[HH] Matchstick: $12 TV stick running Firefox OS

[Tariq Bashir Ahmad]

Great.

But i am little skeptical about streaming video over wifi. HDMI's data
rates are huge. I don't think wifi can cope up with HDMI.

What do you guys think?

-Tariq

On Thu, Oct 2, 2014 at 11:39 PM, Tom Metro <tmetro+hhacking at gmail.com>
wrote:

> We've seen many dozens of thumb-drive-sized stick computers that attach
> to a TV to make your TV "smart" (stream content from the Internet).
> Almost all have ran Android. Here's the first one running Firefox OS,
> Mozilla's mobile operating system also based on Linux:
>
>
> https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/matchstick/matchstick-the-streaming-stick-built-on-firefox-os
>
> They say it'll retail for $25, but you can buy-in to it now for a mere
> $12...oh, wait, that was the early bird price that has sold out. Current
> tier is $18. They've also sold out of "developer" units (prototypes
> delivered in November) at $24 each. (They've already exceeded their
> $100K goal by over 100%.)
>
> They expect to ship in February. If this is the first TV project for
> Firefox OS, that might be overly optimistic, as there will be a lot of
> UI to build and TV-oriented apps. And that's assuming the hardware
> development is borrowing heavily from an existing or reference design.
> (Actually they say, "Hardware is done! It was actually previewed in June.")
>
> As for the software they say:
>
>   There are already hundreds of apps in the Mozilla app store, and as
>   the developer program ramps up many of those apps and hundreds of new
>   apps will become available on the Matchstick app store.
>
> And:
>
>   Matchstick currently is already binary compatible with a large number
>   of existing Chromecast apps. ...apps...available at launch and
>   include: Netflix, HBO Go, Pandora, ESPN, ABC, and many more.
>
>
> They say the hardware and software will both be open:
>
>   Our goal was to make a streaming stick that was low cost, high design,
>   and extremely adaptable without the walled garden for app developers
>   that tends to slow progress. We also approached the hardware as a
>   break even, open reference design, creating an app ecosystem where the
>   app developers drive the economy. It's what Chromecast WANTED to be...
>   =)
>   ...
>   No need to jailbreak your Matchstick, the door is wide open! ...we are
>   making the reference designs and hardware schematics available for
>   download. (http://www.matchstick.tv/developers/hardware.html) ... The
>   files we provide are manufacturer ready, including board design,
>   electrical layout, and the bill of materials.
>
> No mention of being powered via the HDMI port, as some sticks are.
> Instead they have the usual (micro) USB port for power. (They address
> this in an FAQ.)
>
> They describe the hardware as an upgrade compared to the Chromecast:
>
>   We selected the dual-core Rockchip 3066 processor, increased the
>   onboard storage to 4GB, and dropped in 1GB of DDR3 memory. The bigger
>   processor and increased memory gives you a much better video playback
>   cache and increased performance for whatever games and custom overlays
>   you might dream up.
>
>
> They say you can "fling" content to it from apps and desktop web
> browsers, which is similar to how you send content to a Chromecast, but
> it is less clear whether the device will feature its own stand-alone UI
> or be fully dependent on some other device to act as the controlling
> interface, as is the case with a Chromecast.
>
> They talk about how developers can easily port Chromecast apps to it,
> but I wasn't aware that apps ran on the Chromecast. I thought apps ran
> on the controlling device, and just sent URLs and playback commands to
> the Chromecast.
>
> They describe the software architecture here:
> http://www.matchstick.tv/developers/documents/developers-guide.html
>
> and apparently in addition to the "sender" applications that run on the
> controlling device, you can also customize things on the Matchstick
> receiving side, where it has an engine capable of running HTML5
> applications.
>
>  -Tom
> _______________________________________________
> Hardwarehacking mailing list
> Hardwarehacking at blu.org
> http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/hardwarehacking
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.blu.org/pipermail/hardwarehacking/attachments/20141003/ffeb0791/attachment.html>