Google and ASUS Launch the $85 Chromebit, a Chrome OS Desktop on an HDMI Stick | Hacker News Reader

Google and ASUS Launch the $85 Chromebit, a Chrome OS Desktop on an HDMI Stick

techcrunch.com

292 pointstonteldoos186 comments

More specs at anandtech http://www.anandtech.com/show/9797/asus-launches-the-chromeb...

Its Mali T764 GPU seems more powerful than an xbox360: the T760 has 326 GFLOPS; xbox360 xenos GPU has about 240 GFLOPS. Not sure what difference the 4 in 764 makes. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mali_(GPU) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenos_(graphics_chip)

These PC sticks have been around for years... I wonder if the killer app will be 4K streaming? 4K TV's look great, but no TV programming available; no media (4K blu-rays are not out yet); downloading 40GB takes too long; whereas streaming is popular.

Dont all 4K TV's have a 4K capable netflix app build in?

For the big brand TVs, yes. Most seem to have some set of Amazon and YouTube 4K support as well. My new TV is missing YouTube 4K support, because apparently they use a different codec than Netflix and Amazon.

>Not sure what difference the 4 in 764 It says it is a 4 core device.

326 GFLOPS is with 16 GPU cores. Most likely it has 4 GPU cores which would be ~82 GFLOPS @ 600 MHz.

Yeah, I think so too. There's a list [0] over here with common mobile GPU specs which states the same (actually denotes T764 as an alternate name for T760 MP4). Not sure what his/her source is though so take it with a grain of salt.

[0] http://kyokojap.myweb.hinet.net/gpu_gflops/

The stick only has half the memory bandwidth of the Xbox 360 though.

There is Intel's Compute Stick too[1] but I haven't try it yet.

[1] http://www.intel.com/buy/us/en/product/desktop/intel-boxstck...

If it's x86/x86_64, it has a major advantage imho

Why wouldn't it be? It's certainly not Itanium-based…

It is, but it's also only got intel graphics. You won't be doing any 4k work on it. I have one and it's great for office work, but good luck getting a game to run even 1080p.

How do you use it? What's the advantage of having it?

Quad core Atom

They're already hugely popular in China where a lot of the use is streaming tv and movies, via both legal and illegal means (the boundaries blur a lot over there anyway). I bought an Android-based stick from Alibaba a few years ago that plugged into HDMI and worked fantastically. Computing power and abilities have come on tremendously since so I can imagine how well this would work for high quality video.

The portability of computing continues. Take anywhere, do anything.

Yet TVs still ship with crappy and slow interfaces for some reason.

They're getting better, but still a mixed bag. The menu interface on my new Vizio is perfectly fine, but the Netflix app is actually nicer than Apple TV. The Amazon app, however, is a UX nightmare, that looks like some kind of very old Android UI and it doesn't even work with the TV's keyboard remote.

I'd rather see less features, but more polished and faster interfaces. You'll be plugging your devices anyway.

It's like car stereos - just let me plug AUX cable and we are square for next 10 years.

The flatscreen producers would probably prefer you came back every 2 years to buy a new TV with updates to their OS, instead of just every 10 years.

Sure, but unless they stop supporting external hardware, nobody is going to. It's kind of like embedded GPS in cars; it's cool at first, but nobody actually pays Garmin and Tomtom the ridiculous fee for map updates, they just use the slightly crappier old ones.

I'm still hoping the smart TV thing will turn out to be a brief fad, and we can all get back to just buying a dumb screen that other things can be plugged into.

The software on TVs I've experienced is universally awful, my parent's one is particularly bad - you can go and make a cup of coffee in the time it takes for the Netflix app to start. When I heard that I bought them a FireTV stick and haven't looked back.

I'm surprised there isn't a Rockbox for TVs yet.

There are some projects making baby-steps but I'm not sure how far they got.

For Samsung TVs the SamyGO project can do some stuff - http://www.samygo.tv/ - but it's more about hacking the existing firmware than making an open replacement.

You hope? Why do you expect this to be a fad in the very end.

Oh I also think TV's should all be about we glamouring for the resolution. Seems 4K is here to win.

I hope the same.

TV, as pretty much every device, should be as dumb as cables .. must be reliable and work with pretty much anything that it's plugged to, no matter what that is

Stupid licensing will prevent this, I'm afraid.

I have a nVidia Shield TV plugged in to my 4K Smart TV that I do almost everything on, but I still have to use the smart TV app for Amazon Instant since Amazon stubbornly refuses to release it for stock Android.

In an upturn, everyone is collaborative. In a downturn, everyone builds silos...

You could by a little case to hold your Shield, Chromecast, Alexaplug, Applecore, etc, that connect to your TV.

> downloading 40GB takes too long; whereas streaming is popular

Um, what? If you can stream 4K media in real time, by definition you are able to download the file in at least the media's run time.

That is: you're only spending ≤30 minutes to download a 4K TV show episode if you can also stream it.

Pretty sure that's what he or she meant by "too long." Not many people want to wait 30 minutes to watch something for 30 minutes.

For anyone currently downloading non-4K media, with pipes fast enough to stream live 4K, it's likely a non-issue.

For people not currently downloading media, the discussion is irrelevant:

> downloading 40GB takes too long; whereas streaming is popular.

