Best products from r/ODroid

Seems like you already made your decision so let me still add my opinion about the topic for anyone else that comes across this question.

Odroid C2 is a better option for an Media Center if you're not utilitzing the USB-Ports for NAS storage and the like (since it's just USB2.0). Produces less heat and Mainline Kernel made good progress lately (4.16 got HDMI support) - it's still not there yet but it will get to a working state sooner of later I'd say (keep in mind the old 3.x Kernel is stable and has working HW Video-Encoding support).

Both of them have Hardware en/decoding, C2 ever since Kernel 3.x and XU4 just recently trough the Mainline-Kernel. I've read about some stability issues with Kernel 4.9 especially regarding video-decoding but I'm not sure about that better research about that yourself (not trying to make the XU4 seem like a bad unit).

If you go for the C2 be sure to NOT go for the microUSB PowerPlug since that not only brings no overcharge protection but also increases heat signinficantly. For both of them you want actually have good WIFI Dongle if you want to utilize WIFI - I'd hands down recommend either the RTL8811AU if you want an small dongle without an external antenna (utilizing the RTL8812AU driver) or the RTL8812AU if you want an dongle with external high-gain antennas. The RTL8811AU is less power hungry, as such won't make your device break down if there is a sudden spike in power consumption as the network conditions get worse.

If you want an NAS like SBC with an eSata port and an Marvel SOC that actually has HW AES support inbuild (performance is better then XU4 with Cloudshell) then go for the ESPRESSObin. Tough I don't know how good their Media Player ability is. I'd recommend the HC1/2 in that case for their passive cooling trough their frame - otherwise if you really need raid go for the CloudShell.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06Y3V2FBK/

Further details and good insights can be found here:

https://forum.openmediavault.org/index.php/Thread/19871-Which-energy-efficient-ARM-platform-to-choose/?postID=154980#post154980

Bottomline of the story - you can't have everything.

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TLDR:

1. Option: Odroid C2 with this case if you need no external storage: https://www.amazon.de/dp/B00NB1WPEE/ref=psdc_1626220031_t1_B00MTIS49A
   
2. Option: Odroid HC1/2 if you need a single storage (depending on drive-size).
   
3. Option: Odroid XU4Q with CloudShell 2 (https://wiki.odroid.com/accessory/add-on_boards/xu4_cloudshell2/xu4_cloudshell2)
   
4. Option: NAS Self-Build with ESPRESSObin and OpenMediaVault with ??? Performance regarding Media Center performance.
   
   Cheers!

I'm using an N2 for music playback in my car now, although I solved most of the similar requirements you mentioned by also having a Nexus 7 in front of it. I found some nice touch screens and 7 inch digitizers that technically worked but getting everything to play nice together in Android was tough. I preferred the Nexus 7 / N2 combo in the end.

The Nexus 7 runs android for maps/YouTube/Spotify all that and the N2 does what it does best and outputs quality audio over Bluetooth to 3.5mm jack. I forked this Pi gist for easy Bluetooth A2DP and modified for the N2 and other non-raspbian SBCs, give it a go if you're looking for that:

https://gist.github.com/MrDoctorKovacic/5bd4943b27320e65a033948fafb86d19

For power management, find an ACC power line in your car (usually one of the wires to the stock radio), connect to a buck converter and timed relay. Loss of power on GPIO will tell the N2 to safely shutdown and the relay will kill power to the power supply about 30 seconds later.

Depends on the car, but many vehicles just run the VCC coming from the alternator/battery, which ranges from 11.4V to 13.8V. Their radios or infotainment account for that. THIS RANGE WILL KILL YOUR ODROID! It must be regulated to ~12.2v either by you or the car.

If that's the case you need to have a good power supply going to the N2 preferably one that can step up and down and provide about 2-3 amps. 3A if you're doing a camera/GPS/SSD. I use this one, no complaints. Vendors, especially on AliExpress and eBay, lie all the time and their power supplies either drop voltage/amperage randomly or can't keep up with spikes. This doesn't matter for LEDs or motors, but isn't good for a computer. If you value your time, don't cheap out on the power supply.

I also have a small router by GLi Net which has a USB tethering feature, and spits that phone hotspot out over WiFi and ethernet connection to the N2 (I have a switch but you don't need one). I don't know if the N2 is able to tether directly, if it can this router is redundant. let me know!

Any USB camera should work fine, use quality extension cables (USB3 even if the camera is USB2) if you're running it from the rear to the front. Good chance a bad cable will lead to degraded image or random disconnects.

EMMC will boot faster than an SSD I believe.

That's about all I know. This is a tough project to do right, I recommend if you want something cheap and easy to stick with a Nexus 7 or similar. I've been playing with SBCs for my car about 3 years now because it's fun, but I still haven't landed on a setup I'm satisfied with. The N2 will end up being as expensive as off the shelf options imo

This one might do it, but at 5V, it looks like it outputs a minimum of around 3.5A, or so. That might be pushing it. The details don't really say what the max current is at each voltage, though, so the max of 24W might only be available with 12V output.

I wish higher amperage 5v PoE splitters were more widely available. My Tinker Boards and Pi's all run with PoE splitters. It really cuts down on the amount of free outlets I need. I'd love to do the same with my XU4.

I'd probably go for the C2, it's not quite as fast as the XU4 but it's cheaper. Also important to note the XU4 is an 8 core, while the C2 is 4. C2 doesn't have the fan mounted right on the chip so when you stack them up you can just mount a single fan next to them all.

