And What’s happening everyone welcome back to another new and exciting TV Box review.
These days everyone is looking for an Android TV Box that’s Google certified to play premium
subscription services in HD and 4K. Well today’s TV Box can do just that and more.
Presenting a new premium manufacturer and the sponsor to this channel called HOMATICS. They
specialize in premium certified Android streaming devices and accessories and has
recently launched their premium Android TV Box model called the HOMATICS Box R 4K Plus.
This box aside from being fully Google certified is one of the rear models that
has a USB type C port in years since the launch the Yundoo Y8 back in 2017.
So as usual we look at its design and interface and I’ll put it to the test
to see if it has what it takes to be called a great Android TV Box.
So don’t go anywhere you have that right after this.
Welcome back. So in the box you have your standard TV box contents consisting of the box itself.
You get a HOMATICS Bluetooth remote with Google assistance feature.
One HDMI cable.
A 5V 1.5 A DC power adapter. And your user manual.
So the body of the box is mostly plastic but it has a mental plate to the top that is actually
a large aluminum heatsink connected to the CPU on the inside. So HOMATICS is the second manufacturer
to adopt this new top external cooling design. For input output it has one HDMI port one ethernet
LAN port one optical audio one AV port a USB type C port and its DC power input jack to its rear.
To its side it has one USB 3.0 one USB 2.0 and a reset pin hole button.
At the front it has an LED power strip.
And below the box has four antiskid rubber feet a USB type C OTG port with no ventilation holes.
So as mentioned it’s fully certified so it’s operating system is Android TV OS and when you
startup for the first time you have a Homatics startup animation followed by the pairing of
the Bluetooth voice remote. Once completed you have the Android TV OS first startup wizard.
During this process once you are connected via Wi-Fi or LAN cable it will scan and
install any available firmware updates. Once completed the box will restart and
resume the first startup wizard. You’ll then be given the option to pair the remote with your
smart TV to control its volume and power. Then you have a list of apps to choose from
that you would like pre-installed. After all this is done you’ll be taken to the launcher.
So this is its Android TV OS launcher that we have all grown accustomed to and this firmware
was built using the Android 11 TV OS SDK. Here is its updated firmware build information and below
here it shows that it has a Netflix ESN license. Included in this firmware you get 4K 2160p
display up to 59.94 Hz. You get HDR display the
option to totally disable HDR and it has an auto HDR feature. This means that it’s
compatible with both HDR and non-HDR TVs. It has Zoom settings that you can adjust
to fit the frame of your display in the event that it overlaps.
It has HDMI CEC options and it works to shut-down and startup your TV together with the box.
For audio it has a dialogue enhancer. And you have surround sound audio options to autodetect
disable or to allow audio to passthrough. And it has an app key definition feature.
This is where you can set any installed app as a shortcut using the shortcut button on the remote.
The included remote has a built-in microphone to work with the Google assistance feature.
It has a button to quickly access the settings area.
You have your standard home and back buttons and a volume controls.
It has dedicated YouTube Netflix prime video and a custom shortcut button.
This remote works via Bluetooth and the Google assistance feature works flawlessly.
How many MHz equals 2GHz
Before I feature its streaming capabilities let’s take a quick
look at its system and hardware information. The manufacturer of this mainboard is SEI
robotics and it’s an Amlogic chipset with 4GB DDR4 RAM and 32GB of internal
storage. Its Bluetooth version is 5.0. Its CPU which is the Amlogic S905X4 is a
quad-core cortex A55 CPU clocked at 2.0 GHz configured in 32bit mode. So this
means it can only run 32bit apps and games. Its display is powered by the Mali G31 GPU with
open GL version 3.2 which is good for gaming. It has a dual band 2.4GHz + 5GHz Wi-Fi.
Its operating system is Android 11 and it’s not rooted.
Under devices it shows that its GPU has Vulkan API version 1.1 support which is also good for gaming.
Under temperature they have disabled the temperature sensor.
And in the cortex section you have a long list of decoders including all the decoders needed
for the playback of 4K HDR videos AV1 videos and videos with Dolby vision formats. You also
have decoders for surround sound audio such as Dolby Atmos eac3 and DTS HD. So it’s equipped
to connect to your surround sound audio system. And that’s its system and hardware information.
So we have already established that it has a Netflix ESN certification and to attain such
a license this box as to be certified with the required level of HDMI encryption to protect
paid subscription services from piracy. Here in its DRM information it shows
that it has Google Widevine L1 with HDCP 2.3 protection which is indeed the required level.
Another requirement for this certification is no root access to prevent harmful third-party
apps from accessing its core root file system which can compromise its security.
