Can a Raspberry Pi run android software

[dogman]

I am holding my hands up. I know nothing about Pi's

As many on here do i was wondering if my latest crazy idea will work.

I started a couple of threads about my planned network and possible Hdmi matrix (now outside my budget) but still need to address how i get the cctv pictures around the house on the various tv's. 

My Hikvision DVR/NVR has android software that works really well (IVMS 4500) and i was thinking that if i could get a Raspberry pi to run the software and output the picture Via Hdmi i could run one on each TV. 

I am not sure if i could run them continuously and if having three running would impact the network. Would need some sort of Mouse/ keyboard/ir remote control 

Before i spend ages  reading up on Pi's is it possible

 

[Jeremy Harris]

Yes, with some reservations.  I've not personally tried it, but there is a version of Android that does run on the RPi: https://www.raspberrypi.org/magpi/android-raspberry-pi/

 

I have a couple of spare RPis here, and if I get a couple of spare hours over the weekend I'll burn a uSD card and see how well it runs.

Edited August 11, 2017 by JSHarris

[PeterW]

I was typing something similar to @JSHarris but I am intrigued what you are trying to do ..??

 

Do you want to port the Hikvision software to a RPI..?? IVMS is their viewer for Android and is optimised for portable devices and I'm not sure it would support HDMI as the output is very low resolution. 

 

Have you bought the Hikvision recorder ..? RPI can be a cctv server with its own setup. 

[dogman]

@PeterW I already have a Hikvision recorder that currently uses a av modulator to route signals to tv's around the house. However there is no control so i tend to IVMs 4200 software on my laptop to view cctv. 

I have a HD version of IVMS on a tablet that works well and gives control.

What i want to do is be able to turn on the tv and be able to view live cctv and have control of the ptz cameras. The hikvision has a remote control and i was looking at using a Hdmi matrix to do this as they have an IR loop through. I don't think i will be able to justify the cost of the matrix any more.

IVMS takes ages to bootup on my i5 laptop so is not ideal unless its left running.

The android version is a lot quicker to boot 

[Jeremy Harris]

I've got an HD Android app for controlling/viewing a WiFi security cam, so I can have a go and see whether that will run on a RPi with RTAndroid.  The chances are that if that app works OK, in HD, then I think that IVMS may well also run OK on it, as essentially the operation of both will be similar.

[dogman]

Thanks @JSHarris if it does work which model is best?

will need

case 

Ethernet port 

HDMI out 

mouse (or preferably wireless mouse) 

low power consumption

 

 

[Jeremy Harris]

Raspberry Pi 3, as it has built in Wifi, HDMI out, Ethernet and four USB ports, so a mouse/keyboard can be connected.  It also has Bluetooth, so you could use a Bluetooth combined trackpad/keyboard if you wanted wireless control.  Power consumption is pretty low, typically under 1W when not doing much, increasing to about 4W when running near-flat out.  In this application I doubt it would use a lot of power.  You can get a neat case cheaply to house the thing.

 

If it works (I'll have a go later today or tomorrow) then you'd need:

 

Raspberry Pi 3

Case

5V power supply, capable of delivery a peak current of around 2 to 2.5A (the RPi3 won't draw this, but the peak current demand on power up can be high for a few tens of ms).

µSD card, ideally around 8Gb (you can probably get away with a 4Gb one, maybe even a 2Gb one, I think - I'm not sure yet how big the RT Android image file will end up being).

 

Total cost would be well under £50 for all the above, including postage

 

You'll also need an HDMI capable display device and a standard HDMI lead, plus a USB or Bluetooth mouse or trackpad, and a USB or Bluetooth keyboard for the initial set up (not sure yet whether you can get away without a keyboard after everything is set up; the chances are you can, I think).

 

.

Edited August 12, 2017 by JSHarris

[PeterW]

I think you are going to need one per TV to do this and as @JSHarris has outlined the price of £50 per unit it starts to add up especially if you need mouse and keyboard. 

[Jeremy Harris]

I can also add that my initial look-see doesn't look to be promising.  RTAndroid is aimed at industrial machine control, and is far from user friendly, in terms of downloading and burning an image.  It looks like building a custom image may be the only way forward, and frankly that's not something for the faint hearted (and it takes a fair bit of time).  There is another Android project for the RPi3 that I've been looking at, but that's even less user friendly, as it looks to be essentially a "geeks only" project.

 

There are other options, though.  The very new Rock64 natively supports Android, and in its 1Gb form is cheaper than a RPi3 ($25), yet still has all the interfaces needed (HDMI, Ethernet, USB, but no WiFi or Bluetooth): https://www.pine64.org/?page_id=7147

 

As @PeterW says above, though, because you'll need one per TV this could get to be an expensive and slightly awkward way to do things.

 

I'll carry on digging around, but my initial thoughts are that using a RPi isn't the right approach, as apart from anything else it looks very much as if the Raspberry Pi Foundation are very anti the whole idea of running Android, so won't offer any support.  The view seems to be that supporting Android on the RPi would be counter to their educational aim, and would be focussed solely on consumers.  Not sure I agree with them, but it's their toy set, so they can call the shots.

[dogman]

Thanks @JSHarris and @PeterW for the ideas. Not to worried about it being a RPi so will look at others. The £50 per tv is a lot cheaper than a 1x4 Hdmi matrix that i was looking at.

[PeterW]

Am I missing something or is it something different to this you want..?? £75 from TLC

 

1-4 splitter

[dogman]

Its more the control that i need as i have 16 + cameras and when garden or stable alarms go off i need to switch between cameras often in the early hours. 

I was looking at a HDBaseT 4x1 or 4x4 matrix as they have a ir loop through.

Running the Hikvision client on a small stand alone unit will give me better control and be a lot cheaper than a HDBaseT unit.

