Low cost Miracast dongles are finally coming to market. Rockchip demonstrated a $10 (BoM price?) Miracast dongle running Linux at the Hong Kong Electronics Fair earlier this month, and it seems CloudnetGo will bring a device, possibly based on this RK2928 design, with its “CR-M200 WiFi Display Dongle”. Connect this device to the HDMI port of your TV, and you’ll be able to mirror your Miracast-enabled Android smartphone or tablet display on the big screen, as well as use it as a smart video controller.
CloudnetGo Miracast Adapter Specifications:
- SoC – ARM Cortex A9 @ 1GHz with Mali 400 GPU.
- Flash – 16 MB Nor Flash
- System Memory – 256MB DDR3
- WiFi – WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
- Miracast and DLNA support
- HDMI port and micro USB for power
- Dimensions – 61mm x 31mm x 8mm
This adapter will come with a USB cable, and an optional 5V/500mA power adapter, which may not be needed if you TV comes with a USB port. This device can be used with Android 4.2, Windows8, and Linux computers and devices. Bear in mind I’ve been told it’s not enough to have a device running Android 4.2.2 to be able to use it as a Miracast source, and you have to make sure your device is Miracast Certified. The compatible models listed on CloudnetGo’s Alibaba page are LG Nexus 4, Samsung Galaxy S3, XiaoMi 2/2s and Sony Xperia.
The SoC specifications makes me believe it could be based on Rockchip RK2928, but a Rockchip representative said the prototype we saw at the HK fair just features 16 MB RAM and a small NOR flash, so it could be another platform, or he just mixed up flash and RAM in the interview…
So if it’s indeed based on RK2928, I suspect the retail price to be $25 to $30, but there’s currently no official pricing or availability information, except it’s listed on CloudnetGo’s Alibaba page, so the wait should not be too long.
Via AndroidPC.es
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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The death of the Android TV stick…?
But he’s so young….
@onebir
A mini PC just costs $10 to $20 dollars more, and can also be turned into a Miracast adapter with the right software.
I can’t quite figure out if people will prefer to have a separate Android device connected to their TV or just a cheaper Miracast adapter where they can see their tablet or smartphone display on TV.
@cnxsoft
Maybe it’ll depend on the use case? Any noticeable lag / packet loss etc would interfere with gaming/video use. But wouldn’t matter for websurfing etc. & how common is Miracast certification (/uncertified compatability)?
But my guess is these sticks will get cheaper pretty fast; the hardware requirements seem quite minimal; not so much more than wireless routers, which will surely hit $10 pretty soon at the low end…