E.S.R.Labs is a German embedded software company mainly working for the automotive industry. But this time, they’ve started to work for the consumer market with Android Transformer, a software solution that can mirror an Android display to another Android device display via Wi-Fi in a similar fashion to what WiFi Miracast will do.
Eventually, the company plan to make Android Transporter compatible with Wi-Fi Miracast, but in the meantime they rolled out their own solution by taking advantage of H.264 hardware encoders and decoders on Galaxy Nexus S and the Raspberry Pi. If they use standard APIs, I assume any hardware running Android that with H.264 hardware encode/decode should support their platform.
I hope it will be work on (or be ported to) CX-01 mini PC which can be bought as low as $40 inc. shipping. It would make an even cheaper hardware than the Raspberry Pi (Up to 33% cheaper depending on your country customs duties). This hardware supports WiFi and TCC8925 features 1080p H.264 hardware decode/encode (up to 24fps ~ 30 fps), which could make it an ideal candidate for the job.
Let’s watch the demo where a Galaxy Nexus S smartphone display is mirrored on an HDMI TV connected to a Raspberry Pi + Wi-Fi dongle.
Currently there is 150ms delay between displays, but they intend to reduce the lag to 100ms. This is mostly an issue when playing games.
The company is currently working on supporting dual screens and Wi-Fi Direct. E.S.R.Labs has said it will eventually open source their solution once the API is stable enough.
If you have 2 rooted Google Nexus S smartphones, and are OK with voiding your warranty, you can try it yourself:
- Download Android Transporter firmware
- Flash it using ClockworkMod Recovery.
- Setup one phone as a WiFi hotspot and the other phone as a wireless client.
- Start Android Transporter on both phones
- Tap to beam the display content.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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