Did you see that?

[kolo2255]

I found this when I was browsing Internet:

http://www.alwaysinnovating.co.....dongle.htm

It seems quite similary to Raspberry Pi but much more powerful and it has less posibilities to expansion.

Expected MSRP from $49 to $99!

By my price of this device is great.

[scep]

Apart from the fact that you can't actually buy one as an individual and that it's not a PC, it is very similar, yes.

[I'm sorry but I'm getting a bit bored of "look at this, it's better/cheaper/faster/shinier  than the Pi" posts. You tend to find that the things don't actually exist.]

[grumpyoldgit]

I had to read through the blurb a couple of times but got the impression that the device does not exist yet. They've designed it and photographed a mockup but it is not in production and they themselves don't intend to manufacture it. Not sure what the USB connector would be for.

[JeremyF]

Grumpyoldgit said:


I had to read through the blurb a couple of times but got the impression that the device does not exist yet. They've designed it and photographed a mockup but it is not in production and they themselves don't intend to manufacture it. Not sure what the USB connector would be for.


The USB port as seen in one of the videos, draws power from the TV as to power the device. Unsure if such a device was produced if the USB part would be necessary, and would would just draw power from the HDMI directly (which I hear is possible)

[grumpyoldgit]

USB power from the TV. Do TVs have USB sockets?

[jamesh]

Sounds similar to the new Roku device. http://www.anandtech.com/show/.....uipped-tvs

I'm a bit suspicious about posts that refer to other devices, especially when it's the first post by someone. Smacks of advertising. I'll let this one go.

Anyway, they appear to have designed the product. Just haven't built anything but protos.

[Lynbarn]

Grumpyoldgit said:


USB power from the TV. Do TVs have USB sockets?



Mine does - I think many do these days.

[grumpyoldgit]

Having sat through more demos of software than I'd like to recall, I have a very jaded view of demonstrations. There is often sleight of hand and you can find yourself watching a mockup rather than the real thing. It was all very slick and we jumped from screen to screen with lightening speed ....... in a hotel room in Beijing.

Admittedly, there was a USB connector on that TV, but the cable fitted exactly. I'm still a little suspicious.

[grumpyoldgit]

Lynbarn said:


Grumpyoldgit said:


USB power from the TV. Do TVs have USB sockets?


Mine does - I think many do these days.


Ahhhh! My TV is over a year old and I don't have the latest gadget. I better get down to Currys and upgrade.

[Lynbarn]

Grumpyoldgit said:


Admittedly, there was a USB connector on that TV, but the cable fitted exactly. I'm still a little suspicious.



Yes, I noticed that, and you know what they say about something that seems too good to be true...

[Jongoleur]

I note that

"Always Innovating has also patented many of the innovations around the HDMI Dongle including its design. Any licensing agreement comes with Always Innovating IP umbrella."  

Thats nice for them.  I suppose they've patented circuit boards with square edges?      Perhaps they patented the very short USB power lead.  Wouldn't work with MY TV, the USB socket is much further away from the HDMI socket!

Oh - and we saw the dongle being plugged into a TV, but we didn't see that TV running anything, and in the hotel room, we saw something running something, but we didn't see the dongle in situ. A bit of video perhaps?

Smoke and mirrors, methinks.

[kolo2255]

This video showed more about this device:

http://armdevices.net/2012/01/.....mi-dongle/

P.S.

I wanted to start a substantive discussion but not to advertise anything.

[hyena]

i saw the armdevices forum blog video as well .. wasnt that impressed TBH .. its limited connectivity wise, will cost a lot more and its really targetted at TV's with no online media portal in it  ..

i'm waiting for a peek at the allwinner A10 android settop boxes when (and if)  they are around in a couple of months as in they should be cheap, decent CPU grunt 512mb RAM , potentially SATA (as its on the SOC) connectivity as well as the rest ... might put my old hacked plug iconnect (running squeezebox server/openvpn server/dlna server) in to retirement then

none of these are really in the pi's space though as they will be way more expensive, require hacking to do anything meaningfully different with (although with the A10 it should be easy) and probably dont have the external interfaces as well developed for beagleborder type playing around

[Paul Webster]

See the post from early Jan linking to Engadget mention.
http://www.raspberrypi.org/for.....nnovating/

[SeanD]

Firstly I agree that the "look this is better/different/competitive" type threads are becoming a bit waring.  This site exists to support the development of the RPi, talking about other devices serves no real purpose and make it much more difficult for people to find things.

That said.  Guys you are a pessimistic bunch! The guy behind this dongle is quite well known, he is by no means a fake and has sold previous inventions to people like Cisco.  He is also a big advocate of open source.  If you want to see another example of Gregoire's work, check out http://www.zonbu.com/home/ actually a very smart idea and possibly a candidate for the pi.

[jamesh]

Well, to be honest, this isn't really a new invention. Roku have one, and even round the desks at work we were discussing this sort of device about 2 years ago. Even down to powering from the USB port, whilst plugged in to the HDMI port. Not sure what he has patented - all pretty obvious stuff, although that never stopped Apple.