Turning A Chromebox Into A Proper Power-Efficient PC

May 14, 2025 by Maya Posch 21 Comments

Google’s ChromeOS and associated hardware get a lot of praise for being easy to manage and for providing affordable hardware for school and other educational settings. It’s also undeniable that their locked-down nature forms a major obstacle and provides limited reusability.

That is unless you don’t mind doing a bit of hacking. The Intel Core i3-8130U based Acer CXI3 Chromebox that the [Hardware Haven] YouTube channel got their mittens on is a perfect example.

The Acer CXI3 in all its 8th-gen Intel Core i3 glory. (Credit: Hardware Haven, YouTube)

This is a nice mini PC, with modular SODIMM RAM, an NVMe storage M.2 slot as well as a slot for the WiFi card (or SATA adapter). After resetting the Chromebox to its default configuration and wiping the previous user, it ran at just a few watts idle at the desktop. As this is just a standard x86_64 PC, the only thing holding it back from booting non-ChromeOS software is the BIOS, which is where [MrChromebox]‘s exceedingly useful replacement BIOSes for supported systems come into play, with easy to follow instructions.

Reflashing the Acer CXI3 unit was as easy as removing the write-protect screw from the mainboard, running the Firmware Utility Script from a VT2 terminal (Ctrl+Alt+F2 on boot and chronos as login) and flashing either the RW_LEGACY or UEFI ROM depending on what is supported and desired. This particular Chromebox got the full UEFI treatment, and after upgrading the NVMe SSD, Debian-based Proxmox installed without a hitch. Interestingly, idle power dropped from 2.6 watts under ChromeOS to 1.6 watts under Proxmox.

If you have a Chromebox that’s supported by [MrChromebox], it’s worth taking a poke at, with some solutions allowing you to even dualboot ChromeOS and another OS if that’s your thing.

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Google FindMy Tools Run On An ESP32

February 11, 2025 by Elliot Williams 43 Comments

As of about a day ago, Google’s reasonably new Find My network just got more useful. [Leon Böttger] released his re-implementation of the Android tracker network: GoogleFindMyTools. Most interestingly for us, there is example code to turn an ESP32 into a trackable object. Let the games begin!

Everything is in its first stages here, and not everything has been implemented yet, but you are able to query devices for their keys, and use this to decrypt their latest location beacons, which is the main use case.

The ESP32 code appears not to support MAC address randomization just yet, so it’s possibly more trackable than it should be, but if you’re just experimenting with the system, this shouldn’t be too much of a problem. The README also notes that you might need to re-register after three days of use. We haven’t gotten to play with it just yet. Have you?

If you’re worried about the privacy implications of yet another ubiquitous tracking system out there, you’re not alone. Indeed, [Leon] was one of the people working on the Air Guard project, which let iPhone users detect trackers of all sorts around them. Anyone know if there’s something like that for Android?

Thanks [Lars] for the hot tip!

A Look Back At Google’s 2015 Chromecast

December 12, 2024 by Maya Posch 15 Comments

Google’s Chromecast was first released in 2013, with a more sophisticated follow-up in 2015, which saw itself joined by the Chromecast Audio dongle. The device went through an additional two hardware generations before the entire line of products was discontinued earlier this year in favor of Google TV.

Marvell's Armada 88DE3006 dual-core Cortex-A7 powers the second-generation ChromeCast. (Credit: Brian Dipert, EDN) — Marvell’s Armada 88DE3006 dual-core Cortex-A7 powers the second-generation Chromecast. (Credit: Brian Dipert, EDN)

In addition to collecting each generation of Chromecast, [Brian Dipert] over at EDN looked back on this second-generation dongle from 2015 while also digging into the guts of a well-used example that got picked up used.

While not having any of the fascinating legacy features of the 2nd-generation Ultra in his collection that came with the Stadia gaming controller, it defines basically everything that Chromecast dongles were about: a simple dongle with a HDMI & USB connector that you plugged into a display that you wanted to show streaming content on. The teardown is mostly similar to the 2015-era teardown by iFixit, who incidentally decided not to assign any repairability score, for obvious reasons.

Most interesting about this second-generation Chromecast is that the hardware supported Bluetooth, but that this wasn’t enabled until a few years later, presumably to fix the wonky new device setup procedure that would be replaced with a new procedure via the Google Home app.

