Navori Ports Android Player To NEC’s Slot-Loaded ARM Box

May 22, 2014 by Dave Haynes

The Swiss software company Navori has had an Android version of its digital signage platform on the market for the last 18 months or so, but on its own elected devices. Now the company has created an image for the software that runs on NEC’s Open Pluggable Spec (OPS) media players for Android that was launched at the start of the year.

These are small ARM-based devices that slide into slots built into certain NEC flat panel displays.

So you get a quasi all-in-one “smart” digital sign, but with a couple of key differences from what NEC’s big Korean rivals are offering:

1- You can pop the unit out and replace it without taking the panel down, should the player develop issues;

2 – Software companies that have already written Android player applications can port to this pretty readily, doing tweaks instead of weeks or months of development working with Samsung’s (for example) API.

Navori is among a dozen or so companies certifying the Android OPS, with another half-dozen in the early stages of also do the port, says NEC.

Announcements and specs on the unit have been a little fuzzy in terms of its horsepower, but the company says it has an eight-core graphics card. The units cost $250, which is substantially high than some HDMI stick and set-top box options, but represents a much more industrial-grade piece of kit.