Tronsmart Draco H3 is a low cost HDMI TV stick powered by Allwinner H3 quad core processor. At $35, the device costs about $5 more than Amlogic S805 based sticks like MK808B Plus with about the same specs (quad core Cortex A7/A5, 1GB RAM, 8GB flash, HDMI out..), but with the added benefit of 4K @ 30Hz support.
Tronsmart has now released some firmware files as well as Linux kernel and an Android SDK.
Two firmware files have been released:
Tronsmart_Draco_H3_720p_Kernel_20150526.zip – Firmware with 1280×720 framebuffer for better performance- Tronsmart_Draco_H3_1080p_Kernel_20150526.zip – Firmware with 1920×1080 framebuffer for higher resolution
Please note that the resolution will only affect the user interface, and when you play videos you should get the resolution selected in Android settings. So if you play a 4K videos it will truly show as a 4K video on your TV, even though the user interface is only 720p, at least that was my experience when I tested 4K videos on various Android TV boxes.
Since Draco H3 normally updates its firmware over the air (OTA), the firmware files should only be useful in case sometimes goes wrong, or if you want to change the user interface resolution. You need PhoenixSuit (Windows) to flash the firmware. I’m not sure whether LiveSuit (Linux) supports Allwinner H3 yet.
Tronsmart also releases the source code for their stick via two downloads:
- Draco_H3_SDK_20150601_lichee.zip (3.3 GB) – Linux source code
- Draco_H3_SDK_20150601_android.zip (9.3 GB) – Android 4.4 part of the SDK
If you want to experiment with the source code you can go ahead, but bear in mind that in the past Tronsmart SDK releases were several months old and lacking the latest bug fixes. So it will probably build and run on the device, but this is unlikely to match the latest firmware, unless they changed their ways.
The Linux source code for Allwinner H3 has also been released for Orange Pi 2, and since the board runs Linux, you might also be able to adapt the Lubuntu, Raspbian or Debian image to run on Draco H3, although I assume 3D acceleration and video hardware decoding won’t work in Linux desktop distributions.
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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