The Streaming Stick Built on Firefox OS

Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8388314

This looks awesome! I bought an Amazon Fire TV Stick when they were accepting pre-orders at $19, and while it works well for that price (or even the $39 current retail price), I would much rather it be hacker-friendly. It doesn't even have a web browser! I could see using it for all sorts of additional projects, if it were more flexible...and given how much horsepower they've crammed into it (it's comparable to a decent laptop from a decade, or so, ago, and can even do 1080p video, which even modern laptops can't always do reliably), I could imagine using it for all kinds of cool stuff.

Stuff like a project dashboard that users could update from their phone or laptop, a party music playlist determined by partygoers, so many cool things a tiny little device like this could make easier (it's not the only way it can be done, but it's certainly nice having a tiny little dedicated device, and would be better for being open).

In short, this looks really cool, and I'm actually really eager to start developing for Firefox OS, even though I currently don't have any Firefox OS devices.

Edit: Reading the other HN thread about this device raises a lot of concerns about their dedication to Open Source and Open hardware. It seems to simply be a marketing lie, which is troubling, and makes me far less interested in the device (maybe not interested, at all, since I already have a proprietary HDMI dongle in the form of the Fire Stick).

In the video there is no usb cable to power the device like the chromecast or roku stick. I suppose it needs one too ? It's a shame that advertisement for these devices "lie" about it.

Update #10 [1] will please travelers: AdHoc mode allows you to use it even when you ordinarily can't get a TV stick to authenticate through the lame-o hotel wifi.

[1] https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/matchstick/matchstick-t...

I got my dad a chromecast. He's tech-illiterate, for the most part--can check his email, type in searches, but he doesn't really know where he's typing his searches. He might want a youtube video but type it into google, the url bar, youtube's search...which all work, but he's not seeing the difference.

Anyway, he loves it. He used to watch pool videos incessantly in a really bad computer chair, now he can watch them on the couch. Probably average of 3 hours per day. He had some trouble with the interface, and he kept pointing his iphone at the TV like it was a remote, when I showed him how to control it via the phone.

Anyway, any chance this is simpler from that perspective? Or should he just suck it up with the CC? (I think he's been doing fine now, honestly)

Waiting for them to ship mine. I'm looking forward to having something I can actually put my own code on.

Does any one know when this is coming out?