Streaming the media would take (at best) just as long as downloading it.

What I'm after is something that can run Kodi (xbmc) which links to a NAS for its media. Running Netflix is a nice to have. What devices are out there that I can use for this purpose?

At the moment I have a fairly heavy htpc running Windows, but I have more tvs that I would like to use for similar purposes.

Edit: Bonus if it can do 4k video, but 1080p minimum is a must.

Raspberry PI has pretty much what you're looking for. I one set up exactly for this purpose.

I've been thinking about a raspberry pi for this purpose but I'd prefer something already packaged up (even if it was a pi underneath).

Once the case, wireless adapter, and a few other items are added in to make the Raspberry Pi 2 function as a nice HTPC it comes out to about $100. The same cost for much less hardware.

I only used a Pi (1B) (20$) 4GB SD Card (5$?) case (6$) and hdmi cable (0.5$) My TV has HDMI CEC built in which means my tv remote works with the OSMC / Kodi / etc install. This gets me to a total of 31.5$ for my full HD supporting mediacenter :) (the case is even optional since it sits on the back of my TV, out of sight)

http://www.xbian.org/

XBian is a small, fast and lightweight media center distribution for the Raspberry Pi, CuBox-i, Hummingboard and many more devices to come. It is based on a minimal Debian and therefore offers much of the same freedom as Debian offers.

Very simple to install and get running.

If I'm not mistaken, one or more of the previous generation Roku devices uses the same SoC as the Raspberry Pi.

We have a Roku 1 and a Roku 3, and they are both great for the price. The $50 Roku 1 is attached to an old but "too good to throw away" Sony Trinitron CRT, and the Roku 3 is on our bedroom TV, a 27" Vizio LCD. They both stream via WiFi with no issues (480p on the 1, 1080p on the 3).

I did have a couple of RasPis running OSMC before we went with the Roku devices, and apart from issues with the initial setup, the Pis worked great. The Roku does offer a greater selection of services so there's a lot more 3rd party streaming content available there, and the official Plex app on Roku makes it easier to stream from our media server than the Pi, but if you know what you're doing you can enable uPnP on OSMC and local streaming mostly works fine. You can also run emulators on the Pi on top of OSMC, which is great for nostalgic gaming. The Roku 3 has a limited selection of games and a Wiimote-like remote, but no support for emulation that I'm aware of.

Raspberry Pi is not really good as a media player. It struggles for high quality high bit rate 1080p videos and it is limited with USB 2 and does not have gigabit ethernet.

I use an older Pi with Raspbmc (osmc) and I can stream 1080P movies just fine. The key is to 1.) Avoid streaming off a slow disk e.g. NAS, 2.) Ensure you have the necessary bandwidth to stream (no slow wifi), and 3.) Pass DTS audio to your receiver for decoding so your PI isn't doing double duty for audio/video.

It is also worth looking at NFS if you use a NAS. I have been able to stream movies over terrible Wifi by switching from Samba to NFS. This wasn't with a Pi though.

Initially, I tried this setup..

    disk [usb]-> router <-[wifi]-> raspB+ <- tv

but it wasn't good for streaming videos over the network. The router was the problem.

so when we upgraded to rasp2, I tried this setup..

    disk [usb]-> raspB+ <-[eth]-> router <-[wifi]-> rasp2

..and it's been working like that, flawless, for almost a year so far.

The raspB+ shares the media collection over upnp, so we can consume it from pretty much everywhere on the house, and the rasp2 consumes using upnp so when can control it remotely.

With a combination of these apps, you can do pretty much everything remotely from your phone..

- upnp: https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdid=org.droidupnp

- torrents: https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdid=org.sugr.gearshi...

- run stuff: https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdid=com.littlebyteso...

Now I just need a good radio support .. any ideas?

It streams 1080p h264 just fine, haven't had a single issue yet.

The only movie so far I've had problems with was a raw Blu-Ray rip of Pixar's Up that I streamed from my NAS. It has some crazy high bitrates and just refused to play smoothly even with all caches turned up to 11.

But that's the only one from hundreds of movies I've tested.

My Raspberry Pi 2 is working great as a media player. I threw OSMC on it (a Linux distribution specifically for Kodi with specific support for Pi's) and it is essentially flawless. It has no problem with high bit rate H264 videos. The lack of gigabit Ethernet isn't an issue. 100Mb Ethernet can easily stream raw Blu-Ray video (not that I've tried that with the Pi 2).

Second this.

We also use it as a upnp-server to stream (over usb wifi) music/movies to the kids room.

Plus the kids run emulation-station[0] on _top_ of OSMC to play games --we had a hell of fun playing 4 players games.

[0] http://emulationstation.org/

Not really true for Raspberry Pi 2. I'm running it with Kodi@OpenELEC next to my TV, it's set-up to connect to NFS via WiFi served by one of the SOHO Mikrotik routers. On the other end Synology DS215j NAS is cabled in via 1Gbit. No hiccup on 1080p/720p whatsoever despite WiFi choker, but haven't tried anything bitrate-crazy yet.

(For physical media I still just use a PS3.)

Currently the Broadcom GL driver and Webkit2 do not play well together. http://dabase.com/blog/Webkit_on_Rpi2/

I got burnt by this.

There's the CuBoxTV (http://cuboxtv.com/).

