar FLOPS paper specs (and our OCL test is particularly FP-heavy):

• 2x Penryn @ 2400MHz: 4xfp32 mul + 4xfp32 add per clock = 38.4GFLOPS total
• 4x Cortex-A72 @ 1300MHz: 4xfp32 mul-add per clock = 41.6GFLOPS total

Beyond paper specs, on a SGEMM test the two machines showed the following performance for cached data:

• Penryn: 4.86 flop/clock/core, 23.33GFLOPS total
• Cortex-A72: 6.52 flop/clock/core, 33.90GFLOPS total

And finally RAM bandwidth (again, paper specs):

• Penryn: 8.53GB/s (DDR3 @ 1066MT/s)
• Cortex-A72: 12.8GB/s (DDR4 @ 1600MT/s)

On the ray-tracing OCL test, though, things turned out interesting (MacBook running Apple’s own OCL stack, which, to the best of my knowledge, is also LLVM-based):

• Penryn average FPS: 2.31
• Cortex-A72 average FPS: 7.61

So while on the SGEMM test the ARM was ~1.5x faster than Penryn for cached data, on the ray-tracing test, which is a much more complex code than SGEMM, the ARM speedup turned out ~3x? Remember, we are talking of two μarchs that perform quite closely by general-purpose-code IPC. Could something be wrong with Apple’s OCL stack? Let’s try pocl (exact same version of pocl and LLVM as on ARM):

• Penryn average FPS: 11.58

OK, that’s much more reasonable. This time Penryn holds a speed advantage of 1.5x. Now, while Penryn is a fairly mature μarch that has reached its toolchain-support peak long ago, could we expect improvements from LLVM’s (and pocl’s) support for the Cortex family? Perhaps. In the case of our little test I could even finish the Aarch64 port of the non-OCL version of this code (originally x86-64 with SSE/AVX), but hey, OCL saved me the initial effort for satisfying my curiosity!

What is more interesting, though, is that assuming a Qualcomm Falkor core is at least as performant as a Cortex-A72 core in both gen-purpose and NEON IPC (not a baseless supposition), and taking into account that the top specced Centriq 2400 has 12x the cores and 10x the RAM bandwidth of our ARM machine, we could speculate about Centriq 2400’s performance on this OCL test when using the same OCL stack.

Hypothetical Qualcomm Centriq 2400 server: Centriq 2400 48x Falkor @ 2200MHz-2600MHz, 6x DDR4 @ 2667MT/s (128GB/s)

Assumed linearly scaling from the ARMADA 8040 measured performance; in practice the single-thread part of the test will impede the linear scaling, and so could the slightly-lower per-core RAM BW paper specs.

Of course, CPU-based solutions are not the best candidate for this OCL test — a decent GPU would obliterate even a 2S Xeon server here. But the goal of this entire test was to get a first-encounter estimate of the Cortex-A72 for FP-heavy non-matrix-multiplication-trivial scenarios, and things can go only up from here. Raw data for POCL tests on MacchiatoBin and MacBook is available here.

Tweet This is a guest post by blu about his experience with OpenCL on MacchiatoBin board with a quad core Cortex A72 processor and an Intel based MacBook. He previously…

Karl here. I have had the Tronxy X3S 3D printer for a while now. It prints well but as I mentioned in previous articles I had to level for every print. Actually near the end I would just overpower the stepper motors while the skirt was printing and level. Leveling front to back was not affected. Only the z height. So this worked but it was frustrating. Before that I tried several different things to mitigate. I thought maybe the endstop for Z homing was inconsistent and replaced it. I tried heating the bed for extended period of time thinking that maybe some thermal expansion. Didn’t help. I finally did a major change to the X carriage with success. I even moved the printer to our local library and the bed stayed leveled for a demo. I call this a success, and will show how I did it. Inspiration for this modification came from the CR-10. This is the biggest mod I have done for any review so far.

3D Printed Parts for Upgrade

My objective was to reuse as much as possible of the original kit. I designed the bracket in Fusion 360 and remixed the Z motor brackets in Windows 3D Builder. To do this upgrade you will need to print 2 Z motor mounts an 1 X/extruder mount. They are published on Thingiverse.

Bed

The easiest place to begin with is the bed. This mod alters the extruder position so the Y stepper motor needs to be relocated outside the frame so no build area is lost. I had some extra belt I think came with this kit that I used. The belt lengthens from the original position.

