2014-06-11, 23:40
Hi Guys
I have just read the full thread, I guess some very good points have been raised but some others are, to my mind, a little unfair or simply require explanations.
Note that I have exchanged a lot of mails with Ashok regarding his project and that I have explained why I agreed to bring support on my blog but I remain free to express my own independent mind about all of this : The campaign can be an epic failure, I shall not lose anything... Well nothing at financial level (I have definitively no personal money engaged) but I would loose the hope to have a imx6 device which provides a smooth experience out of the box for end users.
1. First, I read a lot of criticisms about the target price.
Frankly, let's compare apples with apples. I understand that in the marketing storm, some cheap boxes seem to have much better value for money.
But, it is not so obvious if we try to look at the full picture. Let me explain :
Most cheap android boxes are nothing but clones with no engineering around the product itself : a tablet mainboard is put in a box. It will work to some extends and that's it.
They package a cheap SystemOnChip with no long life support, no documentation, not even a decent public datasheet !
At software level you will get nothing but an android image that will never be updated : Often it is binary only with no clear tracking of kernel sources nor parts that are not AOSP. You are lucky if XBMC is preinstalled and the final experience will be somewhere between good with a few issues (that will be unsolvable because there is no support : neither at hw nor sw level) to total useless crap...
So, to my mind, the misunderstanding is considering ezeecube is such a box.
Ezeecube is a product designed with user and ease of use in mind by Ashok and his wife to tackle a specific goal : Being a great photos organizer which syncs with any smartphone in a breeze and provides useful service around that initial purpose.
It happens that it will use XBMC as its core software and should be a nice mediacenter (including liveTV support)
As a real product it will provide support and updates
As a real product it tries to have an appealing design easy to integrate in the living room
Even if we are unfair and forget about all of this, we can have a look at the hardware itself :
How much will cost a imx6D based board with 1G 64bits/533x2Mhz DDR, 1gps Ethernet, wifi and BT connectivity + 4GiB Sdcard + a case + a wifi antenna (because no integrated antenna on the wifi chip) + power supply + 1TB 2.5" HDD ?
For instance if we take wandboard as a reference board it will be :
99(board) + 5 (sdcard) + 10(wandboard plastic enclosure) + 10(wifi antenna) + 10 (PS) + 70 (HDD) = 204$
And be aware that the imx6Dual in ezeecube is really better than the imx6D Lite in wandboard dual. In fact, it is identical to imx6Q except the number of cores (being able to have sata, more L2 cache, GC2000 GPU , vector unit GC355...)
Not to mention that wandboard SPDIF and CEC signals are improperly wired on wandboard (at least on first runs I have bought, I don't know if it is solved now) : you want them to work ? Then, I hope you like to play with a soldering iron and are skilled enough not to burn SMD components all around...
So 179$ for ezeecube is not expensive. If you still have doubts, take the BOM (Bill of materials) and check for the components price one after the other, then think about the hardware design, the pcb production, the software effort and you will conclude that there is absolutely no profit at this entry price...
Sorry if I seem to be too supportive of this project : Again I have no personal interest but I know how difficult it is to do good engineering and I think it is unfair when people with good technical background focus that much on price without considering the product, its features and its end user experience as a whole.
Obviously communication/marketing are also at play here and it is likely that a better presentation may have leveraged these criticisms.
To me, there is some space somewhere between sonos or apple products and very cheap android boxes. This product, if it successes, could fit in this gap.
Moreover it would not trade the ease of use against openness for more advanced users as it is sadly too often the case...
2. There was a mention about "No port-forwarding configuration required"
It may seem strange but think about syncing two ezeecube though the internet or simply browse photos from your smartphone when you are away.
If the ezeecube simply acts as a server then you will have to configure your personal firewall to open and forward specific ports to the ezeecube and allow connections from the internet.
So I think Ashok wanted to say that users will not have to manually configure their firewalls that way...
3. Last I can also share my mind regarding docker as I am definitively the person who convinced Ashok to use LXC as a way to host another generic ARM distro side by side with the core product : I have posted 10 hours ago an answer regarding docker as a comment here
AS an addition to this comment on my blog, note that there is no official ARM packages support in docker (Refer to this issue) and that the core LXC feature which is already planed allows to install very easily Couchpotato, Sickbeard or Pydio (one apt-get command).
If I understand correctly, the main difference is they will fall in the same ubuntu/(whatever other distro you like) container which is just the way they are installed and used by most linux users. Please correct me if I miss something...
