Android Set-Top Box Maker Minix Now Has Player Based On Intel NUC Design

June 1, 2021 by Dave Haynes

If you spend your days sourcing gear for media players, maybe this is not news to you. But I did not know that the Hong Kong manufacturer that seems to make the most trusted Android set-top box for digital signage applications also has a box based on Intel’s NUC design.

Minix has a Next Unit of Computing mini-PC with a Celeron CPU inside and support for Windows 10. I assume you could also throw some version of Linux, like Ubuntu, on it.

The Minix stuff I have heard about and seen through the years has been ARM and Android-based, and while many of the set-top boxes that were tried for early Android digital signage set-ups were under-powered or unreliable, I tended to hear good things about Minix devices.

The Intel NUC has been around for many years now, and while Intel itself had (maybe still does) its own hardware version aimed at the consumer market, companies like Seneca have used that reference design to produce versions that were more ruggedized and tuned to digital signage needs.

Somebody, somewhere, will have somewhat accurate numbers about market share for PCs versus set-top boxes versus BrightSign boxes (they sell enough to be a category) versus “smart” displays. I am guessing, repeat guessing, that PCs now have a relatively small piece of the signage market and their use is increasingly specialized to software options still built around Windows or Linux players, and for high demand applications involving AI or high resolutions.