BPI-M7 Android problems

Banana Pi Rockchip design BPI-M7/BPI-W3/BPI-AIM7(RK3588)
1

Downloaded the image from the official download site and the tool could not flash the device (wrong hardware) but found on reddit somebody with the same problem and he published the link to a new version he got from support. This one did flash and android came up but

  1. default is portrait and the settings for the video does not have an option to rotate the screen to landscape. It rotates for certain applications like playing video.
  2. in landscape the screen is not filled up but there is a black band around the bezel of the TV and the screen that is displayed (and it can only made bigger and not smaller)
  3. 4K was detected but there is no difference between 4K and 1K with the same problem as above
  4. there must be a problem with the DPI settings as when loading the PIA first screen to log in, the login button is displayed but it is not possible to proceed (and press the button) - this happens with different applications)
  5. sometimes lost video connection and the only way to regain the video is by rebooting.
  6. the application fast band on the bottom cannot be made translucent not transparent and cannot be hidden
  7. not sure if the control via the HDMI is implemented (for sure not configurable)

those are the immediate visible problems but it does play video streams correctly (except for the size of the screen) and streams music correctly. I am comparing this build with a build based on an odroid M1 where those problems are not there once the emmc is flashed. For the M1 I use the official android release by Hard Kernel.

I am happy to debug together with the dev team and others the different problems in order to have a more complete version of android (if possible newer than v12) where those problems are addressed and solved

Philip

2
  1. There is a black box around the displayed screen because this firmware defaults to supporting ten inch touch screens and HDMI display interfaces, and the default touch screen is used as the main display.
  2. If there is no touch screen during startup, you need to connect the mouse to log in
  3. If the application at the bottom needs to be set up, the source code needs to be customized and modified
3

thanks for the first comments

to clarify, this box is to be used as a streaming box for

  • internet tv
  • internet radio
  • media client for local content (movies and music) the box will not “cast” to a tv but will connect directly to a TV or computer monitor

I am not using a touch screen but a TV (either 42 inch 1K or a 75 inch 4K) as it is mainly to be used to play movies and series and stream music. Using a 10 inch touch screen is not in my short nor long term purchases. It probably has to do with the geometry you set up in the firmware but for most users who are not purchasing a 10 inch touch screen but are repurposing either a TV or a computer monitor, the black band should not be there or should disappear if there is a setting to change the over/underscan. To make this product successfull this is a real requirement

I connected a wireless keyboard/mouse from Logitec and that works fine and fulfills the requirement as a TV box.

my main concern is the fact that I cannot control the rotation out of the box and I am only using the box in portrait. I do have a problem that some “buttons” in applications cannot be selected as if the dpi is mismatched … although the hdmi is set to 1K.

I hope this clarifies a bit the problem settings.

4

Okay, we are considering developing multiple firmware for this development board to solve the problem you mentioned

5

Hello Support

This answer really made my day! and I am sure this will also be welcomed by lots of people considering this board (versus a RPI5 or odroid). If you need to have somebody testing the board for alpha testing, count me in as I will make time for this.

main use : tv/media box connecting to

  • internet through vpn (PIA did not work as I could not select the login box - using for the moment the Proton vpn that works well) for radio streaming (various apps - working ) for IPTV streaming (various apps - working) for email reading (thunderbird to check connectivity to office365 email + normal email using imap)

  • internal LAN to a NAS (odroid based mediavault software) using Kodi as media application for local content using vlc for local content (and sometimes Kodi)

for launcher I use the standard one and Niagara (working) for live background I am using a mechanical clock (working)

I can try other popular media centers and applications on the board but I am not a gamer (I have absolutely no games on my android devices). I hope this can help you and your organisation

Philip

6

Good morning

I tried the device on a sony 1K 42" TV and the behaviour is different … the banner at the bottom did not disappear but became translucent but the navigation buttons were not reachable (the window below the banner was.

I went back to the standard launcher but I must have also changed something in the developer options as now the screen is full screen but there is no banner with the wifi strenght, settings to drag down and wall paper changes are not possible (now it is the darker blue star background and on the right side there is a square with some dots and that hides all the installed applications. The bottom bar contains the navigation buttons and they do work . I will flash the second device and see if and how I can reproduce the situation with the Sony TV and on a computer screen. By the way the device gets hot , I purchased the metal box where the processor makes contact (through a heatpad) with the box and this works but the whole box gets hot enough to be surprised when touching it

7

hello We have updated a firmware that defaults to only using HDMI monitors and uploaded it to GitHub. In the past few days, we have also considered uploading the source code to GitHub in a suitable way