We previously covered WeTek Air, an upcoming Android TV set-top box taking DVB-T2/C, DVB-S2 or ATSC tuner cards and certified by Google. The company has now officially launched the device, and you can buy WeTek Air for 119.00 Euros without tuner or for 129.90 Euros with either a DVB-S2 or DVB-T2/C tuners. Just two caveats, only 400 pieces are available now, and they will only ship to Europe, although a worldwide launch is planned for the next batch.
Here’s a reminder of the specifications:
- SoC – Amlogic S905D quad core Arm processor
- System Memory – 2 GB DDR4
- Storage – 16 GB eMMC flash + micro SD card slot
- Video & Audio Output – HDMI 2.0a up to 4K @ 60Hz with HDR-10 support
- Video codecs – H.265 & H.264 AVC up to 4K60Hz, H.264 MVC, MPEG-4 ASP, VC-1, AVS, MPEG-2, MPEG-1 up to 1080p60
- Audio codecs – MP3, AAC, WMA, RM, FLAC, Ogg, Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, DTS
- Twin Tuners
- Europe – Digital Terrestrial and Cable Television [DVB-T/T2/C]
- World – Satellite Television [DVB-S2]
- North America (To be available later) – Over-the-Air Television [ATSC], Cable Television.
- Connectivity – 10/100M Ethernet, dual band 802.11 b/g/n/ac WiFi 5 and Bluetooth 4.1, Zigbee radio
- USB – 2x USB 2.0 host ports
- Misc – IR receiver
- Power Supply – DC 12V/1.5A
- Dimensions – 22 x 17 x 9 cm
- Weight – About 300 grams
Improvement over the previous WeTek Play 2 model includes support for HDR, and independent dual tuner thanks to Amlogic S905D processor. The latter means you’ll be able to record one program, while watching another one at the same time. The company also added a Zigbee radio for home automation needs.
The box runs Android TV 8.0 with WeTV app for digital TV and IPTV, and will ship with a remote control, an HDMI cable, a power adapter, and a user manual.
The boxes will have a 2-year warranty, are supposed to start shipping on February 7, 2019, and are all limited edition with a gift set including a T-Shirt celebrating the launch of the device.
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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I presume the ZigBee radio is for RF4CE, rather than say home automation. I.e. it’s for the included remote.
The lack of CA module support also means that it can’t be used with paid for content.
Only 10/100 ethernet? Eww
Imho it’s too expensive for S905D box. And why they didn’t include gigabit lan? S905D supports it…
I bought a Wetek Play 2 over 2 years ago. The experience taught me a couple of things.
1) It works perfectly as a dust catcher in my closet.
2) A mini Intel PC combined with USB tuner and air mouse provides a better, more trouble free media experience for about the same cost.
Similarly, I bought the original Wetek Play about two years ago, and gotta admit that the software felt very much like a beta release. Kodi was preinstalled but never really worked (Was that Wetek or was that Kodi?). The third party android apk market Aptoide was not great at updates. Even WeOS TV or whatever it was could be laggy changing stations.
Their forum was split between those installined OpenELEC, Enigma and Android – this summed up my perception of Wetek not knowing what direction to go in. Some of its ROMs/updates to the TV apt were welcome though – although it still has a long way to go. All in all, felt much like an experiment.
A few years have passed. We have had the great work that Bay Libre and others have done in rewriting (mainlining in the linux kernel) many of the proprietary libraries/drivers for the Amlogic chips/Mali GPUs, which makes it easier for OEMs to update the software. I can only hope that with the new Google TV interface replacing the old crappy UI that Wetek had, that things will have changed greatly.
So, i’m a lot more confident around this Wetek box, although extremely disappointed that they have gone with such poor hardware specs. According to the spec sheet above, there is no video decoding of VP9 ..Oh and i would have liked to have both a DVB-S2 and a DVB-T2 tuner in the box at the same time.
Kodi and WeTek are made for each. Personally, I really don’t miss either one.
Overpriced for the old hardware.