Have you ever wanted to share your favorite, funny cat YouTube video with your friends on your beautiful plasma TV, but couldn’t? Have you ever been so frustrated because you wanted to play games from your smartphone, but display it on a bigger screen, like your TV? Fret no more! Introducing the Bâtondroid—the new solution to having your whole Android OS on your TV.
Bâtondroid converts your normal LED/LCD/plasma TVs that have HDMI support to a smart TV with Android OS, allowing you to stream YouTube videos, download apps from third party stores, play games and more!
The idea for this project struck Gautam Iyer when he was looking for a LCD display for BeagleBone Black and something quick to implement. The maker was using his LED TV as a display when the idea came about.
When asked about what components he used to create the device, Gautam praised the Sitara™-processor-based BeagleBone Black for its power. “BeagleBone Black itself is a very powerful device which eliminates a lot of hardware for external interface,” Gautam said. Other than the board, he used a wireless keyboard and mouse, a microSD card, a gold plated HDMI cable and finally, a Wi-Fi adapter for Internet connectivity.
This project did come with a few challenges, however. While searching online, Gautam saw various images available for Android development on BeagleBone Black, but there was no application specific image. They were all fully equipped versions, therefore cutting off the unwanted features proved to be challenging, especially on the software side. On the hardware end, a small hiccup occurred because BeagleBone Black had only one micro-USB connector for external device interface, so getting an On-The-Go (OTG) cable first and then the wireless mouse and keyboard working on single dongle was necessary.
If you’d like to learn more about Gautam Iyer and his projects, check out his E2E Profile mentioned below.
