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  • Android TV Boxes

    From Mindsurfer@VERT/FUNTOPIA to All on Tuesday, November 03, 2026 18:03:00
    TL;DR: certain android tv boxes can replace a raspberry pi for a fraction of the price and come with 8-128GB emmc flash memory depending on the model.
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    i was looking for a device that allows me to run a light weight linux and a netbird client and some extras like socat and ufw. It should be very low on power consumption since it would run 24/7. And it should have at least one 100mbit/s LAN port and USB Ports.

    So a typical device like that would be a Raspberry PI 3B+ or above.
    When i look at my local SBC dealer. That would cost round about 60EUR + shipping for the Raspberry PI 3B+ board, case and power supply.

    So i thought what else could replace a raspberry pi to become this single purpose device. i first tried a small travel router, but the memory was to small on this one to even run a netbird client. And other models with more ram would be to expensive to make sense.

    But then i thought why not try if there are older android tv boxes that can be repurposed into an armbian (custom debian linux version for arm cpu's) linux device.

    End of story, i now have a nexbox A95X (former android TV box)
    with 2GB DDR3 RAM / 16GB emmc drive, running an Armbian Linux.
    Ports: 100mbit/s LAN, 2x USB2, SDcard slot, HDMI (full size), AV, SPDIF, Wifi/BT4
    CPU: Arm, Amlogic S905X Quad Core
    It comes in a slim case, the size of your palm, with a remote (don't need that) and including a plug-in power supply.
    This device takes round about 2-5W power depending on the load.

    So after replacing the android it had on it with Armbian Linux, the nexbox A95X (former android tv box) runs as a netbird bridge here now. I am testing it first in my homelab now. Later it is supposed to be connected to someones router to act as a netbird bridge, from that remote place, over the internet, to my media server.

    For now, it works quite well as far as i can say. Exactly what i was looking for. Low power, low cost, running a netbird client 24/7

    Oh, and i got this tv box on ebay for 15,-EUR plus shipping only!

    Do you have a similar or completely different android tv box running on linux? I think the guy i bought it from had used it as a media center and to emulate some retro consoles on it.


    Mindsurfer

    PS: if you are ok with usb2 for some external storage, it would also make a quite decent bbs server! =)

    https://github.com/ophub/amlogic-s9xxx-armbian https://z.telnetbbs.de/s/nexbox-a95x-review https://github.com/netbirdio/netbird
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  • From MRO@VERT/BBSESINF to Mindsurfer on Wednesday, November 04, 2026 06:36:29
    Re: Android TV Boxes
    By: Mindsurfer to All on Tue Nov 03 2026 06:03 pm

    TL;DR: certain android tv boxes can replace a raspberry pi
    for a fraction of the price and come with 8-128GB emmc flash memory depending on the model.


    i think a lot of those android tv boxes are locked down.
    you can't do much with them and they reboot and put the original software
    back on in some cases. i also have some android picture frames that are
    locked down that way. i was connecting to them via adb and they'd reboot or fight it another way. it was disappointing because i could really do something with if i could change the software.

    that being said i did have my computer die years ago and i used an android tv as a desktop computer until my shipment came.


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  • From poindexter FORTRAN@VERT/REALITY to Mindsurfer on Thursday, November 05, 2026 07:45:10
    Mindsurfer wrote to All <=-

    End of story, i now have a nexbox A95X (former android TV box)
    with 2GB DDR3 RAM / 16GB emmc drive, running an Armbian Linux.
    Ports: 100mbit/s LAN, 2x USB2, SDcard slot, HDMI (full size), AV,
    SPDIF, Wifi/BT4 CPU: Arm, Amlogic S905X Quad Core
    It comes in a slim case, the size of your palm, with a remote (don't
    need that) and including a plug-in power supply. This device takes
    round about 2-5W power depending on the load.

    That's intriguing. Did you need to jump through any hoops to install
    another OS on it, or was that simply a matter of booting from USB?


