PiBox

One of the longterm goals for PiBox is to integrate it into the home. I want to see the PiBox Server provide centralized communication for an array of IoT devices. One way to do this is with Bluetooth Low-Energy, aka BLE, aka Bluetooth 4.0. This specification allows very low power […]

PiBox: bluetooth for video means no omxplayer

Mon July 27, 2015 in Audio / Hardware / Linux / PiBox / Raspberry Pi / Software Development / Video tagged crosstool-ng / gcc / kernel / Linaro / mplayer / PiBox / Raspberry Pi / toolchain / Video / video player

This past weekend I took PiBox out in the trailer for a field trial. The box was mounted under a cabinet with power and HDMI wrapped around to a 7″ HDMI-input monitor. Power on worked fine and the system came right up. But not everything worked as expected. Here is […]

PiBox field trial results

Thu July 02, 2015 in General / PiBox tagged Android / BUI / digital TV / GTK+ / HDMI / HDMI cables / HDMI switch / Media Player / Media Server / PiBox / wifi

It’s taken more than 2 years but I’ve finally finished the first versions of the PiBox Media Server and Media Player. The cases are stained wood boxes from a hobby store but they provide me with information on how to deal with layout in a 3D printed case. It also […]

PiBox prototype cases

Thu June 11, 2015 in PiBox tagged Android / custom boards / digital TV / HDMI / Media Player / Media Server / PiBox / projector / prototype / toolchain

I was job hunting from late November to late January. Since few of the people needed to do interviews tend to be available during the 12th month of the year, I was able to devote a lot of time working on PiBox development. However, once the new year rolled in […]

PiBox update: user and developer guides

Mon March 02, 2015 in PiBox / Raspberry Pi tagged Development / HGST / PiBox

I’ve been working on PiBox now for a couple of years. The immediate goal is a consumer-oriented device for video playback while not connected to the Internet. In other words, play movies while camping. I have longer term goals for it, but that’s where the project is aimed currently. At […]

Raspberry Pi: Kodi vs PiBox use case comparison

Fri February 06, 2015 in Hardware / Linux / Movies / PiBox / Raspberry Pi / Software Development / XBMC tagged amazon / DVD / hulu / Kodi / Linux-based devices / Media technology / nfs / PiBox / Raspberry Pi / Ripping / Subtitle / video playback / wifi / XBMC

A while back I made an official 0.5.0 release for PiBox which I announced on the Raspberry Pi Forums. Since then I've made significant advances in preparing PiBox for use as a media server in my travel trailer. Some of the features I've recently implemented include: Support for running as […]

PiBox: 0.5.0 released, many new features since

Mon August 19, 2013 in Hardware / Linux / omapfb / PiBox / Raspberry Pi / X11 / XBMC (updated 3908 days ago)

First, let me say that the fire is long gone and we were never evacuated. It was stressful waiting around for them to decide if we needed to go or not, but in the end the fire moved away from us and not closer to us. Now we have everything […]

PiBox: Another long break ends and new work begins

Sun July 07, 2013 in General / Linux / PiBox / Raspberry Pi (updated 3953 days ago)

If you’re playing with the idea of getting into embedded Linux, you might start with the most basic question: what does embedded Linux mean? In the not so distant past that was a little easier to define. An embedded board was typically physically smaller or at least used a very […]

What makes it embedded Linux?

Thu January 17, 2013 in BeagleBoard / BeagleBox / PiBox / XBMC / XBMC (updated 4124 days ago)

I’ve finally got a build for PiBox that supports a proper XBMC build. The latter took some finagling to force a cross compile that didn’t pick up any bits and pieces from the build system. So it’s all checked in and the builds placed on the SD card and it’s […]

PiBox / BeagleBox update: lost keyboard access?

Tue January 15, 2013 in BeagleBoard / BeagleBox / PiBox / XBMC (updated 4124 days ago)

Once again, a new year means new toys. This holiday season, my wife got me an Acer C7 Chromebook, a pair of PowerLine ethernet adapters and a new printer. We also got new phones. On the non-techy side, she got me some classic Big Little books. The techy stuff has […]

A new beginning

Thu January 10, 2013 in Acer C7 Chromebook / BeagleBoard / ChrUbuntu / PiBox / Raspberry Pi / Ubuntu / XBMC (updated 4130 days ago)

Michael J. Hammel

Building a better today…because tomorrow is in question…