Box that can be accessed remotely for my parents.

by jesuisouaf

Hi all,

Some info first: Here's the thread I posted yesterday on r/PleX for reference: https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/8usxh4/what_solution_for_my_parents_to_access_my_plex/
I want to install some kind of htpc at my parents house, easy to use. I want to be able to "feed it" media content from outside (I live far away), and media need to be stored locally, as their internet connection is very slow. This second requirement make it difficult to run a Plex client, as it mostly only support streaming (it would require to transcode way down in quality).

So now I'm considering other option. Hence my post here.

Question: What are the possibilities for Android TV (Nvidia, Mibox...) for remote access ? I picture something like a Mi Box running Kodi, with an external hard drive attached, that I could send media to from outside (not from the same network). I could be some sync program (btsync, syncthings) or ftp, or something else.

Can you guys send some experience feedback on this ?

elgenes

Can't you run a Plex server at your parents house? If you have ftp server you can transfer movies to the usb external drive connected to it. Then you can chromecast the video through Plex on your Mi Box with VPN. Probably not the best idea though, but it should work. If they are able to use navigate and open Plex and select a video, then FTP-ing the movies you need to a external hard drive connected to Plex server should work.

Pergolo

I run Kodi plus Termux on my Mum's MiBox which has an external HD. The movies live in a Termux-writeable directory on the external HD, Kodi is just set up to use this media. Her ISP doesn't allow me to directly access her MiBox, so my Termux startup script does an autossh -R to my seedbox. From the seedbox I can login to Termux on her MiBox. There I have a Termux bash script which uses rclone to copy stuff from my Google Drive to the aforementioned Termux-writeable directory on the external HD. Then a script to get Kodi to update. Works well enough except for getting Termux to start automatically, have to talk her through it every time she loses power and the MiBox restarts.

mondocu

A good way could be to use a NAS for storage and external access and a android tv box as a player, a cheaper way would be to use Syncthing app which is available on android tv (at least nvidia box), but I don't know if it gains external hard drive access

zfa

Enable ADB and you get ADB over the network on mibox Oreo. Properly firewalled (!) you could ADB push content. I wouldn't myself but it's an option if you're stuck. If you have a look around there might even be an ssh server you could install and run on it (server tools etc) so you could use scp/sftp.