Here the root checker app shows that it’s not rooted.
And with all these requirements this box is fully equipped to play every premium
streaming movie service in HD and 4K with surround sound audio. Here I am
running the official version of Netflix and you have 4K HDR display with Dolby Atmos.
Also in Amazon prime video you get 4K UHD display with Dolby Atmos.
For watching YouTube videos you get 4K 2160p resolution with HDR.
For screen mirroring the box comes with built-in Chromecast and Google assistance feature.
So on your mobile device you can choose to install the Google smart home app or
you can use another screen casting app to mirror your device. Here I’m
using the Google smart home app to mirror my Android cell phone.
Also you can use the official Chromecast feature built into apps such as Netflix and YouTube.
So I’ll now play my list of 4K HDR videos and I’m testing for
smoothness of playback and for the HDR and the HLG HDR feature
activating on my TV. There is also one video with AV1 formatting in this list.
So from this test it plays all my 4K videos smoothly even the AV1 video
and even though you could not see it through my capture card the HDR and
HLG HDR feature was triggered on my TV during the playback.
I’ll now test its surround sound audio capabilities.
From this test shows that the box can output Dolby Atmos Dolby Digital plus
DTS audio Dolby surround and Dolby TrueHD. It did not output DTS HD-MA and DTS X. I
also found it difficult to find a single media player that plays all
the formats as one media player with some and another player would play the others.
So I connected my gamepad via Bluetooth and the connection is stable and here I’m using it to play
an Android game with its graphics set to high. If I set it to maximum it starts to throttle a bit.
So its graphics rendering is really good with its APU clocked at 2.0 GHz
with OpenGL 3.2 plus Vulkan support and it really does a good job at 3D gaming.
However they have disabled the temperature sensor so I had to take its surface reading
to detect for overheating. And the thermometer read 37°C which is not hot to the touch.
And to close off this review let’s take a look at its benchmarks and
where it places on the ranking chart. First its RAM copy speed and its
internal storage read and write speeds. It has a RAM copy speed of 3515 MB/s.
Its internal storage has a read speed of 69 MB/s and a write speed of 61 MB/s.
Next its Wi-Fi and Ethernet LAN speeds. Based on my network speed of 154 Mbps its
5 GHz band and the LAN port achieved maximum speed of my network.
The 2.4GHz band achieved 31%. This test also proves that the LAN port is a gigabit LAN port.
Next to test its Amlogic S905X4 CPU during single core and multicore activities the
Geekbench 5 CPU benchmark registered a score of 148 single-core and 462 multicore.
To test the graphics rendering capability of its Mali G31 GPU with Vulkan support
in the 3DMark graphics benchmark it qualified for the wildlife test with
Vulkan support and the Slingshot Extreme test. And it registered a score of 189 in the wildlife
test and 377 in the slingshot extreme test. And in the Antutu benchmark it scored 105241.
And that’s the last of the benchmarks let’s now see where it places on my rankings chart.
So I’ve entered the scores on my chart and the new Homatics Box R 4K is at position 23 based
on its Antutu benchmark score which is not a bad position at all. And it received a 4
out of 5-star rating and not five based on some of the cons identified in this video.
You can view this chart on my blog where you can maximize it and compare various benchmark
scores and features to other models are reviewed. I also provide coupon links and price comparison
using these links right here and you can also get a link to its video right here.
To view this chart see the link in the description below this video.
So in summary The Box R 4K is a fully certified Android 11 TV Box that has all the DRM
requirements to stream paid subscription services in HD and 4K with surround sound audio such as
Dolby Atmos and it has Netflix ESN certification. The box is not cheaply built and it has a cool
attractive design with its heatsink attached to an aluminum metal plate
to the top for adequate cooling. It has good performance benchmarks
and its Bluetooth voice remote works great with handy shortcuts and Google assistance feature.
There are two faults that I discovered during my review and the first is that out
of all the surround sound audio formats it cannot output DTS HD-MA and DTS X.
And the second fault is that the included USB type C ports don’t read any of my pen
drives or SSD enclosures. All it does is provide power for charging.
So friends that about sums up this review. The selling point of this box is that it’s a fully
Google certified model built on quality hardware with an attractive design delivering the same
features as top brand names in the industry. So if you like to get your hands on this model
currently it’s only being sold on their Homatics website for just 149.99 which in my opinion is a
good price for this high quality model taken into account you have Google and Netflix certification.
So if you are interested see the link in the description below this video.
Links in the description are affiliate links so
using them to purchase also provides monetary supported this channel.
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Thanks for watching and see you in the next one.