Ezeecube Is A Stackable, All Inclusive Media Center For Your Home

Ezeecube wants to be the all-in-one media hub for your home.

You can use it to wirelessly back up photos and other files from all your mobile devices and cameras, while removing duplicates and organizing with its photo management software. It also functions as a home media cloud so you can access your files anywhere, while streaming photos and videos to iOS and Android devices, or Windows and Mac PCs. It can even play vintage video games.

Ezeecube has surpassed its goal of $75,000 on Indiegogo, with more than $121,000 currently raised and is now seeking money for is stretch goals before it ends on August 3. Pledges that come with a device currently start at $39 for an EzeeTuner and $42 for a DIY EzeeDrive.

The device is modular so you can add features and functions, like extra storage space or disk players, in up to four different modules. Ezeecube is powered by a Linux (Yocto) operating system that runs EzeeCube’s pre-configured XBMC Media Center.

Ashok Jaiswal, a former senior technology analyst at Goldman Sachs, developed Ezeecube after his family got fed up with trying to organize their photo files.

“My wife and mother-in-law were frustrated with their phone full of photos of our young daughter. I was frustrated helping them backup on my computer, managing another computer for playing movies and yet another computer for other data backup,” he says. “Ariane asked me ‘you build systems for your companies to solve these problems, can’t you build one for us?’ Knowing many friends have similar frustration, I left Goldman Sachs about a year ago to build this.”

Ezeecube differentiates from other media centers by being extendable without any wires, setup, or installation (Jaiswal says user friendliness was a top priority); automatically finding duplicates and organizing photos into different categories (like “Holiday” or “Faces”); and being ready for multimedia with pre-installed XBMC.

The device uses open source software to attract developers who want to find different uses for EzeeCube.

” With the open source and open standard stackable units, EzeeCube’s use is only limited by the imagination of developers. They can build their own home automation unit or webcam unit, etc., and simply stack on top,” says Jaiswal.

Modules currently available include an EzeeCube with a built-in 1TB hard drive that can be upgraded to 2TB; one without a built-in hard drive; the EzeeTuner, which lets you watch and record live TV; EzeeGame, which allows you to play Sega Genesis and Nintendo SNES cartridges on a XBMC retro player emulator (this will be produced if the campaign hits its stretch goal of $125,000); and a Blu-Ray drive called EzeePlay.

EzeeCube connects to other devices through 802.11n wi-fi and Bluetooth 3.0. DLNA, and AirPlay. Its built-in hard drives have a dual-core 1GHz Cortex-A9 processor; 1GB of DDR3 RAM; and 4GB of flash storage, in addition to the 1TB hard drive. The back features slots for SD card, USB 2.0, micro-USB; HDMI 1.4; optical audio; and ethernet.

Jaiswal says he is confident that Ezeecube will ship by Christmas: “We already have our designs ready, right now we are in the process of making some changes for production and also upgrade our hardware specs requested by our backers. We have engaged factories and consultants who have decades of experience in production.”