iMito MX1 - the mini pc

Upon the advice of my buddy - Roy, I purchased a TV stick online while I was traveling in the Silicon Valley visiting my son. I didn't know much about this gadget and I was simply tempted by the headlines which said: " iMito MX1 Android 4.1 Jelly Bean Dual Core TV BOX RK3066 1.6Ghz Cortex A9 1GB RAM 8G ROM HDMI Silver ".

Two and half weeks later, this gadget was delivered registered to my door. I had to say I was surprised to receive it in such a short time considering the unit was shipped all the way from Asia. The TV stick was nicely packed in a hard-box, very much like an iphone box.

The TV stick is not much bigger than an thumb drive. It has a hdmi out at one end, an extension cable is provided, just like an usb out on an thumb drive. The other end it has an micro-usb port for power and an regular usb port for attaching accessory like a mouse. On one side of the stick it has a micro sdhc slot which can accept up 32gb card and another micro-usb port. It should be noted that there is a conversion cable from micro-usb to regular usb is also provided.

The following is a log of what I have done to this device so far:

December 13, 2012 - Firmware Update

I remember when I was browsing on the vendor's website, there was an new update from the manufacturer on Nov.29, 2012. So this became my first task. The update can be downloaded from here:

http://blog.geekbuying.com/index.php/2012/11/30/imito-mx1mx2-new-stock-firmware-release-on-29th-nov/

The installation procedures of the update was explained on the webpage.
For some reasons, the update couldn't finish from image stored on the micro sd card. Before I tried for the third time, I decided to reformat the micro-sd card using FAT32 file system and then put the image on the card again. This time the update did finish and the device was updated to Android 4.1.1

December 16, 2012 - Rooting The Device

Rooting iMito MX1 requires a pc/laptop connection.  If a pc is used, it would be much easier if the pc is connected to a separate monitor rather than sharing the tv that iMito is connected to so you don't have to keep changing the input which can be confusing at times.

The instructions in rooting the device can be found at the following website:

http://yourdeal12.blogspot.ca/2012/11/how-to-root-imito-mx1-android-tv-box.html

In a nutshell, you download two files:
MoboroboSetup_V2.0.7.501(Moborobo_En_official).exe and
TPSarky-VonDroid-Root.rar which you unrar into a folder.

My pc is installed with Windows 7 64bit O/S.  When I ran MoboroboSetup, it found the android device but fail to connect!  Instead when I connected iMito MX1 to my pc, Windows 7 installed the drivers automatically.

 Also, when I ran TPSparkyRoot.bat, iMito MX1 indeed rebooted 3 times but each time I had to click the mouse to boot up the device =>  Rebooting is NOT an automatic process.

Finally, "SuperSu" app had to be installed from Play Store but "Root Explorer" was installed by TPSparkyRoot.bat

Installing XBMC

After firmware updated and the device is rooted, now is the time to install some useful apps to enjoy this TV stick device.  The most interesting app that come to my mind is XBMC which is something I heard a lot but don't know much about. Here's the link:

http://www.xbmcandroid.com/2012/12/10/how-to-install-xbmc-nightly-with-external-player-on-the-mk802-stick-or-other-android-tv-devices/

The article has very detail step-by-step instructions. By following 51 steps in total, I was successful in installing XBMC on iMito MX1.

Connecting 32bit Windows XP to 64bit Windows 7

It has been very frustrating in the past couple days trying to make a 32bit Windows XP pc talk to a 64bit Windows 7 pc. The first objective to accomplish by talking to each other is to share a common printer and the secondary objective is to share files. As it turned out, the fix was quite simple. Besides the usual same workgroup name and file sharing feature was turned on for those folders you wanted to share, the Node Type of the 64bit Windows 7 pc has to be "Hybrid". To find out the Node Type, open a command terminal and type "ipconfig/all|more" on the Windows 7 pc. If the value is not Hybrid, then you have to change it using regedit. From the Start button, type "regedit" in the search box. Navigate to "\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\NetBT" and change the value to 8. That's it.