Last year there was some discussion of Android TV on this forum. I was going to contribute but was underwhelmed by the box I got so let it slide. Now I have a box worth talking about. I have posted this review to the Bali Expats Facebook page, so apologize to those of you have see it as a double post.
Now that many of us can get good fibre-optic Internet connections, we are more interested in streaming TV and movies from on-line sources. So I thought Android TV may be of interest to a number of expats.
Android TV is a software platform developed by Google and it can be built into TV sets such as Sony Bravia, or can be in separate set-top boxes like this one reviewed. The software takes video content from the Internet or from video files that you have on your home network and it displays to full advantage on your home TV equipment meaning high definition with surround sound if you have it.
I first tried Android TV a year ago when I got a box from a no-names Chinese manufacturer. It worked but was disappointing because it did not support surround sound or the use of smartphones as remotes and controlling it via its own clumsy remote was a pain – so browsing for interesting content was no fun. Also it was only Android 5 (Lollipop) and offered no updates at all.
Over the past year I have come to better understand what I want from Android TV. I now watch a lot of content from YouTube (music, politics, geeky stuff etc), and I have a large collection of downloaded movies and TV that I manage using Emby running on Windows. See https://emby.media/.
The Mi-Box 3 from Xiaomi is recognized by Google as a true implementation of Android TV (there are only several recognized – see https://www.android.com/tv/). It is based on Android 6 (Marshmallow) and there are hints that Xiaomi will provide an upgrade to Android 7 (Nougat). The box itself only has a few sockets on the back (power input, HDMI to TV, USB for more storage, and audio out for headphones). Likewise, the remote is very simple - besides a power button it has left-right-up-down-select, a go back, a go home, a microphone button for voice commands and a vol +-. Does this simplicity work, and my answer so far is “yes”. The newer on-screen layout of Android 6 presents rows of icons well suited to the left-right-up-down selection.
Setting it up turned out to be easy. I was initially surprised there was no RJ45 socket for wired Internet, but I have easily connected via WiFi and viewed plenty of hi-def content without any problems. (I have read on-line that some users buy USB to RJ45 converters for a few dollars and get a wired connection that way.) If you have an Android phone or tablet you can get Mi-Box to copy settings from there and you are set up quickly. Adding apps like Kodi or Tune-in from the Play Store is easy. To add the popular Kodi app called Exodus requires a few steps but there are detailed on-line guides available. Exodus is an app that searches for what you request, for example House of Cards Season 4, and offers a number of streaming feeds, some hi-def, some standard-def. I have played with it a bit but am not using it on a regular basis because I have my Emby collection.
Voice Commands. I mentioned above the microphone button and the remote has a microphone. So when on the home screen you can say launch YouTube, or launch whatever- it works well. Then some apps let you keep talking – in particular YouTube will respond to commands like search Scott Joplin (or anything else) and you will get search results as a row of icons so you can quickly select one. The Emby app that I use extensively does not seem to respond to voice – so you work it out on an app by app basis.
Using phone/tablet. One of the pains with Android TV can be when you need to login or type for other reasons. It displays an on-screen keyboard but this can be slow. So there is an Android app for phone/tablet that acts as an Android TV remote and typing on a tablet is probably something you can already manage pretty well. Also, using YouTube (and probably other apps) on your phone/tablet, when you find what you want you can “cast” it to the Mi-Box 3 – this is the built-in Chromecast functionality
Android TV offers some VPN options which will interest some who want to use Netflix or sports channels as if in another country. I have a paid subscription to ZenMate VPN and tried it. The Zenmate Android app is not available via Play Store on Android TV but I was able to do what they call a side-load – you can Google for details if you need this. I tried a VPN connection via HongKong and was then able to access reddit so that I could use the HopWatch app. So it works but I won’t be using it all that much.
Quirks. Once or twice it has locked up so that I have needed to disconnect and re-connect ppwer – but this is very occasional. I suspect the Emby app may have provoked this. The remote connects via Bluetooth and occasionally it seems to lose connection and go through a small ritual to re-establish the connection – this is a little annoying and I hope I will get to understand why this is happening and then maybe avoid it.
Overall Impression. The two apps I use extensively, YouTube and Emby, are available on the LG smart TV so I have options. Increasingly I am warming to the Android TV versions and think I will be using them more and more. And as time goes by I may get hooked on some of the other available apps.
The screenshot shown is my Home screen scrolled down a bit. Out of view at the top is the search bar with microphone icon. Then the row of large icons half shown are suggestions from Android. Next there are two rows for my installed apps – there are many more to the right. I have moved my favourite YouTube and Emby to the left. Down the bottom is access to general settings and WiFi signal strength and settings.
