If you’re often watching online videos on your smartphone, and when back home, you’d rather continue watching those on your television, OVO may be for you. The device is a tiny media player shaped like an egg, with a multimedia processor, a minimum amount of RAM and flash, and Wi-Fi.
The full specifications haven’t been provided, but here’s what we know about the hardware:
- SoC- Full HD Media Processor
- System Memory – 2Gbit DDR3 (256 MB)
- Storage – 2GBit NAND Flash (256 MB)
- Connectivity – 2×2 WiFi 802.11b/g/n single-band
- Video Output – HDMI 1.4
- Dimensions – 61.85 mm (h), 63.32 mm (w), 72.78 mm (d)
- Weight – 77 grams
There’s no word about the OS, but it’s probably running some sort of Embedded Linux distribution. Another interesting point about the hardware is that the Wi-Fi module is not placed horizontally, but inclined, and according to the company this improves Wi-Fi reception compared to other devices with a chip antenna.
On the software side, you’ll need to install OVO-Q app on your smartphone (Android-based or iPhone), which will connect to OVO-Q Cloud, and allow you to:
- Autoplay – play selected online videos simply by pressing on the OVO.
- Resume – watch videos continuously at different locations.
- Switch Play – switch video play between your handheld device and the OVO.
The OVO device itself also supports the following features:
- Miracast – mirror your screen to TV.
- My Media – share media contents from your mobile device to TV.
- Media Apps – play media contents to TV from 3rd party Media Apps, including DLNA-compliant and proprietary services. More content services will be provided, including Apps offering substantial Chinese videos.
- OVO Remote and OVO Setting – turn your smartphone into a remote controller when playing selected videos on TV, or change your OVO hardware settings.
The best way to understand what the device does, is probably to watch the Indiegogo video below.
In some ways, the hardware and software features looks similar to Google Chromecast, but those are actually different products. First OVO is also a Miracast and DLNA adapter, features that AFAIK are not available (yet) with the Chromecast. Chromecast interact with online services, whereas OVO seems to deal with your own videos only (TBC). OVO will be available in Europe, North America and Taiwan, when it’s shipped in October 2013, whereas it’s not clear when Chromecast will be available outside the US.
If you’re interested, you can pledge $39 (Early birds), and later $49 to get the device hopefully shipped in October. The campaign is not available internationally, and they will only ship to Europe, US, Canada, and Taiwan. Shipping is free to the US and Taiwan, but you have to add $20 to ship to Canada and Europe. There are also twin pack, family and company pledges to order more OVOs, at a lower per unit price, or with some extra goodies (e.g. HDMI cables).
Thanks to CSilie for the tip.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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With 2GB RAM is it safe to say that this is at least dual core?
@äxl
That’s gigaBIT, not gigaBYTE.
2Gbit = 2048,000,000 bits
2048000000 / 8 = 256MB
@The Cageybee
Ah. Sorry. I should read more carefully.
Not looking promising at all. Solutions based on XBMC are just better imo. Support wise and for 49$ you can get better hardware.