Xiaomi Mi Box -- dirt cheap -- What am I missing?

ronbaby · December 11, 2017 at 7:05 AM

I just happened to be looking again at the "Android Devices" page on the Kodi wiki this evening, and I noticed that something called a Xiaomi Mi Box... which I had never heard of before... got a favorible mention.

I googled for that and ended up on FleaBay where, it appears some Chinese vendors are selling these boxes for under $13 USD... but Gearbest is selling it for around $47.

So, um what gives here? What am I missing? There must be a catch someplace.

But if I really can get these boxes for $13 USD, -and- if I can get a working LibreELEC on them, then I'll be buying a half a dozen of them to give out to friends. (What with the shipping time from China they will arrive too late to use as stocking stuffers, but might sill make cute gifts.)

So, does anybody here happen to know what the catch is on those eBay offers? (I can hardly believe that they can even -manufacture- these things that cheaply.)

I saw some sites where it is said that these boxes have booting locked down, so that you can't actually get LibreELEC on the things. Is that so?

bubblegum57 · December 11, 2017 at 7:59 PM

I found a Meecool K1 on ebay for £11. I tried to pay with paypal, but it didn't work, so I gave up.

A few days later & tried again, this this time paypal did.

when the delivered by date was passed, I raised an issue, with ebay, & the money was refunded.

If it seems to good to be true, then it probably isn't genuine.

ronbaby · December 12, 2017 at 9:45 PM

Yea, that's kind-of what I figured. FleaBay is doing a lousey job of filtering out the garbage listing these days.

fortissimo · February 12, 2018 at 10:47 AM

Many models under the Mi Box banner, first of all. They are all Android based. I do not know if any can load LE. I own the Mi Box 3, and it runs the Android TV as the International version (China version does not). I like it and I have Kodi and SPMC on it. But it is not LE, which this forum is for.

You need one of those recommended boxes in the other forum (AmLogic e.g.) to install LE.