Homatics was kind enough to provide me with a Homatics Box R 4K Plus unit to test and review.
Don't forget that the OEM is SEI Robotics, which is part of project "Hailstorm", project responsible for the Netflix certification.
SPECIFICATIONS:
- Android 11.
- Amlogic S905X4 with AV1 hardware decoding.
- Quad-core 2.0 GHz (ARM Cortex-A55).
- ARM Mali-G31 MP2.
- Dolby Vision, HDR10, HDR10+ and HLG.
- Dolby Atmos passthrough.
- 4GB RAM LPDDR4.
- 32GB of internal storage.
- WiFi 4, 5 and 6.
- Bluetooth 5.0.
- HDMI 2.1.
- One USB 2.0 port, one USB 3.0 port and one USB-C port.
- One optical audio port.
- One analog AV port.
- Ethernet 10/100/1000 port.
- One long LED light at the top front of the device that turns green when it’s ON and red when it’s OFF.
PROS:
- It's fast thanks to its 4GB of RAM, apps open faster, the UI is more fluid and the system as a whole seems to perform better. The native Android games I tested also seemed to perform better overall.
- I can finally use the internal microphone of any UVC webcam different than Logitech to make videocalls with Duo and Jami thanks to the security patch installed on the device dated august 5th 2022, though I'm not sure if it's actually Android 11 the one that makes this possible but anyway it works.
- HDR, Dolby Vision and HDR Auto toggles. The HDR toggle allows to turn OFF the HDR mode for 4K TVs without HDR support, the options remain OFF on 1080p or lower resolution TVs:
They are OFF because I don't own a 4K HDR TV yet.
- There is a toggle in the “Energy saver” section to switch between keeping the device alive while in standby mode for an instant power back ON, or to a allow the device to go to a deep standby mode after 20 minutes of being turned OFF, in this mode the device will boot from the start:
The \"Power Saving Mode\" option is absent in the Mecool KM2 Plus and it's a must.
- The remote control has one available key that can be programmed to open an app of user’s choice:
* Emby = Audio stutter, the issue is already reported (https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/113171-dolby-truehd-71-passthrough-stutter-on-homatics-box-r-4k-plus/)
* Jellyfin = Didn’t passthrough the audio but transcoded it to Dolby Digital, the issue is already reported (https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin-androidtv/issues/2196)
* VLC = Didn’t passthrough the audio nor decoded it to multichannel PCM, the issue is already reported (https://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=160985)
* Kodi doesn't detect that it has TrueHD passhtrough support, though I can't report the issue since I don't have an account in their forums.
* Nova Video Player = Played OK.
* GV Video Player = Played OK.
Dolby TrueHD decoding to multichannel PCM is also supported.
CONS:
- DTS-HD High Resolution Audio and Master Audio passthrough are still not supported, but the box is able to passthrough the DTS Core from them. Decoding to multichannel PCM is also supported. I hope Homatics adds real HRA and MA passthrough support in a future firmware update.
- Auto framerate is not supported but it will be supported once Android 12 arrives... someday.
- The game mode is one of Android 11 features but I don’t see the toggle available as in other devices with Android 11.
- Pressing and holding the power button doesn't bring the options to take screenshots and rebooting the device but that is something removed by Google and not by Homatics.
- In the gaming emulation department, I tested a few PSX games and they performed a little better thanks to the 4GB of RAM, but some N64 ones still stutter like Mario Power Tennis, not sure if the emulator needs to be improved to take advantage of the amount of RAM or if it's something else.
ISSUES:
- Many apps still fail to access the internal or external storage due to the new permission policy implemented in Android 11 and above, developers still need to optimize this policy in their apps, a workaround is to manually select the option in each individual Android’s app settings to allow access to the storage all the time if available, otherwise, selecting the option to access the storage only when the app is in use work with some apps. I've been unable to use some game console emulators such as Lemuroid because of this.
- As you may know, the G10 remote control can be programmed to control TVs, AV receivers and soundbars, so I set it up to control my TV, but I discovered the following situation: After I setup and switched it to control the volume of my TV, I noticed that the volume of the device doesn't change to a "fixed" state, which means, if I accidentally or on purpose reduce the volume level of the device to zero and then switch the remote to control the volume level of the TV, I will hear no sound coming out of the TV speakers because the volume level of the device was reduced to zero previously. To fix that inconvenience, the device should reset the volume level to 100% automatically and keep it that way indefinitely until the option to control the volume of the device is selected again:
For some reason, the OS is labeled as \"Google TV\" instead of \"Android TV\".
- Programming the remote control to power the TV ON and OFF has one issue: when I press the power button to turn ON the TV, the device also turns ON thanks to the bluetooth connection, BUT, when I press the power button to turn OFF the TV, the device stays ON until it reaches the time set in the “Energy saver” section to turn OFF by itself or it will never turn OFF if it was set to "never". It looks like the remote control is not sending the appropriate bluetooth command to turn OFF the device:
For some reason, the OS is labeled as \"Google TV\" instead of \"Android TV\".
- There is a constant fake Dolby Digital Plus signal sent to my receiver when using the “Auto” option in the “Select formats” section, it doesn’t let me know what audio codec is actually being output when playing back a video, the only way to fix it up is by selecting the “Passthrough” option, but to me that is a redundant option, “Automatic” and “None” are enough:
It's not possible to know the supported codecs in Android 11 but it's back again in Android 12.
CONCLUSION:
I really love this device, its hardware design and features make it a very good option despite the high price and the current issues it has, Homatics told me they are already working on addressing them to make it even better than it is already and to make it a good alternative to the Nvidia Shield.
If you decided to purchase this box after this review, please visit the Homatics Online Store.
## Story so far:
Finally got Chromecast to work with external storage using this setup:
I had to shop around to find the right setup because the wording on the packaging was often vague and unspecific for these USB adapters. Works like a dream, so naturally I want to upgrade!
## Add an Ethernet port?
I would like to be able to use an Ethernet cable AND USB external storage. I'm wondering whether anyone else has done this, and whether a setup like this would work:
If I swap that out for the Belkin, wouldn't that allow me to connect an Ethernet cable to the Chromecast? I have the Chromecast power adapter w/Ethernet port, and that works well. But I don't know how to get both Ethernet and USB storage working at the same time.
My two concerns are a) Experimenting with $100 a piece hardware to just to test, b) Does the Chromecast Ethernet adapter + power cable combo have special wiring, or is it running the Ethernet signal *over* the power line and that's the only way the Chromecast will take it?
