Google in particular has struggled rather as it did initially with Android TV, with Nest failing to bring out promised new products and recently calling time on its smart home hub for wireless control of end devices called Revolv, which was launched amid much fanfare in October 2014 but then withdrawn in May 2015. Since then though the sheen has come off IoT a little with mixed signals from the leading players. The big data centre systems companies also piled in but more on the enterprise side, such as IBM with a $3 billion investment early in 2015 in its Watson IoT centre based in Munich. That was also the year Google acquired smart thermostat leader Nest. The first tipping point came around 2014 with proven single domain applications and the arrival of big players in retail such as Staples, energy utility like British Gas and ADT in premises security. Finally, I found out the box on Alibaba, and it is sold by SHenzhen AZW Technology better known as Beelink, and the system is sold a dual OS TV box with Android 6.0 and OpenWrt there.The Internet of Things (IoT) has reached a critical stage in its evolution where it seems to be caught between two tipping points, waiting for the final explosion after the arrival of joined up applications connecting different domains. I asked GearBest for some confirmations, but I did not get a reply in time for the article. This fanless TV box ships with a HDMI Cable, a power adapter, an infrared remote control, and a user manual. One of the picture also indicates “Intel HD Graphics 400” is used to provides 3840×2160, so the information on GearBest page can not be fully trusted. The box is said to run Android 6.0, but again we don’t know if it also runs OpenWrt just like on Zidoo and EWEAT boxes. The “HardDisk” bay shown in the first picture allows you to add a 2.5″ drive inside the box. Misc – IR receiver, front panel display, RTC with battery.Connectivity – Gigabit Ethernet, dual band 802.11 b/g/n/ac WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0 with two external antennas.Audio Features – 7.1 channel audio pass-through. Video Playback – HDR, 10-bit HEVC/H.265 up to 4K 60fps, H.264 up to 4K 24 fps, VP9 up to 4K 30 fps, BDISO/MKV, etc… automatic frame rate switching.Audio I/O – HDMI in and out, 1x S/PDIF output.Video I/O – HDMI 2.0a output, and HDMI input (recording and streaming up to 1080p 60 Hz).Storage – 16GB eMMC 5.1 flash + SD card slot up to 128 GB + SATA hard disk bay for 2.5″ drives with 9.5mm / 7.5mm thickness.SoC – Realtek RTD1295 quad core Cortex A53 processor with ARM Mali-T820 MP3 GPU.There’s now a new even cheaper model with LAKE I Home Cloud TV box sold for $77.99 on GearBest with GBLAKEI coupon. A cheaper option is Beelink SEA I, which I started to review, but one firmware update wiped out the HDCP key, and the product became unusable with the company unwilling/unable to provide the HDCP key. Zidoo X9S and EWEAT R9 Plus are examples of such devices, and I found them to work pretty well in my reviews, but they are quite pricey with prices ranging from $130 to $200 (with internal SATA bay) including shipping. Realtek RTD1295 based Android TV boxes are usually interesting devices as they play 4K videos relatively well – minus 4K H.264 30 fps -, support HDMI input with PVR and PiP functions, and often come with a SATA interface for NAS functions handled with OpenWrt.
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