Comment by jancborchardt | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jancborchardt | Hacker News Reader

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Hey there – I’m interaction designer at Nextcloud and did the exterior design of the box (little of the interior as that was indeed done by WDLabs).

We’re working on improvements to the box and the bends of the cables are something we take into account. Also the power cable sticking out of the back.

As written elsewhere, it’s a reference device, which was then also used by other open source projects like OSMC: https://osmc.tv/2016/08/announcing-the-osmc-pidrive/

So being a fully open source project we are happy about any contributions, especially if you are knowledgeable in that field. In any case I will forward your recommendations to the team, so thanks a lot already! (I’m sure they also thought about these things so I’ll let you know.) :)

Look for right angle usb connectors. They're pretty useful when you're dealing with size constraints like this. I'm honestly kind of surprised that Western Digital didn't have a supplier that you could call up, custom cables seem like a natural thing for them.

Yeah, actually regarding the power plug which sticks out we are exploring to use a right-angled cable since lots of people mentioned it.

Also just to add to this: The Nextcloud Box is a device running Nextcloud, not our main product. :) The focus continues to be the software, which is the server and the apps for syncing.

All 100% open source at https://github.com/nextcloud – and any contributions are very welcome! :)

Shouldn't a reference device not suck? Not saying this to be a dick, but "it's a reference device" is a terrible response here.

Do you have one? If so, what exactly bothers you about it in practice?

Why the focus on the Raspberry Pi? I've got one on my desk finally after years of using OrangePi PC's in prod environments at businesses, and the Raspberry Pi just seems limited with the shared I/O and lack of support for any kind of libre stack.

Currently testing out an OrangePi Plus 2E strapped to a touchscreen to replace the all in ones we use for another product, with good results thus far.

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