Smart Home Blog

I already wrote about Seagate’s FreeAgent Theater – media player with dock for FreeAgent Go portable HDD. It looked very attractive. Especially for non-geek people who don’t want to spend their time to setup Popcorn Hour or HTPC. But it had one big disadvantage – missed HDMI output.

It took 9 monthes to produce improved version of FreeAgent Theater. FreeAgent Theater+ has not only HDMI output but Ethernet port and ability to wireless connection to the LAN using USB WiFi adapter. Sure it supports all known media formats and containers as many networked media players as well as 1080p HD video, DTS 2.0 + Digital Out or Dolby Digital technology. The player for consumers offers a simple and intuitive user interface.

The Seagate FreeAgent Theater+ is already available at $149.99. The bundle player plus 500Gb FreeAgent Go costs $289.99. The FreeAgent Theater+ Wireless Adapter is expected to be available in October as a separate accessory through Seagate.com for $69.99.

Taking into account the price, offered functionality and the original idea for storage FreeAgent Theater+ can be success competitor for networked media players on the market.

Another new product from Seagate is FreeAgent DockStar. It’s a dock-station for FreeAgent Go portable HDD with Pogoplug NAS capabilities. For the $99 you can get FreeAgent DockStar plus one year of Pogoplug remote access and sharing service ($29). Sure you may use original Pogoplug device to share HDD content in the local network. But FreeAgent DockStar is more suitable for FreeAgent Go owners. And it has two USB ports more.

[via eHomeUpgrade/eHomeUpgrade]

If you have external USB hard drive and would like to access it without PC the Pogoplug is probably what do you need. This stylish adaptor turns any USB storage device into NAS. Additionally to sharing files it provides UPnP service to stream media content by home network. The Pogoplug can be easily configured via web interface. For Linux geeks it provides SSH access and a few open source components. The functionality of the Pogoplug can be expanded by uploading a new firmware. So, later some new features might be added there.

The Pogoplug is available just for $99 which is near to cost some one bay NAS without HDD. But using USB hub you can connect to the Pogoplug more then one device.

You can watch demo video about configuration Pogoplug after jump.
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Here is a hack with allows to add a display to your Linux-based router or NAS equiped with USB port. That display It can be DisplayLink device (Samsung U70, for example) or 4D Systems OLED Display Graphics Module. You may watch log of your NAS or control applications which run on your WiFi router or server without separate PC or notebook.

[via Engadget]

Recently the mCubed, well-known producer stylish small factor PC, presented its new device – RIPNAS. It combines Audio CD ripping, Network Attached Storage and Media Streaming in one easy to use small, quiet and fanless box. The CD ripping is fully automated and it doesn’t need user interaction. The metadata is retrieved 4 providers – AMG, GD3, MusicBrainz, freedb, with quality album art, spelling mistakes are automatically corrected using PerfectMeta technology. Ripped to a lossless format CDs are automatically shared for streaming for various network media players such Sonos, Logitech Squeezebox, uPNP/DLNA compatible players and iTunes DAAP.

The RIPNAS is based on Windows Home Server which offers complete home network backup for all family Windows PCs. It’s available with 640Gb HDD. But storage capacity can be easily extended by connecting external USB drivers.

The price of RIPNAS is not so cheap – €995.00. You can buy even semiprofessional solution with RAID support and many others options. IMHO it isn’t reasonable money for possibility to rip your CDs (and not DVDs). The lack of gigabit Ethernet is also not an advantage.

[via TestFreask]

NAS for the SOHO is not so expensive now. So, to make access to the various files from different PCs much easier it’s better to add it to your home network. But if you already have some USB connected hard drive you can transform it to NAS using NASU2 NAS adapter.

It’s equiped with a USB 2.0/1.1 and an Ethernet 10/100Mbps connection. Additionally NASU2 provides an ability to power most 2.5″ USB hard drives or any low powered USB storage device.

For uses NASU2 offers both SMB (Server Message Block) and the open source Samba network protocols. So, it’s doesn’t matter which OS runs on client PC – MS Windows, MacOS X or Linux. It always will have access to the data on the storage. To access to the storage outside the LAN NASU2 provides FTP connection. Additionally you can use that adaptor as print-server or Torrent client. Not bad for the 50 bucks device, isn’t it?

[via Business Wire]