[Jeremy Harris]

I'm still playing with this, and have sort of got Android to work on a RPi 3, but frankly it's not pretty and is very slow when trying to display video.  I have a feeling that this is a bit of a dead end, as there is a problem with the GPU driver.  One of the main problems seems to be that Android on the RPi can't use hardware acceleration, due to the lack of a driver for the GPU, I think.  As a consequence, it tries to do all the video processing in the main processors, and that seems to be very, very slow.

 

I'm sufficiently interested in the idea of trying to do this, for my own use, that I'm going to try and get hold of a Rock 64, as that should be able to run Android with good video performance, I think.  It's only around £20, so not much wasted if it doesn't work.  They don't look to be available for a few weeks, though, so it may be a while before I get the chance to try one out.

 

[Jeremy Harris]

Whilst looking around for a possible alternative solution to this problem, I've come across some cheap Android "TV boxes".  They are probably aimed at running Kodi or similar, to view streaming TV, but underneath it looks like they are just a cased system, very like the Rock64, complete with Ethernet and HDMI ports, plus WiFi, that runs on Android.  The basic ones seem to be around £30, complete with case, power supply and remote : http://www.gearbest.com/tv-box-mini-pc/pp_424949.html

 

The big question is whether or not the Android version of IVMS would run on one or not.  I can't see an obvious reason why it shouldn't, but the only way to find out might be to buy one and try it.

[dogman]

@JSHarris if you are getting a rock I assume it will be ordered from abroad. Let me know I might get one as well and they may be cheaper in numbers 

[Jeremy Harris]

Sorry for the delay, I'm still trying to gather enough information to be able to try and pick something that will do this job relatively easily.  I'm part way there, and I'm reasonably sure that a cheap "Android TV box" may well be able to do the job.

 

The reasons that one of these may be a better bet are:

 

- It's a ready-made small box, complete with power supply, Ethernet and HDMI connectivity

- It already runs Android, so that reduces the amount of faffing around trying to get it to run properly

- It should have reasonably good graphics performance, as these boxes are optimised for streaming HD TV.

 

The question mark is really over how easy they are to modify, in terms of being able to load an app to control and view a network camera stream, how easy the interface is to operate via the supplied remote and whether or not the version of Android that is loaded into the ROM is up to the job, in that it will allow either access to the PlayStore to download the streaming app, or allow an app to be side loaded from an apk.  If the stock Android ROM that's loaded isn't that great, I also want to see if these devices can be rooted and an alternative ROM loaded, like Cyanogenmod.  I know that Cyanogenmod works fine with my HD CCTV network camera app, so if that can be loaded then there's no good reason why one of these boxes shouldn't be able to do the job OK.

 

I'll have another look around tomorrow, and maybe later tonight, to see if I can find out if anyone else has tried to do this with one of these cheap Android boxes.  If that fails, I'll just buy one to play with.

[Declan52]

I have 2 of these type of android boxes and both of them the remote is brutal. I just plug in a mouse to go through the menu to play stuff. There are some you can use your phone as the interface.

I use one for IPTV and it plays full hd easily.

Most of the apps you need to load aren't available on the Google play store so I just search for the APK of whatever app it is and install it. Or I install the app from aptoide. 

What do you call the camera app and I will see if I can install it on mine, after the LFC match obviously!!

[dogman]

iVMS-4500 HD

 

there are several versions the one i will need is the HD version

[Declan52]

Installed fine.

The first pic is what it loads up to showing 4 places to load up camera feeds. 

The 2nd is the option menu.

Edited August 15, 2017 by Declan52

[Jeremy Harris]

Great news Declan, that's exactly what I was hoping would work!

 

Which Android box did you use?

[Declan52]

It's an old mqx box bought from Amazon near 3 years ago. Banned now from there due to kodi being preloaded on it.

This would be a more up to date version. Just Googled it and found this on eBay. Never bought a thing from eBay so not sure if this guy is good or bad.

http://m.ebay.co.uk/itm/232383501032?_trksid=p2385738.m2548.l4275&_mwBanner=1

[Jeremy Harris]

Thanks @Declan52, I've ordered one and will give it a thorough test and report back.

[dogman]

Thanks @Declan52 I will also be getting a one as it looks like an easy way to run the software. You and @JSHarris may have just saved me the cost of a hdmi matrix 

@JSHarris did you buy yours from the link below 

On 2017-8-13 at 12:23, JSHarris said:

http://www.gearbest.com/tv-box-mini-pc/pp_424949.html

This looks like a 64bit version where as the ebay versions are 32bit

[Guest Alphonsox]

20 minutes ago, dogman said:

Thanks @Declan52 I will also be getting a one as it looks like an easy way to run the software. You and @JSHarris may have just saved me the cost of a hdmi matrix 

@JSHarris did you buy yours from the link below 

This looks like a 64bit version where as the ebay versions are 32bit

 

Both versions use 64bit ARM processors. The EBay version uses quad A53 processors (same as the Raspberry Pi 3), the gearbest uses quad A7 processors. I doubt you'll see a big difference in this application.

[Jeremy Harris]

That's my view, too.  I've noticed with the RPi that when streaming video (using Raspbian, so with GPU hardware acceleration) then the CPU is barely doing more than feeding the Ethernet stream, and rarely works at more than around 10% of its capacity.  I don't think that the main processor capability is the bottle neck with these things, it'll probably be the graphics processor (GPU).  The low end Mali 450 GPU seems to be capable of a throughput of around 2.2 Gpixels/s, which is roughly equivalent to twenty 1080p video streams at 50fps ( 1080p at 50 fps = 50 x 1080 x 1920 = 103680000 pixels/s = 0.10368 Gpixels/s, if I've got the sums right).