By There’s no doubt that a ton of people were surprised by the OUYA’s meteoric rise. As a mere idea it generated tons of interest — in the form of multi-million dollar funding on Kickstarter — and is poised to be one of the most highly anticipated Android-powered boxes to date. With great success comes a big spotlight, though, and many other companies are beginning to shine it on a segment of the television computing market that has great potential.
The latest player is Wise, and its Wise TIVI product is looking to whisk folks away with its sleek and modern looks, but also its impressive specs. Well, they’re not quite as impressive as the OUYA’s but when you look at the size of this thing you won’t think much of the differences.
Packed into what could be the size of a flash drive is a 1.6GHz Cortex-A9 dual-core processor with quad-core Mali-400 MP graphics, 1GB of RAM, 4GB of internal storage, WiFi, a micro-USB port, a full-sized USB port, a TF Card slot for up to 16GB of additional storage and more. It connects to your HDTV using a built-in HDMI port, and as simply as you can plug it in you can transform any HDTV into a smart TV.
The unit will run Jelly Bean 4.2 to start, and it’s our understanding that you will be able to get your content straight from the Google Play Store so you already have a pretty large backlog of apps and games at your disposal once it launches. We’re told that the full Google TV experience will be enabled here, enabling users to search for their favorite TV and movies across a multitude of services and utilize picture-in-picture to let you watch and surf at the same time.
Wise TIVI will be compatible with several accessories such as a wireless gaming controller, and an “air” keyboard/mouse for wireless control and navigation. You can also choose between several different colors, including green, blue, white and black.
The smallish multimedia stick will also be flanked by a more traditional set-top box with component connections, but it will only come with Android 4.2. A third unit, the Wise Camera, will give users the full Wise experience with the ability to do live video chats and take pictures.
You can’t get these just yet, but a pre-sale period has begun for those who might be interested in one in the future. The Wise Box will run you $59, the portable stick will run you $79, and the camera-enabled unit will cost you $89.
We haven’t been able to get much information on whether or not the accessories will be sold separately, but you can be sure we’ve asked to find out. Wise tells us that its Kickstarter campaign will also be starting up soon so there may be a chance to get in on some unique pledge deals. We’ll be on the lookout for that so stay tuned to Phandroid as more details of this promising bundle of joy are unveiled. Head to Wise’s site for more information in the meantime.
Ummm sounds like every other rock chip rk3066 device out there. I have the imito mx1 and love it. This field is already taking off and these guys are adding nothing new to the segment other than it being Google TV rather than Android TV. I recommend looking around before settling as quad cores are also available and some units with amlogic chips run xbmc with full HD video perfectly.
Lol what? Where are these USB gaming devices with all of the above everywhere that you speak of? Going to purchase one of these as soon as they are available.
https://www.google.com/search?sugexp=chrome,mod=11&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=android+tv (TONS AND TONS of devices for sale and info!!)
http://www.geekbuying.com/category/HDD-Player-505/ (where I got my imito mx1 from)
http://www.armtvtech.com/armtvtechforum/index.php ( great forums for info!!)
http://androidforums.com/google-tv/ (i know it says google tv but just look and you’ll see all kinds of stuff for android tv devices)
I cannot explain any more, and I will not provide any further links as the internet is saturated with it! Just look! and the remote control they are talking about is called an “air mouse” http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=air+mouse
This is not a new device! There are at least 10 other’s already out rocking this chipset. And you can get these devices in a box style, stick style and a bare bones no case system. I have been playing dead trigger, beach buggy, modern combat, shadowgun and others with a joystick VIA bluetooth. Oh and you need to be careful as not all the android tv boxes and sticks have BT. My imito MX1 does. The only down fall is that some games still require movement and those don’t work yet, but a company is coming out with a new “air mouse/controller” that will allow gyroscopic input to the unit VIA the air mouse. And yes angry birds is great!!
Also a standard PC USB and KB work great with these and that includes the wireless units as well. The sticks and boxes I have shown is a full blown Android experience right on your TV. The stick in this article seems to be melding Android TV and Google TV together and if they get away with it then it’ll be a first. But trust me when I say the experience is already here!