X Carriage

First remove the Z motors and metal brackets. We will not be reusing the metal brackets. Remove the Z rods. Take off the top 2020 extruded aluminum from the top of the printer and slide the whole X carriage off, and disassemble the left and right wheels, stepper motors, belt etc. The triangle wheel assembly does not need to be broken down. Both extruder and X stepper will be located on the left now. I slid only the triangle wheel assemblies on with the new orientation. I made a little mark on the left and right acrylic wheel assembly to get my positioning right for 2020 aluminum. Center the 2020. I ended up with about 9mm on each side. You will need to drill a hole in the acrylic so a second nut can be used on both sides.

Drill hole through acrylic approx. where indicated by arrow on the bottom set of holes. Enlarge the bottom holes on the back piece so you can use a screwdriver and tighten. Take your time and drill slow. Do this on both sides.

Here is the left side. I mounted the steppers after installing.

Click to Enlarge

Mount the Z rod brackets upside down on the back in the top holes of the wheel assembly so that the Z rod lines up with the center of the 2020 below.

I tested the orientation of the Z rod nut upside down by changing one side. I really don’t think it matters.

Now mount the Z motors. I didn’t have the proper length nut so they look loose. No adverse effects. If it bothers you can install a washer or nut. The brackets are keeping it from bouncing.

Click to Enlarge

I have only done a couple test prints, but they turned out fantastic. I can’t say definitively, but I do think I see an improvement. I am running low on filament right now and will test more for final review. The goal was to fix the level issue but any improvement is good.

Click to Enlarge

Final thoughts

The leveling was driving me crazy on this printer, so I had to find a solution. I started with a goal of changing the orientation of the wheels and just started taking the printer apart. With more than one printer this makes it an easier task. By chance I was able to reuse the existing Z rod brackets and saved quite a bit of time. It did take 2 iterations of the X/extruder bracket, but ultimately didn’t take very long. I had one setback. On the first iteration I had the stepper motors touching, and the steppers got very warm so I put a 5mm gap between them and seemed to resolve the issue.

If you noticed my X axis limit switch is off set it is because I am running stock marlin, and did not build in the offsets so I just moved the limit switch to accommodate. I will follow up with a how to upgrade the firmware, and get rid of some of the annoyances with stock firmware.

After this upgrade I can say it is very much on par with the CR-10 now with some savings. After this upgrade you can get 350 x 330 x 390 mm. I didn’t realize until testing just now that 10mm is lost in the Z. You can get 400mm wide but there is a clearance issue with extruder hitting the triangle brackets. You could probably just clip on a larger mirror with no issues and stick with the existing bed and let it overhang.

I would like to thank Gearbest for sending the printer for review. They sell it for $269.99 including shipping.

Tweet Karl here. I have had the Tronxy X3S 3D printer for a while now. It prints well but as I mentioned in previous articles I had to level for…

Amlogic S905D processor is an evolution of Amlogic S905X with Gigabit Ethernet support, and TS interfaces for digital TV tuners. That explains why most devices launched with the processor come with tuners. So far, we’ve covered or reviewed a few including Sen5 STB (2x DVB-T2/C), Mecool KI Pro (T2/S2), and TX95D TV box with a single DVB-T2 tuner.

Magicsee C100 is another Amlogic S905D Android STB that comes with DVB-T2/C (Terrestrial & Cable), and DVB-S2 (Satellite) tuners, and sells for just under $70 on Aliexpress, and can be found on other shops such as GearBest.

Magicsee C300 specifications are quite similar to the ones for Mecool KI Pro:

• SoC –  Amlogic S905D quad core ARM Cortex-A53 @ up to 1.5 GHz with penta core Mali-450MP GPU
• System Memory – 2 GB DDR3
• Storage – 16GB eMMC flash + micro SD card slot up to 32GB
• Video Output – HDMI 2.0a up to 4K @ 60Hz with support for HDR10 and HLG, and 3.5mm AV (composite video) jack
• Audio Output – HDMI, AV (stereo audio), optical S/PDIF
• Video Codecs – 10-bit H.265, and VP9 Profile 2 up to 4K60, H.264 up to 4K30, AVS+ and other codecs up to 1080p60
• Tuners
  • DVB-T/T2/C tuner with coaxial antenna input connector
  • DVB-S/S2 tuner with F antenna input connector
• Connectivity – 10/100M Ethernet, dual band 802.11 b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth 4.1 LE
• USB – 4x USB 2.0 host ports
• Misc – Power button and LED, IR receiver
• Power Supply –  DC 12V/1.5A
• Dimensions – 14.80 x 12.00 x 3.30 cm
• Weight – 195 grams

The only differences are that they used DDR3 memory instead of DDR4, Fast Ethernet instead on Gigabit Ethernet, and a slightly more powerful power supply (18W vs 12W). The ports layout is exactly the same, so I suspect Magicsee is using Videostrong KI Pro board with DDR3 memory, and no Gigabit Ethernet placed into a different case.