I'm shocked how expensive that is. Cool find though. Didn't know it existed.

Yeah, it's hard to find that much I/O, full Linux support, and a decent case on anything cheaper, though (let me know if you are aware of something I'm missing).

I run XBMC on Nexus Player, which costs less than $50.

You can install Kodi from Google Play store. It can smoothly play 1080p videos from NAS or USB. It also runs most of the video add-ons available for XBMC.

Australia tax hits again. Seems to be $130 here, but I think that's going to be the rough price I pay for any device I go for. The addition of chromecast is nice.

You also have the option of Amazon FireTV or Fire Stick. http://kodi.wiki/view/Amazon_Fire_TV You can enjoy netflix, amazon prime, hulu, etc and install Kodi. Although you have to go through an extra step to install it. Amazon removed Kodi from its store officially.

It otherwise plays exactly like an HTPC. Everything I threw at it played fine.

The only downside is that it does not support HD audio passthrough.

http://kodi.wiki/view/Amazon_Fire_TV

I have not been impressed with mine, slow and buggy. It also is not a fit for the NAS requirement.

What do you mean? Are you referring to playing stuff off of a NAS?

Our two Fire Sticks play of our NAS just fine. We even push video downloads in Kodi back to the NAS no problem. It took about an hour from pulling out of the box, to installing Kodi, configuring my streaming services and pointing it to our shared folders on the NAS.

OK, I didn't know about Kodi.

Another downside of the FireTV stick and a dealbreaker to me is that Android cannot adapt the refresh rate to the frame rate of the video. Many movies are 24fps, so a multiple of 24Hz is required on the HDMI port for smooth playback. It's one of those things you can't unsee once you're aware of it.

Maybe they've fixed it, but it was like this half a year ago when I had a FireTV stick.

There are a bunch of atom-based devices for a hundred dollars or so. One of the ones that looks tempting for me is the Kangaroo -- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883722... -- $15 more than the chromebit, and you get twice the storage space, two usb ports, one of which is usb 3, and an all in all more interesting device.

That looks interesting, but it's out of stock in Australia at t he moment. It does say Intel HD graphics, but does that mean 1080p?

Yep, the video chip in it handles 1080p with no problem, and should handle 4k even.

The Kangaroo is unavailable in Australia?

Our crocs ate it

Not the dingos?

Or is that just babies?

Maybe it was a dropbear?

Intel HD graphics is the GPU chipset. I have a tablet with the same Z8500 CPU with a 2560x1440 screen and it's really smooth. Supposedly it can handle 4K out of the HDMI-port but this is not something I have tried yet.

That kangaroo looks awesome; I wanted to get three, but it seems NewEgg doesn't ship them to the netherlands?

If [1] is true (and I have no particular reason to believe otherwise) you can get an 8" tablet with Cherry Trail SoC, expansion ports, acceptable screen resolution and HDMI out for $0.11 less than a Chromebit.

[1] http://www.gearbest.com/tablet-pcs/pp_252625.html

Thanks for posting this - that is interesting. Have you used this tablet? I found reviews on its predecessor, but not much on this one (other than apparent sponsored reviews).

Not yet. I succumbed to temptation and ordered one though.

I've used the cheapest celeron nuc for this. Has built in IR, just add a usb drive / laptop drive and memory. Not much more expensive than a dedicated box here in Aus, and much faster.

It's worth noting the Intel Next Unit of Computing (NUC) units only do HDMI 1.4a, which can only do 1080p (not 4K). The newer (4th gen/Haswell, 5th gen/Broadwell, 6th gen/Skylake) units can do 4K output over DisplayPort 1.2. They're also pricier (IIRC, they're kits, and Wi-Fi, SSD/HDD, and OS all have to be purchased separately).

At this price point you'd probably be better served by an Intel Compute Stick, although the current ones only do 1080p HDMI 1.4a output. Rumor is that the next generation ones might do 4K though.

Hark! The new Skylake NUCs are out! That must have happened within the last week or two.

I'd say Vero but it is out of stock: https://osmc.tv/product/vero/

I don't know if it wasn't successful or they are just making another version.

If you haven't tried Plex I'd suggest at least giving it a go, I made the switch from XBMC early this year and haven't looked back once. It absolutely left XBMC in the dust for me - the UI, Transcoding, Performance and the option to have it run as a server/client model are all fantastic and pretty much work flawlessly.

That's not a bad idea actually, I'll have a better look at it. Turns out my NAS supports running plex server, and my main samsung TV has a plex client app. I'm loading in all of my library and will give it a go. Cheers.

I picked up a $50 Nexus Player (Android TV OS) last month for this purpose. It replaced a first generation Raspberry Pi B that was actually pretty decent as a Kodi box (I used the Xbian distro).

So far I'm really happy with the Nexus Player. I like that it gets Android TV apps (like Kodi and Moonlight for game streaming from my desktop) and also supports Google Cast. It also has a usb port that supports things like keyboards, ethernet, external disks, etc with a usb hub.

I also strongly considered the Nvidia Shield TV (also Android TV OS). It's $200 with a lot better hardware, getting good reviews, supports 4k, and apparently can decode H265 in hardware.

Do you know if there's any way to use nexus player with steam? I mean like their steam link device, or is that completely proprietary solution?