Why get one of these over a Vizio Costar
The co-star is a pure Google TV experience. And as such it is labeled as a Google TV box. There are some TV stations that don’t like their videos being yanked and boxed up all nice and neat so they block the Google TV. Other things about Google TV is it is hackable, but there are still some things in the Android world that just do not like Google TV’s no touch based UI. See Google TV is setup specifically to be touch free and therefor touch instances are missing. This is not a major issue but some people are complaining that some touch based apps and games are not working. Also, like I said, it is hackable, but not like regular Android. All in all I skipped on the co-star for a more “normal” android experience. No from the looks of it, this device is including some of the apps from Google TV, but leaving out the other experiences. This could be a bonus and I for one will be taking their ROM apart to adapt what I want to my ROM for the imito.
It is all up to the user I guess and I wanted a more robust Android experience over another every day media player.
Just noticed that myself.
You could get an established one at a competitive price like…now.
Nice to see coverage of these devices here by the way.
I’d love to see more of this kind of stuff.
I run an MK802+ on a Droid Bionic Lapdock, which is also an interesting application for these types of devices. The tricky part is finding the adapters sometimes… ;)
Nice! The only reason I haven’t bought the others is because of the lack of Android 4.2
The one I have has 4.1.2 on it and it is great. I don’t think 4.2 is going to bring anything better to the party. And if your thinking of that video mirroring software that google has included in 4.2 then you better read up because there are hardware dependencies as well and 4.2 on the nexus 7 and galaxy nexus do not have it due to the hardware limitation.
thanks dude! i actually wanted the 4.2 because of profiles. i was thinking and hoping that the device would be recognized as a tablet so the profile feature could be available.
Actually check this nice blurry but super informative video out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfHWV_-X3a8&feature=youtube_gdata_player
I am testing this right now for ya. It’s a pass. It seems that there are some limitations using this and I am not sure if that occurs in 4.2 as well. There is an app involved that makes it easy and it is listed in the link here. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1807751
ooh very nice very nice. thanks man. seems pretty good
Console as USB stick. Interesting concept.
I think it’s actually more of a HDMI stick.
You’re correct, but yes, a stick-console none-the-less!
TF slot? Havent heard microSD referred to as transflash in a while lol
This concept is awesome… How come noone thought of this before… I had a Boxee currently having an Apple TV and a Google TV and I believe this thing rocks…
see my LONG reply.
And this is exactly why “smart TV” makes absolutely 0 sense to me. Why spend $300-$400 more on a smart tv that can’t be upgraded when for a quarter of the price you can plug in a tiny add-on that is easily upgraded and provides a fairly consistent user experience across brands and is MUCH easier to develop new apps for?
Thanks Phor11, you’re spot on!
WOW!! I just hit up there site…. what is with all the UFO crap??? Why are they attaching UFO spottings to the controllers and stuff….. Hope they are trying to be funny because if not.. well..
Oh and none of the video’s are right. LOL….
Hi Red Dragon 72,
Thank you for your constructive criticism, it’s always good to hear everyone’s point of view.
Unfortunately, we’ve been so dedicated to our R&D efforts on the three devices, we haven’t really had time to build the site, hence the template UFO ramblings and random videos :P
We hope to win you over with our devices, but please keep up the critiques, they’re very important to the successful development of a product.
Yours,
Michael
Business Development Manager
Wise TIVI
Same as those USB android os.
I think this is trying to be competition for Pocket TV, rather than OUYA. It is a similar concept:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/484889112/the-pocket-tv-makes-any-tv-a-smart-tv
Hi Treknologist,
Although our ‘Wise TIVI Portable’ device may look like a ‘Smart TV Stick’ or ‘Pocket TV’, looks can be deceiving! When you take a closer look inside, you’ll discover a dual-core 1.6GHz CPU and a devastating Mali-400 quad-core CPU…packing a bigger punch than the OUYA’s Tegra 3!
To clarify, we’re in direct competition with all Android TV devices and all Android gaming consoles, we’re even offering a games controller (although, as any keen gamer will know, you can simply hook up a PS3 Dual-Shock or Wii controller and get going too!).
Thanks for the comment, hope to see your name on the pre-order list!
Michael
Well, not the ‘full’ Google TV experience. It would need HDMI in for the search to also work with live TV.
I was going by their press release, but you’re right — I don’t see that being a physical possibility with the inputs provided. I’ll have to ask for more clarification on that.
onlything that may work witht he current design in having a dongle that allows hdmi input over the usb port as well as having a second usb port on board the dongle.