I purchased my Mi-Box 3 through Tokopedia using one of their suppliers called xiaomi.id. When JNE transport was added in it was Rp1,095,678.
Now that many of us can get good fibre-optic Internet connections, we are more interested in streaming TV and movies from on-line sources. So I thought Android TV may be of interest to a number of expats.
Android TV is a software platform developed by Google and it can be built into TV sets such as Sony Bravia, or can be in separate set-top boxes like this one reviewed. The software takes video content from the Internet or from video files that you have on your home network and it displays to full advantage on your home TV equipment meaning high definition with surround sound if you have it.
I first tried Android TV a year ago when I got a box from a no-names Chinese manufacturer. It worked but was disappointing because it did not support surround sound or the use of smartphones as remotes and controlling it via its own clumsy remote was a pain – so browsing for interesting content was no fun. Also it was only Android 5 (Lollipop) and offered no updates at all.
Over the past year I have come to better understand what I want from Android TV. I now watch a lot of content from YouTube (music, politics, geeky stuff etc), and I have a large collection of downloaded movies and TV that I manage using Emby running on Windows. See https://emby.media/.
The Mi-Box 3 from Xiaomi is recognized by Google as a true implementation of Android TV (there are only several recognized – see https://www.android.com/tv/). It is based on Android 6 (Marshmallow) and there are hints that Xiaomi will provide an upgrade to Android 7 (Nougat). The box itself only has a few sockets on the back (power input, HDMI to TV, USB for more storage, and audio out for headphones). Likewise, the remote is very simple - besides a power button it has left-right-up-down-select, a go back, a go home, a microphone button for voice commands and a vol +-. Does this simplicity work, and my answer so far is “yes”. The newer on-screen layout of Android 6 presents rows of icons well suited to the left-right-up-down selection.
Setting it up turned out to be easy. I was initially surprised there was no RJ45 socket for wired Internet, but I have easily connected via WiFi and viewed plenty of hi-def content without any problems. (I have read on-line that some users buy USB to RJ45 converters for a few dollars and get a wired connection that way.) If you have an Android phone or tablet you can get Mi-Box to copy settings from there and you are set up quickly. Adding apps like Kodi or Tune-in from the Play Store is easy. To add the popular Kodi app called Exodus requires a few steps but there are detailed on-line guides available. Exodus is an app that searches for what you request, for example House of Cards Season 4, and offers a number of streaming feeds, some hi-def, some standard-def. I have played with it a bit but am not using it on a regular basis because I have my Emby collection.
Voice Commands. I mentioned above the microphone button and the remote has a microphone. So when on the home screen you can say launch YouTube, or launch whatever- it works well. Then some apps let you keep talking – in particular YouTube will respond to commands like search Scott Joplin (or anything else) and you will get search results as a row of icons so you can quickly select one. The Emby app that I use extensively does not seem to respond to voice – so you work it out on an app by app basis.
Using phone/tablet. One of the pains with Android TV can be when you need to login or type for other reasons. It displays an on-screen keyboard but this can be slow. So there is an Android app for phone/tablet that acts as an Android TV remote and typing on a tablet is probably something you can already manage pretty well. Also, using YouTube (and probably other apps) on your phone/tablet, when you find what you want you can “cast” it to the Mi-Box 3 – this is the built-in Chromecast functionality
Android TV offers some VPN options which will interest some who want to use Netflix or sports channels as if in another country. I have a paid subscription to ZenMate VPN and tried it. The Zenmate Android app is not available via Play Store on Android TV but I was able to do what they call a side-load – you can Google for details if you need this. I tried a VPN connection via HongKong and was then able to access reddit so that I could use the HopWatch app. So it works but I won’t be using it all that much.
Quirks. Once or twice it has locked up so that I have needed to disconnect and re-connect ppwer – but this is very occasional. I suspect the Emby app may have provoked this. The remote connects via Bluetooth and occasionally it seems to lose connection and go through a small ritual to re-establish the connection – this is a little annoying and I hope I will get to understand why this is happening and then maybe avoid it.
Overall Impression. The two apps I use extensively, YouTube and Emby, are available on the LG smart TV so I have options. Increasingly I am warming to the Android TV versions and think I will be using them more and more. And as time goes by I may get hooked on some of the other available apps.
The screenshot shown is my Home screen scrolled down a bit. Out of view at the top is the search bar with microphone icon. Then the row of large icons half shown are suggestions from Android. Next there are two rows for my installed apps – there are many more to the right. I have moved my favourite YouTube and Emby to the left. Down the bottom is access to general settings and WiFi signal strength and settings.
I purchased my Mi-Box 3 through Tokopedia using one of their suppliers called xiaomi.id. When JNE transport was added in it was Rp1,095,678.