Navori Debuts 2nd-Gen HDMI Stix Player That Does High-Frame Rate 4K But Costs $249
July 6, 2021 by Dave Haynes
Ruggedization seems to be an evolutionary thing in the digital signage sector, with consumer hardware gradually giving way to more industrialized devices with time and experience.
We’ve seen it with PCs and set-top boxes, and now that’s happening with HDMI sticks. Some of the first ones on the market, like the Dell stick and units like Chromebits, were designed for the consumer market but co-opted for business, mainly based on price and their tiny footprint. There have also been PC sticks, some semi-rugged but many just plastic.
Now we have well-established software companies like Navori coming out with devices that are ruggedized and run Android.
Navori has announced is 2nd-gen StiX 3700, an Android 9 digital signage media player dongle dubbed “the tiniest professional media player for digital signage.”
Navori says the units, which plug into a display’s HDMI port, are just $249 USD and available worldwide. “It is a perfect complement to software media players, such as System-on-Chip (SoC) solutions, that lack the advanced feature sets and versatility of hardware players,” the company says.
The Swiss company works with some of the big display manufacturers on their “smart display” products, but the new Stix is positioned as providing more muscle for certain content jobs.
Says the PR:
- Even the most advanced SoC hardware has problems rendering 4K content, and even less so at 60 frames per second, which is required for an effective viewing experience;
- The StiX 3700 is compatible with every brand and type of screen which simplifies management tasks as every screen is controlled remotely by the Navori QL software;
- The Android operating system lets you install third-party apps, such as TeamViewer or VNC for remote control purposes, or for installing security certificates as required by many corporate IT department.
The PR goes on:
The StiX 3700 comes with professional Navori QL Player software, unlike most external media players of its kind that are limited by basic software apps. QL software is preloaded and ready to use, enabling users to get started on their projects upon turning on the device and logging in. The StiX 3700 can also be activated prior to deployment, making it is ready for use once the screen is installed. The plug-and-play dongle works flawlessly across every screen size, orientation, and brand, which simplifies system management across multi-screen digital signage networks.
The dongle is extremely versatile whether used as the main player for a screen, or to complement built-in System-on-Chip (SoC) players that lack certain capabilities. This includes support for both Wi-Fi wireless and wired connections for any network environment, and its Android operating system accepts security certificates required by many corporate IT organizations.
Maintenance is virtually non-existent, and users can replace dongles without uninstalling or replacing screens. The StiX 3700 is also interoperable with touchscreens, sensors, physical buttons, and external speakers via USB or Bluetooth, offers up to 1Tb of content storage via its micro SD card slot (versus the standard SoC 8-16Gb storage), and works with 4G and 5G USB-enabled modems.
The StiX 3700 comes with a three-year warranty and is engineered to last at least 50,000 hours––almost seven years of continuous use.
Seems courageous of Navori’s PR to point out some of the shortcomings of the SoC platforms they have actively supported for quite some time. Is the development of StiX and its apparent target market an answer to very real SoC pain they have felt over the years? Regardless, this statement from their web site seems out of place now: “SoC makes it an All-In-One digital signage screen that lets you run Navori QL software on it to deliver and run content to your TV without the need of having an external media player plugged in to your display.”
Will customers who bought the SoC dream through Navori be looking for a free StiX?