Not to my knowledge but the nVidia Shield TV (more expensive than Nexus Player but better hardware and still runs Android TV) lets you stream from a PC running a supported nVidia GPU.

I've been very tempted to pick one up even if I don't use the game streaming function too often. It'll be a nice bump up from the Chromecast and I'll be able to occasionally fire up a game on the PC and play it on the living room TV (albeit at 1920x1080 instead of 2560x1440)

Moonlight can do it. YMMV

http://moonlight-stream.com/

As ixnu mentioned - I use the Moonlight Android app (http://moonlight-stream.com/) paired with Geforce Experience running on my Windows box (Geforce GTX 750 Ti video card) for Steam games.

To be honest though - my Moonlight streaming experience hasn't been as smooth as using a device that can actually run the Steam client (Linux/Mac/Windows). But Moonlight is still really cool.

The Shield Android TV has just had a price reduction to 179. After trying Chromeboxes, Chromecasts, and vanilla PC's, it's the closest to streaming nirvana - when it works.

The Shield TV runs Kodi as well as any PC. Nvidia's gaming ecosystem runs very well either from the cloud gaming grid or local PC. They deserve credit for taking the platform well beyond what Google could do with it.

However, my worry is that Google will abandon the Android TV OS in favor of Chromecasters and sticks and leave Nvidia to pick up where the Nexus Player has failed. The Android TV OS interface is simple enough, but there are glaring issues that continue to frustrate. Simple things like customizing the launcher are impossible. Also, there are persistent bugs at the OS level like a flakey ethernet driver and unreliable voice commands.

Why did you leave the Raspberry?

Also, I have similar requirements as you (mostly want to play media off my NAS through XBMC or any other player with sufficient format support), but I want to use a remote rather than mouse and keyboard - is this possible with the Nexus Player or is there another good solution for this?

There's an iOS app where you can control XBMC from your smart phone. It's pretty awesome.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/official-kodi-remote/id52048...

My first generation Pi was significantly slower at Kodi (things like menu traversal, library updates, API consumption, etc) than a second generation Pi (I tried a friend's). So I was already considering $35-40 for a new Pi when I saw the sale price on the Nexus Player. But the bigger deal for me was Google Cast support. I wanted a single device that could run Kodi and also that the family could cast Youtube, Soundcloud, etc using phones.

Regarding remote - the Nexus Player comes with a simple, bluetooth remote (as does the Shield TV now apparently). It works great for simple Kodi interactions but doesn't work for everything (the biggest one that I've noticed so far is the lack of a context button). But as thoughtpalette mentions - I use Android and iOS remote apps when I need more control over Kodi (Yatse is what I use on Android). Also there is an Android TV control app for Android phones that has the same buttons as the simple Nexus Player bluetooth remote.

Check out the Remix Mini

The Raspberry Pi 2 is a great candidate for that. I'm running OpenELEC and it streams IPTV, music from a NAS server I have at home, links from my phone - and the performances are fine.

I use a RaspberryPi that runs Raspbian and mount my file server's UPnP media directory using djmount. Then start videos on my TV using the OMX Remote app from Android devices (OMX Remote plays videos using the omxplayer app on the RPi). I had to increase the gpu memory on the RaspberryPI so that all my videos would play and once in a while kill omxplayer processes but other then that it works fine. And you go this route, you could still install Kodi if you need the plugins.

Fire Stick ($39) will do ALL of that except for 4k. We haven't used anything in the house except Netflix and Kodi for a year. It's a wonderful little stick. Too bad Amazon had to be an ass and remove Kodi from their store (you just sideload it instead now).

if you're looking for ARM/Android, look for a unit with a Rockchip RK3288 processor, and 2GB Ram. that'll be plenty to run Kodi without problems.

if you want Intel, go for one of those Intel NUC boxes, they're small, cheap, and can boot OpenELEC (Kodi distro) if you modify the bios.

I'm trying to figure out what in the world people are going to use these for. Single-app kiosk? Sure, but that's gotta be a tiny market. TV streaming box? Maybe, but it's not clear to me that it really offers anything I care about that isn't already done by Chromecast/Roku.

I dunno. It's kind of a cool idea, but it feels like a solution in search of a problem.

I think there is a demographic of casual internet users who might be interested in this product. It's inexpensive and occupies little space, one need only provide peripherals and a monitor. It runs ChromeOS, which is reputed to be very secure (except from Google) and easy to use. Yes, the kiosk application seems of dubious value, if only because people tend to prefer touchscreen kiosks. But I don't believe you are correct that this solves no problem. Where before one might buy a $300 HP tower for one's grandmother, this product is a less expensive and possibly superior alternative.

You can get a touch panel and put it over the screen. A lot of them just work with X server. Connect to the usb port and you're done.

I don't know that ChromeOS uses X server (I know almost nothing about it, in fact). But by the time you've paid for the additional hardware, it may be the case that it's cheaper to buy a tablet or a professional-grade IDS display.

ChromeOS doesn't use X11 any more. It uses a custom graphics stack called Ozone[1] that runs on top of libDRM on Linux and uses features such as hardware overlays which are common now that X11 knows nothing about.

[1] https://www.chromium.org/developers/design-documents/ozone

Although, cheap computers are certainly not hard to come by. A Thinkpad T60 is about $60 used, and its performance is similar to this device.

