Install Android on Cubox-i4 Pro

I.MX6
1

Hi,
I own a Cubox-i4 Pro for a long time ago (pre-ordered before official release :wink:).
This is really a marvelous product which is working fine from the beginning with openelec and now libreelec.
Now, I would like to turn it into an android box, but can’t find any image file.
Is there an android image available somewhere ?

2

We found newer versions of Android to be far too resource intensive for the older iMX6 based SOCs and no longer supported builds beyond the older 4.4 releases that were current when the devices were released. Specifically the GPU was not fast enough to support 1080p resolutions with newer versions of Android.

I will need to check to see what NXP’s support status of Android on the iMX6 is, but if they have a more recent release it should be easy enough to build an image that works on the Cuboxi.

3

Hi,

Thanks for your answer.
I’d be curious to try if an image will be available.

Bruno Schiettecatte.

1 Like
4

Greetings. I too bought a CuBox-i4-Pro way back when, in 2013 (order fulfilled in 2014). Honestly, I didn’t do a lot with it, was thinking I’d use it for a media center, but then I chucked it in a drawer and kind of forgot about it. So now I’m in the mood to tinker and I’m wondering what my update options might be. It has the original Android install on it, Jellybean/4.3, which doesn’t even have the Google apps. I’d like to at least have the play store. Can you advise on the best way, if there is any way, to update this little guy?

5

See Index of /static/cubox/android
It’s Android 4.4.2, so it’s old. The dates shown (2020-01-12 14:15) are not the build dates, but the dates I migrated these files. The files are a lot older, from 2014 or so.

6

Thanks so much for your reply. It’s ok (has to be) if it’s old, just having a version that includes Google Apps will open it up enough for my tinkering. What is the max SD card capacity the Cubox will recognize? I don’t want to overwrite the original since I only half (generous) know what I’m doing, so I need to buy an SD card to try the whole flash thing.

7

Android performance and support for this generation of hardware has never been great. One project that may be of interest to you is https://waydro.id/ . This basically runs Android as a container on a base linux OS and uses wayland and mesa graphics drivers for 3D acceleration.