While Google’s attention has moved on to newer devices, the Chromecast isn’t dead — the dongles in the wild still work, and the protocol is supported by Google TV and many ‘smart’ appliances including TVs and multimedia receivers.

Installing SteamOS And Windows On A Google Meet Video Conference Computer

February 19, 2024 by Maya Posch 20 Comments

The Lenovo Meet is a collaboration with Google to bring Google Meet to customers in a ready to install kit for conference rooms and similar. Also called the Google Meet Series One, it features a number of cameras, speakers, display and more, along with the base unit. It is this base unit that [Bringus Studios] on YouTube tried to install a different OS capable of running Steam games on in a recent video. Along the way many things were learned about this device, which is – unsurprisingly – just another ChromeOS box.

After removing the rubber bottom (which should have been softened with a hot air gun to prevent damage), the case can be opened with some gentle prying to reveal the laptop-like innards. Inside are an 8th gen Intel CPU (i7-8550U @ 1.8 GHz), a 128 GB SATA M.2, 2 GB DDR4 RAM, along with 2 more GB of DDR4 a MicroSD slot and a Google Coral DA1 TPU on the bottom of the mainboard. It should be easy to install Linux, Windows, etc. on this other than for the ChromeOS part, which locks down the non-UEFI BIOS firmware.

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Can Google’s New AI Read Your Datasheets For You?

December 12, 2023 by Al Williams 25 Comments

We’ve seen a lot of AI tools lately, and, of course, we know they aren’t really smart, but they sure fool people into thinking they are actually intelligent. Of course, these programs can only pick through their training, and a lot depends on what they are trained on. When you use something like ChatGPT, for example, you assume they trained it on reasonable data. Sure, it might get things wrong anyway, but there’s also the danger that it simply doesn’t know what you are talking about. It would be like calling your company’s help desk and asking where you left your socks — they simply don’t know.

We’ve seen attempts to have AI “read” web pages or documents of your choice and then be able to answer questions about them. The latest is from Google with NotebookLM. It integrates a workspace where you can make notes, ask questions, and provide sources. The sources can be text snippets, documents from Google Drive, or PDF files you upload.

You can’t ask questions until you upload something, and we presume the AI restricts its answers to what’s in the documents you provide. It still won’t be perfect, but at least it won’t just give you bad information from an unknown source. Continue reading “Can Google’s New AI Read Your Datasheets For You?” →

Google Nest Mini Gutted And Rebuilt To Run Custom Agents

July 23, 2023 by Lewin Day 18 Comments

The Google Nest Mini is a popular smart speaker, but it’s very much a cloud-based Big Tech solution. For those that want to roll their own voice assistant, or just get avoid the corporate surveillance of it all, [Justin Alvey’s] work may appeal. (Nitter)

[Justin] pulled apart a Nest Mini, ripped out the original PCB, and kitted it out with his own internals. He uses the ESP32 as the basis of his design, since it provides plenty of processing power and WiFi connectivity. His replacement PCB also interfaces with the LEDs, mute switch, and capacitive touch features of the Nest Mini, for ease of interaction.

As a demo, he set up the system to work with a custom “Maubot” assistant using the Matrix framework. He hooked it up with Beeper, a messaging client that collates all your other messaging platforms into one easily-accessible place. The assistant employs GPT3.5, prompted with a list of his family, friends, and other details, to enable him to make calls, send messages, and handle natural language queries. The demo itself is very impressive, and we’d love to try setting up a similar assistant ourselves. Seeing two of [Justin’s] builds talking to each other is amusing, too.

If you’re more comfortable working with Google Assistant rather than dropping it entirely, we’ve looked at that kind of thing, too. Video after the break.

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Google Home Scripting

June 14, 2023 by Al Williams 14 Comments

It is always controversial to have home assistants like the ones from Google or Amazon. There are privacy concerns, of course. Plus they maddeningly don’t always do what you intend for them to do. However, if you do have one, you’ve probably thought about something you wanted to do that would require programming. Sure, you can usually do a simple list, but really writing code wasn’t on the menu. But now, Google Home will allow you to write code. Well, at least script using a YAML file.

The script language is available in the web app and if you opt in on the mobile app as well. There’s a variety of ways you can trigger scripts and many examples you can start with.

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