Maybe so, but I imagine one's grandmother would respond with more glee to receive this sleek little dongle than a clunky used Thinkpad T60. I'm not arguing that anyone in particular should go out and buy this product, only that some people are likely to do so of their own accord.

This I what I'm thinking. Good solution for someone that is not really into computers and technology.

Some (older) people have biases towards laptops (since their experience is limited mostly to older crappy laptops) and just suggesting that a laptop would be better than their current, ancient, desktop is met with refusal and denial.

I know this situation since my mother falls into this camp. When she last moved I tried to convince her to buy a laptop, but she refused. Later I got her Chromebook which she likes on travels, but still refused to use at home, but continuously complains how slow her desktop is.

I'm seriously considering if getting one of these for her would fix the situation. She could still use her old keyboard, mouse and display, but I bet performance would go through the roof (compared to her old PC), but I don't know how compatible things like printers and scanners are with this and would running mouse, keyboard, printer, scanner and external HDD off of same USB port introduce some bottlenecking

I am definitely buying one of these for my parents/grandparents when they need a new computer. All they do is use Facebook/YouTube/Skype and sometimes editing and printing some documents. More often than not these devices require next to 0 maintenance for both software and hardware, which is a major plus when all they buy is very cheap Windows computers which require constant maintenance on both sides.

My mom loves her chromebook, but uses it plugged in to a monitor, mouse and keyboard 100% of the time.

Remember WebTV? It seemed like they were pretty popular at one point, if perhaps not so profitable.

WebTV had a clunky UI and was limited to an SD TV screen. 1080p screens are pretty commonplace now. Turning your living room TV into a multi-use computer with a wireless mouse/trackpad unit (about 30 bucks) could be a good investment for some households.

It seems like it could be a cheap videoconferencing unit. Take a spare monitor, slap this in the back, add a webcam, and use video Hangouts. Everyone could have one at their desk for not much money. We have a custom solution we use in the office that I'm sure is way more expensive.

Personally I'm using a similar form factor atom-based stick in a body-worn computer to handle animatronics and lighting for a costuming project. The Raspberry Pi isn't powerful enough to handle the tasks that I need to do, and the $100 price is a lot cheaper than industrial boards.

For a home-based solution, it seems like a solution for non-hackers to set up a computer for the kids, etc that they don't have to worry about. For schools, it's a cheap way to turn surplus monitors into computers for student use. For an office type layout, I can see these as being useful for people who don't need more than google apps and the like. If there's a problem, a reboot will fix it, if it's more than that, the help desk person can just pull a replacement out of their pocket. Tiny's pretty useful when you need to deal with the logistics of a few hundred desktops throughout their lifespan.

Digital signage could be a big market. Right now, the TV screens in an airport or rail station are massively expensive to wire up and maintain because their video feeds are all computed centrally and distributed over wires. This could let LaGuardia just slap a bunch of consumer TVs together and build a web app to deliver the content over a dedicated WiFi network.

Groupon wrote the Greenscreen[1] app for Chromecast for precisely this application.

[1] https://github.com/groupon/greenscreen

How good is it as a gaming device?

The killer could be the possibility to turn it into a Steam machine.

Well, it has 2GBs of RAM so (given you can install a different OS) and that will be the limiting factor for the vast majority of recently released games. You might be able use it for some retro or minimal games though. There are plenty of alternatives, which I was surprised by, on Amazon around $100-150 with Windows installed[0] so you might have some luck.

[0] http://www.amazon.co.uk/Intel-Compute-Stick-Windows-Upgrade/...

I mostly agree that this is a solution in search of a problem, but I have two problems these things solve for me...

Not relevant for this one, but I've been keeping my eye on this market since it has cheap x86 devices for doing dynamic malware analysis on real hardware, rather than VMs which can be detected. Sadly I haven't seen anything with PXE or Intel's network boot tech, which would make life a lot easier, but maybe I can flash one.

I might get this one to manage app store uploads/SaaS deployments for some side projects, since having all my key material isolated on a totally separate computer would make me feel a lot better that other people won't get as easily hacked if I mess up the security of my dev machine.

If you already have a keyboard, monitor and mouse or can get them cheap you get a cheap Chrome PC.

I suppose that's a market. Google isn't Apple. Not every product is an attempt at a revolution.

If you think traditional touch kiosk then the market is probably small. But think digital signage. I work at a small university and we have digital signs going up everywhere. We see them for directions, coffee shop menus/pricing, cafe menu/pricing, dining hall menus and the commons areas is littered with them. The digital signage marketplace is expected to be ~$23 billion by 2020.

I think it solves the problem of having to carry around a screen, mouse and keyboard with your everywhere. It turns your portable computing device from an all-in one, to the bare essentials. So, if all of places you use your laptop at all have these things (e.g. home/office/cafe), then you can carry your computer in your pocket, and plug-n-play when you get to the destination.

The pricing is ridiculous. In Germany it costs 120€. I really don't get why Google is constantly making their products so unaffordable here. That makes it slightly more expensive than the Intel Compute Stick with Win 8.1 which goes for 110€

Exactly, they are £90 here in the UK.

For £120 I could build a mITX machine that would destroy this. (http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/9LffwP) - Granted it's not as small, but who really cares?