The set-top box is said to run Android 6.0.1 according to Aliexpress/GearBest, and ships with a power adapter, a HDMI cable, an IR remote control, and a user manual.

Shenzhen Intek Technology may be the manufacturer of the device as they list Magicsee C300 on Alibaba. There’s one key difference however, as they claim the device runs Android 7.1.2 support instead of Android 6.0.1. Android Nougat would make more sense, as KI Pro is running the more recent operating system.

Via AndroidPC.es

Tweet Amlogic S905D processor is an evolution of Amlogic S905X with Gigabit Ethernet support, and TS interfaces for digital TV tuners. That explains why most devices launched with the processor…

A few months ago, Libre Computer introduced Le Potato board (aka AML-S905X-CC) powered by Amlogic S905X processor plus up to 2GB RAM, and using Raspberry Pi 3 form factor.

The company is now back with three Tritium boards, using the same form factor, but instead powered by Allwinner H2+, H3, or H5 processors, with a lower price point as the Tritium IoT board (H2+ / 512 MB RAM) goes for $9 only.

Tritium 1GB and Tritium 2GB Boards

Tritium boards (ALL-H3-CC) specifications:

• SoC and Memory
  • Tritium IoT – Allwinner H2+ quad core Cortex A7 processor with Mali-400MP2, 512MB DDR3
  • Tritium 1GB – Allwinner H3 quad core Cortex A7 processor with Mali-400MP2, 1GB DDR3
  • Tritium 2GB – Allwinner H5 quad core Cortex A53 processor with Mali-450MP4, 2GB DDR3
• Storage – 1x micro SD Card slot, eMMC module connector
• Video & Audio Output
  • Tritium IoT – HDMI up to 1080p60, AV port
  • Tritium 1GB & 2GB – HDMI 1.4 up to 4K30, AV port
• Camera – Parallel camera interface
• Connectivity – 10/100M Ethernet
• USB – 4x USB 2.0 host ports
• Expansion – 40-pin Raspberry Pi header with I2C, SPI, PWM, UART, 5V, 3.3V, and GPIO
• Debugging –  UART via header for access to the serial console
• Misc – IR Receiver, u-boot button
• Power Supply – 5V via micro USB port
• Dimensions – Raspberry Pi 3 form factor

The boards do not perform as fast as the Amlogic S905X one, and the I2S and S/PDIF header are gone, but a camera connector has been added to connect a camera. Tritium IoT board runs Linux only (e.g. Ubuntu 16.04), but Tritium 1GB can run also Android 7.0, and Tritium 2GB Android 7.1, beside the listed Linux distributions:

• Ubuntu 16.04 by Libre Computer Project
• Debian 9 Stretch by Libre Computer Project
• Ubuntu 16.04 by Armbian

The Linux source will be released on Github as they’ve done for Le Potato, for which they’ve also released the PDF schematics, and CE/FCC certifications.

Tritium Board in Case made for Raspberry Pi 3

The project has been launched on Kickstarter with a $10,000 goal. The bare boards are available for respectively $9 (IoT), $19 (1GB), and $29 (2GB), but you can also get kits with all accessories such as the $59 “Tritium IoT Kit Special” with comes with:

• Tritium IoT Board
• 8GB eMMC 4.x Module
• Push-Pin Heatsink with Thermal Tape
• 5.1V/2.5A MicroUSB Power Supply
• Active Cooling Media Center Polycarbonate Case
• 1m HDMI Cable
• 8GB MicrorSD Card
• Wireless RF Remote with Mini Keyboard and Touchpad

Shipping is not included and depends on the selected reward, but for example it adds $7 to $9 to Tritium IoT board, and $10 to $14 to the kit listed above. Delivery is planned for January 2018, and general availability (outside the KS campaign) in February 2018. Hardware customizations are accepted for orders of 500 units or more.

The market is starting to get crowded with Allwinner H development boards thanks to the Orange Pi and NanoPi board families, but that also means software support should be good, and AFAIK, Tritium boards are the first to be compatible (HW + Mech) to Raspberry Pi 3, excluding NanoPi Duo + mini Shield which does not come with HDMI, and is limited to Allwinner H2+ with 512MB RAM. That means you could reuse or purchase RPi 3 accessories and they should work either out of the box (enclosures), or with some SW development efforts (add-on boards). RPi MIPI camera and display modules won’t work.

Tweet A few months ago, Libre Computer introduced Le Potato board (aka AML-S905X-CC) powered by Amlogic S905X processor plus up to 2GB RAM, and using Raspberry Pi 3 form factor. The…