LinkPi encoder family

Playground Hardware
#362

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This is perfect, the slot in the center is great for running cables through and I also kind of shoved my 3 Elgato Cam Link 4K's in there. I'm not spending the money anytime soon, but at some point I have to get one foot HDMI cables.

I had Claude average the temperature of all six Ospreys and they're all averaging about 48 degrees Celsius now, which I think is pretty good for running 24-7. The LinkPi encoders are sitting in the 30s.

Edit: Cleaned up my cable management. Routed everything in a more sensical way and tied everything down with velcro ties. The Elgato Cam Links have USB extensions on them to prevent strain on the USB plug itself and the port on the LinkPi encoder. So I have a lot of slack on those, hence the three bunched up ones in the middle.

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#363

I like the cooling pads underneath. I should do that under my little setup. Do you mind sharing which pads you use and why you chose those specific items?

#364

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00NNMB3KS?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title&th=1
These are the ones I used. I got them because they were inexpensive. They came the same day and got 4.5 stars, so I figured they would be solid.

#365

Awesome! The Taco Tray Trend continues!

2 Likes
#366

OK guys. I'm joining the party. I wanna start trying this setup. So I've initially ordered this model to throw on my rack:

I want to avoid multiple power bricks for the multiple streaming devices attached and just in general have a simple setup. So I'm curious what my options are.

Goals

  1. Ethernet
  2. The least amount of wires possible

I'd love to just stick to the Onn 4K plus, to be cheap. And it'd be a big bonus to be able to somehow use inline POE, but it would mean adapters. So what are my options here?

With Onn 4k Plus, it means I'd have to have at least a usb-c adapter to accept ethernet, is there anything out there that would support POE injection + ethernet in a single adapter, that I could simply plug into the usb-c port?

If the price to get there is essentially equating the cost of the Onn 4K Pro (with ethernet) then it would make sense to just use that. Are there any poe injectors that would accept POE Ethernet and then Y out to usb-c + ethernet, that would power the Onn 4K Pro?

Looking forward to checking out this setup.

3 Likes
#367

If you'd like a setup that performs well, is easy to maintain, and very tidy -- it's hard to go wrong with the FireStick 4K Max Gen 2 units and Uctronics PoE Ethernet adapters:

One of the things I really like about the FireSticks is that they have an app that allows you to control them remotely without using ADB. I'm not aware of any other streaming stick that has this. The app runs fine on Apple Silicon-based Macs, so you can control these sticks from anywhere (by remoting into the Mac), even if you've lost your ADB authorization for some reason.

The form factor of the sticks is great for rackmount as well. I've been running mine for more than two years, and between PoE power control and the FireTV app, have been able to deal with anything whether local or remote to my rack:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B9ZLVGJ4

I have a complete build list for my setup posted somewhere, if any other pieces-and-parts from my build would be relevant to yours.

#368

FireSticks may be a dead end with Amazon moving away from Android

#369

I think it also depends on what TV provider you're using.
Like I wouldn't use DirecTV with a Fire TV Stick, but YouTube TV or really anything else should be totally fine.

Also, if you're using ADBTuner, being able to control at least the on-screen menus is fairly trivial.

#370

My understanding is that FireSticks up to the 4K Max Gen 2 will continue to run (and receive updates) on FireOS. It's new sticks that will be getting the VegaOS.

#371

The FireStick 4K Max Gen 1 & Gen 2 work absolutely fine with the DTV app. I used them with the DTV app, both before and after deeplinks were uncovered.

Not true if you've lost ADB authorization for any reason. FireSticks are the only platform I know of where you can recover from something like that remotely.

#372

Have the Fire Max's avoided the Android upgrade that broke CCWGTV's? That would be looming large if I were buying a group of them.

Myself, I was lazy, and in a hurry, so i "splurged" on the Onn 4K Pro to get ethernet and working compatibility.

#373

Oh, that's true.
I was just referring to tuning time with DirecTV. Like with my Osprey boxes, I can tune in like four to five seconds, but with the Onn 4K Plus boxes I had, the only way I could reliably tune was force-stopping the app each time, and that would be about an 8-10 second tune.

#374

Yes. The FireStick 4K Max Gen 2 is now (and probably forever) based on Android 11 -- which one could argue is an advantage for this kind of use. There's probably less worry about an upgrade causing these sticks to no longer work than sticks that are based on Android 14 and future.

For the rackmount crowd, and those that don't like to deal with a rat's nest of cables, it's not just Ethernet that's desirable it's PoE Ethernet. Having a built-in adapter would mean needing a PoE splitter, so you'd still have the device + something else to achieve PoE Ethernet,

#375

Out of curiosity, what's the issue with Android 14?
I noticed that there's a new wireless debugging feature, but I was able to turn on USB debugging on all my Android 14 devices. That allowed me to make an ADB connection on port 5555.

#376

It's not an issue with all devices running Android 14 (at this point anyway), but specifically with the CCwGTV stick. On those devices (I have one), you have to go through a pairing process before you can connect with ADB -- and that process does not survive reboots.

#377

Oh, that is very annoying.
I happen to have one of those devices sidelined for now, so I'll definitely try to play around with it, but that's really a shame.

#378

I don't want to be near Fire TV or the hardware. Additionally, I don't need to control these with a UI app or anything. It would be 100% for automation via the adb project.

#379

:woozy_face:

#380

5s tuning times sounds rough :confused:

#381

What providers would you be using?
YouTube TV tunes pretty quickly. The fastest tuning with DirecTV is going to be with a used Osprey box. But with DirecTV, even with an Osprey box, the fastest I've been able to get is about 4.6 seconds for a tune.