For £200 I could buy a Chromebook, but instead I bought a ASUS X205TA for £85 from eBay on sale (I had vouchers etc, but even without them it would've been £130). Yes the trackpad isn't as good, but the build quality is okay and it runs Windows 10 absolutely fine for what I use it for.

>Granted it's not as small, but who really cares?

Isn't one of the primary points of this product the extreme size? It seems like an unreasonable comparison if you dismiss that.

Somehow either tech companies think we (europe) are made of money or something about our tax/import system is wrong.

This here is an absurdly better deal: http://www.amazon.de/X8-Tablet-Desktop-Windows-Android/dp/B0... It comes with a touchscreen and all the ports you'd ever want.

There's a 15-25% VAT in most European countries as far as I know while state sales tax is added on top of the purchase price here in the US. That brings it closer to parity.

Adjusting for 19% vat and one euro = usd 1.07 that would make the price EUR 95. It's annoying when the prices get jacked up. I guess they are probably giving a middle man some cut but it's unnecessary these days. Just sell direct and don't bother discriminating against non US persons.

For us prices add 7-9% sales tax to the $85.

I think there's a lot more involved in international sales and logistics than "discriminating against non US persons"

There is only one shop in DE that offers the Chromebit right now, I suppose it is imported. You should wait until Chromebit is officially announced in Germany before drawing conclusions regarding the price.

You can get those Rockchip HDMI sticks for $50 on aliexpress, shipping included (RK3288 ones support 4K). They usually ship with Android 4.4 these days. But for $70-$80 you can get a stick with Atom Z3735F 2GB/32GB and have full desktop OS, Windows or Linux.

You will need to pay import tax + handling charge though. Don't know about the actual prices in Germany, but in UK this would cost you another ~$30 on top of the Aliexpress price.

You're right. That may ruin it for some. It differs a lot from country to country, I guess. Where I'm at the moment there is no import tax on <150 EUR items, and handling is 1 EUR.

If it supports both chromecast and some reasonable open protocol screen sharing, I'd really like to upgrade my chromecast stick. While I'm usually happy with android/chrome integration, there are times when I want to cast some app, or even someone else's itunes. Currently that's not possible.

If this can destroy some garden walls, I'll be happy to pay.

Bootloader? Can we use our own?

Network settings? Is this like Chromecast where they try to prevent the user from changing them (gateway, DNS, etc.)?

boot process: coreboot plus depthcharge, like every Chrome OS device (since 2013 or so).

network settings: like every Chrome OS device it defaults to DHCP with whatever comes through that (incl. DNS), but can be manually configured.

I might have a use case for this. I bought a Toshiba Chromebook 2 this year and I am surprised how much I use it for work since it supports SSH shells, and my web based writing setup.

I have a nice 1080p monitor sitting on my desk that I seldom use. With this device it could morph into an always setup desktop version of my Chromebook. I mostly just use my laptops when I need IntelliJ for coding tasks, otherwise "lesser" devices like my iPad and Chromebook meet my needs.

I wish that every time people wrote "use case", they would ask themselves if removing "case" changes anything. Example:

I might have a use for this.

Could be useful for a conference room TV. Slides, hangouts video, demos, etc.

For anyone confused/interested like I was, this is an ARM device.

Has Netflix/Chromium worked out a way to play on linux-based ARM devices yet?

Netflix works on the ARM Samsung Chromebook

That's with the chrome (not chromium) DRM, right?

Kudos to Google for building this one, but I've gotta wonder what drove the decision to use Rockchip. I'll be very interested if firmware flashing tools / kernel sources become available for this.

It's the same RK3288 chip as the one in the ASUS Chromebook Flip and Hisense Chromebook. All three devices are low priced. It's likely that price drove the decision to try Rockchip.

Right, turns out my Rockchip knowledge is very outdated. Nothing on eLinux.org about RK3288 which is a bit of a worry.

It's veyron_mickey, supported by upstream coreboot (https://github.com/coreboot/coreboot/tree/master/src/mainboa...)

As for Linux, other veyron devices (that's the RK3288 family of Chrome OS systems) are already supported in upstream (look for veyron on http://lxr.free-electrons.com/source/arch/arm/boot/dts/), so I expect that this will follow as soon as the Linux development process allows.

It's a pity that it needs a power adapter though, with the standard USB port not sufficing for the needed power. That ruins the feng shui.

My Samsung TV has a USB port specced for connecting an HDD (for recordings and such) This port provides my Raspberry Pi running OSMC with enough power to work flawlessly.

That, and I hate that Google's product shots always omit even the USB port, much less showing the power supply in action.

It's really deceptive advertising... :/

This is great.

For the last several years, I have had a ChromeBox connected to my tv. If lets me play amazon video, netflix, regular hulu (non-plus), nickelodeon, and just about anything out there that doesn't require silverlight. In another room, I have plex serving up all my local media. A k400 wireless keyboard/trackpad combo makes it work anywhere.

Prior to that, I spent a lot of time messing with android sticks, either with android or putting linux on them. Neither Hulu or Amazon prime work on Android, and if you switched to linux, you couldn't get flash to work.

So while I probably won't be replacing my chromebox anytime soon (actually, I also like the better performance of having a wired network connection), I could see putting something like this on a monitor in my office. And if I want something more featured, I'm sure someone will get linux working on here ala crosh.

