One year ago, I was looking for a capable System On Chip that is properly documented and that provides support for pure Linux and not only for android. Out of this research, I selected the Freescale i.MX6, I bought my first target (a GK802 which would have been a wonderful value for money if it had not exhibited a very annoying overheating issue) and began to work on XBMC porting for this specific soc.
Since that time I have heard about many devices based on this i.MX6 chip. But a few weeks ago, a specific project caught my attention : the EzeeCube.
This EzeeCube project is not yet another raw board but it is a full product which aims at addressing a specific need : Storing, organizing and syncing photos in a very simple way.
The project initiators have already developed a specific plugin for XBMC and dedicated applications for iPhone and android smartphones. They have also worked to design an aesthetic product with an innovative concept to stack additional hard disks or even DVD reader.

At hardware level, aside the energy efficient iMX6 (Dural Core), we can find 1GiB RAM, 1TB HDD, internal eMMC and rich connectivity (Ethernet, Wifi, BT, USB, SDcard, IR receiver…)

At first sight, one could think that the need is already fulfilled by other means.
First, some cloud storage services could enable to organize photos. Yet it is obvious that storing media on his own device can be less prone to safety concern, faster to sync as we don’t have to go through a slow uplink to the internet and especially cheaper as there is no recurrent fee which is quite high when you have a few hundreds of GiB to store.
Then, some NAS have interesting features regarding photos but the ones which have similar capabilities tend to be expensive and being able to turn them into a XBMC capable device is not so frequent while the XBMC nature of the EzeeCube makes it a natural mediacenter…

So at the end, this product has an innovative design, it enables to store a big amount of photos privately and to sync them with smartphones by focusing on simplicity while using XBMC as its main software.
After some exchanges with the project leader, Ashok, I even agreed to provide support to them because I am enthusiast regarding initiatives which aim at building a product with a real concept.
I invite you to discover further this product on its website and its crowdfunding campaign to make your mind about it and share your thoughts with the team…