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  • From Mindsurfer@VERT/FUNTOPIA to poindexter FORTRAN on Thursday, November 05, 2026 20:41:00
    Re: Re: Android TV Boxes
    By: poindexter FORTRAN to Mindsurfer on Thu Nov 05 2026 07:45:10

    End of story, i now have a nexbox A95X (former android TV box) with 2GB
    DDR3 RAM / 16GB emmc drive, running an Armbian Linux. Ports: 100mbit/s
    LAN, 2x USB2, SDcard slot, HDMI (full size), AV, SPDIF, Wifi/BT4 CPU:
    Arm, Amlogic S905X Quad Core It comes in a slim case, the size of your
    palm, with a remote (don't need that) and including a plug-in power
    supply. This device takes round about 2-5W power depending on the load.

    That's intriguing. Did you need to jump through any hoops to install another OS on it, or was that simply a matter of booting from USB?

    First you prepare a SDcard or USB stick with Armbian. You have to edit a text file there to match your exact hardware.
    To get into the bootloader you have to power on the device while holding down a little switch inside the av port (with a toothpick or so).
    Then you boot from SDcard or USB stick, setup your software and eventually use a script that comes with armbian (or armbian-config) to write everything to the emmc flash drive.
    There are several tutorials out there. This is one of those: https://github.com/berci9ke101/nexbox-a95x-armbian

    I had issues due to a defective SDcard slot/port. So i had to use an USB stick prepared with Armbian instead of the SDcard.
    You could also boot from SDcard /USBstick everytime and work from that boot medium, but i decided to write everything/armbian onto the emmc drive and remove the USB stick again.

    Mindsurfer

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  • From poindexter FORTRAN@VERT/REALITY to Mindsurfer on Friday, November 06, 2026 20:30:32
    Mindsurfer wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-

    That's intriguing. Did you need to jump through any hoops to install another OS on it, or was that simply a matter of booting from USB?

    First you prepare a SDcard or USB stick with Armbian. You have to edit
    a text file there to match your exact hardware.
    To get into the bootloader you have to power on the device while
    holding down a little switch inside the av port (with a toothpick or
    so). Then you boot from SDcard or USB stick, setup your software and eventually use a script that comes with armbian (or armbian-config) to write everything to the emmc flash drive. There are several tutorials
    out there. This is one of those: https://github.com/berci9ke101/nexbox-a95x-armbian


    I'm picturing a stack of those things forming a cheap Proxmox cluster.
    Very cool!



    I had issues due to a defective SDcard slot/port. So i had to use an
    USB stick prepared with Armbian instead of the SDcard. You could also
    boot from SDcard /USBstick everytime and work from that boot medium,
    but i decided to write everything/armbian onto the emmc drive and
    remove the USB stick again.

    Mindsurfer

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    ssh:3022

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  • From Mindsurfer@VERT/FUNTOPIA to poindexter FORTRAN on Saturday, November 07, 2026 22:05:00
    Re: Re: Android TV Boxes
    By: poindexter FORTRAN to Mindsurfer on Fri Nov 06 2026 20:30:32

    First you prepare a SDcard or USB stick with Armbian. You have to edit a
    text file there to match your exact hardware. To get into the bootloader
    you have to power on the device while holding down a little switch inside
    the av port (with a toothpick or so). Then you boot from SDcard or USB
    stick, setup your software and eventually use a script that comes with
    armbian (or armbian-config) to write everything to the emmc flash drive.
    There are several tutorials out there. This is one of those:
    https://github.com/berci9ke101/nexbox-a95x-armbian


    I'm picturing a stack of those things forming a cheap Proxmox cluster. Very cool!

    Sure, if you want to experiment like one did back in the early Raspberry Pi days, you have another inexpensive option now. =)
    But keep in mind that proxmox itself will need a quite big amount of space and that EMMC flash memory does wear out faster if you write alot of logs etc. to it. So it is maybe not perfect to run a proxmox server on it. But proof me wrong =)

    Mindsurfer

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