Also see the $99 Lenovo Stick which runs Windows 10: http://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-ideacentre-Stick-Computer-90F20...

and the MeegoPad T01 / T02: http://www.amazon.com/Meegopad-Pre-Installed-Activated-Windo...

Looks like they have the same insides.

How much control can you get in one of these things?

Are the drivers open source?

Could you install GNU/Linux and get a full FOSS system?

Since Chromebit also has an USB port, could you boot an untrusted desktop or laptop with it?

See also: the Intel Compute Stick (RRP 150USD) which runs x86 windows, useful for basically the same scenarios but also Steam in-home streaming.

Do you know if one has to buy Windows separately for the Intel Compute Stick?

IIRC it has two SKUs, one with windows bundled and more RAM; one with Ubuntu bundled and less RAM.

I heard it wasnt that great (http://gizmodo.com/intel-compute-stick-review-don-t-buy-it-1...) any personal experience?

I have one, no complaints whatsoever for streaming 1080p hi10p over wifi-n with kodi or MPC-HC.

I would agree with the article when it complains that (A) streaming requires good wifi, and (B) an Atom isn't as powerful a desktop workstation as an i3/i5. They seem self-evident to me and as an HTPC i'm quite happy with it.

Steam streaming was my specific use case, so now that the Steam Link is out, i might have purchased a cheaper arm device and attempted to port or RE its software.

Cool, thanks.

I was thinking about buying one for parents but the whole bluetooth/wifi at the same time having problems spooked me, I will probably pick one up!

I also have one, and it's great for office tasks. Nice to be able to fit a functional PC in your pocket. Windows 10 runs decently on it. The Gizmodo review was negative because you couldn't play games on it. It's definitely not a games machine, although I have been able to play World of Warcraft on it.

Asus' VivoStick [1] would be a better choice since it is uses Intel's new "Cherry Trail" SoC rather than the slow "Bay Trail" SoC found in Intel's own Compute Stick.

[1] https://www.asus.com/Stick-PCs/VivoStick-PC-TS10/

Couldn't something like this replace a networked based OS (Windows) that use a dumb network base, keyboard, mouse and screen in a corporate environment? AKA: VDI

You could walk around with this computer stick and plug in wherever there's a keyboard, mouse and monitor...

I wonder how much it shares with the cromecast, and whether (possibly) being able to hack at this, will open up the chromecast a little. Should be interesting to watch, since I expect there might be a few spare chromecasts lying around now ;-)

According to the people who rooted the chromecast a couple years ago -- https://blog.exploitee.rs/2013/chromecast-exploiting-the-new... -- the chromecast is using a modified Google TV base. So any hacking between the two platforms wouldn't be easily transferred. Even with the chromecast 2, there probably won't be easily transferable exploits as that is using a Marvell chip at its core.

The Chromebit is similar to the Asus C201 ("Flip") Chromebook.

Chromecast has very different lineage.

>it’s a pretty unassuming device that’s mostly meant to disappear behind your screen anyway (hence why I’m not sure why there is an orange version)

One reason for having an orange one is it's easier to spot when it's time to unplug.

I wonder as USB-C gains popularity, will we see a USB-C stick?

I have wondered this myself. Would make a pretty interesting next-gen Mac Mini.

Lowering prices and adding form factors is great, but for me, I kind of wish they the chrome project had started immediately after rather than before the smartphone revolution. I think they got locked into "The Web is Enough." Smartphones reminded us that apps matter too.

Chrombooks sell well, apparently, but I rarely see them in the world.

I just think it's past time for a new desktop OS. Windows is not a great option for most home users. OSX's job is to sell a premium apple product. I wish there was an android of laptops and I think chrome OS would be doing it if not for the bad timing.

It might also be the a solution for TV.

What "app" are you saying matters that couldn't be built as a chrome app? It's just a different platform. It could be argued it's a better platform than most operating systems and more similar to the smartphone app model than not.

I still have faith in chrome os as an idea. I really believe most personal machines will be front-ends only. There is no reason I should need more computing power than it takes to display things on my screen.

I look forward to the day I have a passive box running git and ssh and I can run a terminal and editor in a browser tab wherever whenever I need to from a usb stick. In fact I don't know why that stick couldn't also be my phone.

While this is surely interesting, it sort of ignores the point of what a computer is. Look at the Raspberry Pi for example. It affords a computer for $20-$30 or less than half this price, for something that simply computes without the peripherals.

If someone needs a computer for free they can go to the library. While the 'Chrome OS' might be more powerful than a Pi, you would never know since all it does is connect to the Internet. The amount of storage is also irrelevant since most users won't figure out how to store anything on the stick and flash storage is approaching $0-$2 in price.

That's so cool. Link to the product: http://goo.gl/T1km6m

Thanks for using an affiliate link to Amazon!

Non-affiliate link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0181JTPCU/

It's interesting that after Amazon stopped selling the Chromecast Google is still letting them sell the Chromebit.

Why? Amazon doesn't have a direct competitor with a "computer on a thumbdrive with an HDMI connector". Well, they do, but it's sold as "media center on a thumbdrive with an HDMI connector" and that's what a Chromecast is.