Regards
Stephan
I have just read the full thread, I guess some very good points have been raised but some others are, to my mind, a little unfair or simply require explanations.
Note that I have exchanged a lot of mails with Ashok regarding his project and that I have explained why I agreed to bring support on my blog but I remain free to express my own independent mind about all of this : The campaign can be an epic failure, I shall not lose anything... Well nothing at financial level (I have definitively no personal money engaged) but I would loose the hope to have a imx6 device which provides a smooth experience out of the box for end users.
1. First, I read a lot of criticisms about the target price.
Frankly, let's compare apples with apples. I understand that in the marketing storm, some cheap boxes seem to have much better value for money.
But, it is not so obvious if we try to look at the full picture. Let me explain :
Most cheap android boxes are nothing but clones with no engineering around the product itself : a tablet mainboard is put in a box. It will work to some extends and that's it.
They package a cheap SystemOnChip with no long life support, no documentation, not even a decent public datasheet !
At software level you will get nothing but an android image that will never be updated : Often it is binary only with no clear tracking of kernel sources nor parts that are not AOSP. You are lucky if XBMC is preinstalled and the final experience will be somewhere between good with a few issues (that will be unsolvable because there is no support : neither at hw nor sw level) to total useless crap...
So, to my mind, the misunderstanding is considering ezeecube is such a box.
Ezeecube is a product designed with user and ease of use in mind by Ashok and his wife to tackle a specific goal : Being a great photos organizer which syncs with any smartphone in a breeze and provides useful service around that initial purpose.
It happens that it will use XBMC as its core software and should be a nice mediacenter (including liveTV support)
As a real product it will provide support and updates
As a real product it tries to have an appealing design easy to integrate in the living room
Even if we are unfair and forget about all of this, we can have a look at the hardware itself :
How much will cost a imx6D based board with 1G 64bits/533x2Mhz DDR, 1gps Ethernet, wifi and BT connectivity + 4GiB Sdcard + a case + a wifi antenna (because no integrated antenna on the wifi chip) + power supply + 1TB 2.5" HDD ?
For instance if we take wandboard as a reference board it will be :
99(board) + 5 (sdcard) + 10(wandboard plastic enclosure) + 10(wifi antenna) + 10 (PS) + 70 (HDD) = 204$
And be aware that the imx6Dual in ezeecube is really better than the imx6D Lite in wandboard dual. In fact, it is identical to imx6Q except the number of cores (being able to have sata, more L2 cache, GC2000 GPU , vector unit GC355...)
Not to mention that wandboard SPDIF and CEC signals are improperly wired on wandboard (at least on first runs I have bought, I don't know if it is solved now) : you want them to work ? Then, I hope you like to play with a soldering iron and are skilled enough not to burn SMD components all around...
So 179$ for ezeecube is not expensive. If you still have doubts, take the BOM (Bill of materials) and check for the components price one after the other, then think about the hardware design, the pcb production, the software effort and you will conclude that there is absolutely no profit at this entry price...
Sorry if I seem to be too supportive of this project : Again I have no personal interest but I know how difficult it is to do good engineering and I think it is unfair when people with good technical background focus that much on price without considering the product, its features and its end user experience as a whole.
Obviously communication/marketing are also at play here and it is likely that a better presentation may have leveraged these criticisms.
To me, there is some space somewhere between sonos or apple products and very cheap android boxes. This product, if it successes, could fit in this gap.
Moreover it would not trade the ease of use against openness for more advanced users as it is sadly too often the case...
2. There was a mention about "No port-forwarding configuration required"
It may seem strange but think about syncing two ezeecube though the internet or simply browse photos from your smartphone when you are away.
If the ezeecube simply acts as a server then you will have to configure your personal firewall to open and forward specific ports to the ezeecube and allow connections from the internet.
So I think Ashok wanted to say that users will not have to manually configure their firewalls that way...
3. Last I can also share my mind regarding docker as I am definitively the person who convinced Ashok to use LXC as a way to host another generic ARM distro side by side with the core product : I have posted 10 hours ago an answer regarding docker as a comment here
AS an addition to this comment on my blog, note that there is no official ARM packages support in docker (Refer to this issue) and that the core LXC feature which is already planed allows to install very easily Couchpotato, Sickbeard or Pydio (one apt-get command).
If I understand correctly, the main difference is they will fall in the same ubuntu/(whatever other distro you like) container which is just the way they are installed and used by most linux users. Please correct me if I miss something...
Regards
Stephan