Also, the C2 has a jumper on it that will allow you to power it over the microUSB port. While the barrel connector is probably more ideal, it's not necessary. If you don't plan on connecting anything to the USB ports that eats up power I don't see any reason to not just do it that way with a 5 port charger. I think their stated power draw under load is something like 1A.

Thank you for your reply.

Isn't the official one a bit overpriced (~30$)? I found this alternative, but I don't know if it will indeed work and which pins to connect. (If you wan to help, please read my other comment below. Thank you!).

EDIT: Nevermind, solved (see /u/OrYouCouldJustNot's comment below)

I got one for christmas and am trying to cool it off, too.
I got a heatsync: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00ZRDRX8M
And Noctula Fan: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00NEMGCIA

But with the thermal pad, it still shoots up to ~96 degrees under full load. It must be the thermal pad because the heatsync stays totally cool with the fan running (it does warm up without the fan).

I wonder if we could put metal shims on top of the two cpu dies to lift the heatsync away from the rest of the surface mount components and then use proper thermal paste to bind them with the heatsync. I'll have to do some research into this... :) Let me know if you guys come up with any other ideas... !

I set up a headless boot-from-usb system with external drive happily powered without ever connecting it with HDMI (good thing, as I don't have the right HDMI cable).

As others told you, ssh is running by default (odroid/odroid).

Following the wiki instructions for booting of USB works nicely, and is a better choice than using SD for the root filesystem - at least based on all the RPi people talking about frequent filesystem corruptions.

Mine, with the Odroid-supplied power supply, happily spins up a HGST Touro S 1TB 7200RPM drive.

I don't really see a problem with using the USB drive - sure it may not be the fastest, but as a torrent and backup server (as I'm using it), it just isn't an issue. I'm pretty sure (?) that the limitation for these uses is the network rather than the disk - for getting files on and off it by whatever means.

Correction, I ordered from AmeriDroid, the US vendor for the Odroid products.

Yep, they come ready to play out of the box, because it's annoying to set up the OS manually.

If you choose to get a blank eMMC here's what you need to do: go to the new and improved [wiki] (https://wiki.odroid.com/start) and click your product, in this case it's C2. Scroll down to the Software(OS) Release section and choose which OS you want followed by the specific version. Instructions to setup the OS image are under the **THIS** link. The eMMC modules are a great speed bump, though programming the OS onto them is a bit finicky when it comes to the USB adapter. I had to use a eMMC-to-SD adapter plugged into an SD-to-USB adapter. If you search around you'll find forums of tested adapters that pass/failed the image flashing.

Transcend was a popular one but I chose a cheaper one that still worked. Sorry if you already knew all this, I hated looking all this up so I figure'd I could save you some time.

Wow, a person in the comments seems to imply it works for him. Even with an external hard driver provided he plugs it in after the odroid boots.

Since I'm going to be running these as headless servers maybe I'll snag one and see how it goes. Thanks for the link!


EDIT: This seems like a better option. And someone in the Q&A confirms it works with an XU4. It's a little expensive though. https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00NH8QSOY/

So I bought these instead: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B07DV1XKZ4

I use coreelec and the N2, and while I use ethernet, my understanding is that coreelec supports several USB-Wifi adapters. This is a good thread on the topic:

https://discourse.coreelec.org/t/working-usb-wifi-ethernet-adapters-for-coreelec/548

For example, looks like this one would work:

https://www.amazon.com/TP-Link-wireless-network-Adapter-SoftAP/dp/B008IFXQFU

The XU4 is fine (I'd personally go with the XU4Q and add a 5V Noctua fan for thermal control, I don't like the XU4's heatsink/fan combo), or if you want a cheap 64bit board look at the Rock64. For a 64bit board with lots of horsepower the ODroid-N2 is probably a good bet.

I've been looking at these enclosures for anything with a Raspberry Pi form factor (such as the Rock64):

https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B07BH7M1ST/

https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B01N9645NI/

https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B07D5NM9ZG/

If you want to silence your xu4, [this chipset heatsink from amazon](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00ZRDRX8M?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00
) fits perfectly.

My xu4 with it: http://imgur.com/HejVtkY

I bought an HDMI to VGA adapter off Amazon ($9 USD) about 2 years ago and it works great: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00F8WFEZQ/ref=oh_aui_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 I especially like that it has the analog audio-out jack on the side. This product isn't currently available on Amazon right now, but the link will at least give you an idea of what's out there.

​

If you're just after HDMI to DVI, converter cables are also around $9 USD: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HSQO5QO/ref=dp_prsubs_1

It doesn't terribly need a fan, as the heatsink is big enough to keep it at reasonable temps under load as long as you're not putting it in a really tight enclosure.

If you're still set on active cooling buy a case with a fan or 3D print a raspberry pi case with a fan mount.

I have successfully used:


https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00YC7U0NE/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o07_s00

​

From Odroid C2 -> 1024x768 VGA Projector.

I don't think you need shims. All the cores are in the large die. My stock heatsink had plastic over the thermal pad which should have been removed. I discovered it while in the process of replacing the heatsink so i didn't do any testing with it removed.

I've attached this heatsink with thermal paste and a noctua fan and have had a decent improvement in temps.

Using this as a benchmark, my stock times in time2throttle were:

2 instances- 42.4 s

3 - 6.9

4 - 2.3

After the upgrade the times were:

2 - never hit

3 - 46

4 - 5

Suffice to say, I believe the heatsink is making adequate contact without any shimming.

note: time2throttle only runs properly in ubuntu.