About 18 months ago, two brothers from Miami Beach, FL set out to create a way for people to connect to the nation’s top health and wellness professionals live via their television screens, directly from their living rooms. But Sam and Beau Haginas soon realized that they’d need some powerful hardware to make this happen. As a result, the brothers’ goals for their “Reshape” project took on new shape as an Android-powered streaming media device in the form of an HD webcam. Check out the TVPRO: a full HD webcam that turns any TV into a smart TV capable of video calls and conferencing, streaming Netflix, and pretty much anything else Google Play will let you do.
Equipped with a quad-core processor running Android 4.2.2, users can access millions of apps via the Google Play Store to create a customized set-top box with capabilities comparable to that of Roku, Amazon’s Fire TV or Apple TV. The project, currently with patent pending, just kicked off a round of crowdfunding at Kickstarter, and so far 66 backers have raised $15,000. The campaign has 27 days remaining to come up with the rest of the $150,000 goal.
“Entertainment in the living room and video communications in the living room – it turns any TV into an intelligent, interactive display,” explains Sam Haginas in a promotional video. In the beginning, the brothers and their Chinese manufacturing partners aimed to create a box with a dual-core processor and SD-quality webcam, but they soon discovered the hardware combination came up short in delivering the PC-quality video communications experience they desired. Enter the quad-core processor and full 1080p HD webcam that have found a home in the TVPRO set-top box. The device’s other onboard features include:
- Integrated speakers
- Dual noise-canceling microphones
- 1080p HD webcam with a wide 90-degree viewing angle
- Google Voice search
- Expandable Micro SD storage up to 32GB.
- Bluetooth-enabled for wireless connections to headphones, keyboards, wearables and other compatible devices
- Wi-Fi and LAN Ethernet connections
- 1x HDMI output and 2x USB inputs
- Miracast, DLNA, and XBMC support
Check out the the Kickstarter video below to get a closer look at what we think is one of the more promising new smart TV devices we’ve seen in a while.