Likely because Amazon has no competitive product (yet).

ossreality, you appear to be hellbanned.

The main question is how hard would it be to install a proper Linux on this device. ChromeOS is useless.

Can I install Arch on this?

Probably not easily, if at all. Additionally, it's ARM so you'd be limited to what's available in Arch Linux ARM. There's a Linux version of the very similar Intel Compute Stick for about $110 that you may be interested in.

Honestly, you don't want the Linux version of the compute stick. It's got a gig of RAM and 8 gigs of flash. Getting a windows stick for the increase in RAM and flash, and then doing a nuke and pave seems like a much easier route.

The Asus Flip has very similar hardware (same chip) and it runs Arch ARM. http://kmkeen.com/c100p-tweaks/index.html

So almost definitely yes...

How on earth is that better then a raspberry pi?

can you wipe and install linux?

> almost what everyone though the Chromecast was

That review sure didn't sound very positive lol

A few ideas how to make it better:

  - include a small screen so I can still do stuff even if I don't have TV at hand
  - use touch screen so I can use it without mouse / keyboard too
  - use Android instead of Chrome OS so I can play games with it
  - while you are at it, can this thing make phone calls too?

In other words, why not just make it simple to plug an Android smartphone to peripherals (screen, mouse, keyboard)? That would be much more valuable to me.

Also, why is there just one USB port? If I were to use such a stick the first thing I would add to it is a separate USB hub just so I can use it... why do I need to carry two pieces of HW around?

EDIT: reformatting.

EDIT2: can someone explain the downvotes? My point is that I don't see a niche that couldn't be better served by a smartphone, especially if you could plug in the peripherals.

To answer your EDIT2 - I suspect it's because your main / original post was somewhere between not-funny, and not-useful. That is, you described a device that already exists (a mobile phone) in a roundabout way, and seem to be demanding that this device should be yet another mobile phone -- rather than considering the features of this particular device as delivered.

It's possible that neither ASUS or Google considered the option of making a mobile phone, but this seems unlikely. It's equally unlikely they could develop the same kind of CPU/AV grunt along with the features you want and still ship at USD$85.

To your other questions - there's one USB port because this is intended to plug into something else (specifically using HDMI), and not have a deskload worth of cruft plugged in to it. As observed in the article most people will use BT mouse & keyboard. Network (802.11ac) is built in. What use more USB?

Thanks for the clarification on downvotes, I guess you are right.

As far as BT mice and keyboards goes, well, I wouldn't want to give them to my grandmother. What happens when battery goes out? Yes, she could always put it in charger, but why is this any better than regular USB cable then? But I recognize that some people like (and use) BT peripherals, so there might be a market for it.

I agree with your other comments, I'm sure my idea is not unique. If I'm not mistaken, MS is working in this direction (and has some advantage here because their OS is more desktop oriented anyway).

All good. FWIW I have neither downvote rights on HN, nor insight into the way other HNers think - so it's all quite speculative.

WRT bluetooth peripherals -- I used to feel this way about mouse, keyboard, car, and in-one-ear headset. My position on all has changed 180° over the past year or two. Not so much the grandmother conundrum, but the performance/latency, bother to charge or replace batteries, and general swankiness.

For gaming apparently BT headsets (and presumably mouse/keyboard) are too laggy, but for workplace convenience it's hard to go past them. Buy your grandmother a spare set of batteries for the third drawer, and consider that my rinky little Logitech 2 x AAA mouse is running on original batteries some 14 months on. These things are amazingly power-conservative. And even just one less thing to plug in when setting up a laptop (I travel a fair bit) is hugely appreciated. I simply wouldn't countenance a return to a wired USB mouse now for business use. Similar experience with BT headsets, and in-car use -- difficult to consider not using that tech now.

MS may well be working towards this area -- it's not a novel idea, certainly, and I recall about fifteen years ago people touting the benefits of thin client workstations you could carry around with you. Unfortunately keyboards and screens had to be provided at the other end, and few workplaces considered this convenient (compared to, presumably, just issuing laptops to mobile users, outright declining a BYOD approach, and/or enforcing a SOE). It's all one big cycle.

This isn't slashdot. Why should posts be funny or useful to receive karma? This is a discussion forum.

Furthermore, Google is in the phone business so why shouldn't they provide this when it is essentially the same cost on the market.

  > Google is in the phone business so why shouldn't they
  > provide this when it is essentially the same cost on
  > the market.

I shall politely observe that I believe you have managed to squeeze two false premises into one sentence.

I own a 'google phone', and it has 'LG' carved into the back. Yes, a couple of years old now, but wikipedia[1] will advise that: "In 2011, 96% of Google's revenue was derived from its advertising programs." Maybe the 'phone business' has improved markedly for them in recent times, but I suspect not.

The other is 'same cost' -- it most certainly is not.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google#Advertising

Given that ASUS manufactures this device, what Google has provided here is the software. The main thing they've contributed here is the name of the piece, being 'Chromebit' for 'Chrome OS.' Perhaps the original commenter was stating that he would rather see an 'Android bit'.

As for the cost, it's possible to get Android phones in the $20 range from a cellphone boutique store without a contract.

More to my point, I would never buy one of these.

> My point is that I don't see a niche that couldn't be better served by a smartphone,

Digital signage.

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