With all this talk of the new Apple TV, it’s easy to forget that he Android platform is blessed with an unending amount of content made specifically for its many variations. While sheer variety is always a good thing, it’s not the best for the device ecosystem.
The result is a fragmented experience that the team behind the HUBI Stick wants to address. The device is a small HDMI dongle that comes in 8GB and 16GB varieties. By plugging it into a supported television, it gives users access to the entirety of the Google Play store. So all manner of internet TV apps—smartphone or tablet versions—along with the dizzying number of games are all fair game. Any smartphone and their embedded sensors (even iPhones) open up the opportunity to have a Wii-like experience when playing video games.
Users can also conduct searches by typing or by voice recognition, and use productivity apps if there’s a spare keyboard nearby. The company is focusing on the price with this product in an effort to maintain attention away from its less than stellar UI. $45 gets backers an 8GB version with an ARM A9 processor and 2GB of RAM, while $10 more doubles the storage to 16GB. The team behind HUBI Stick is looking for $5,000 in funding before November 28th, 2015.
HUBI is far from the first to put Android, or even Windows, on stick that plugs into a TV. There is a lot of functionality in this device suitable for a wide array of tasks. Without an HDMI monitor or spare keyboard or game controller, though, actually doing a lot of what’s capable dramatically increases the cost.