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• Top Conversion Metrics to Track in 2024

  22 janvier 2024, par Erin

  2023 boasts  2.64 billion online shoppers worldwide ; that’s more than a third of the global population. With these numbers on an upward trajectory in 2024, conversion metrics are more important than ever to help marketers optimise the online shopping experience. 

  In this article, we’ll provide predictions for the most important conversion metrics you should keep track of in 2024. We’ll also examine how social media can make or break your brand engagement strategy. Keep reading to stay ahead of the competition for 2024 and gain tips and tricks for improving conversion performance.

  What are conversion metrics ?

  In technical terms, conversion metrics are the quantifiable measurements used to track the success of specific outcomes on a website or marketing campaign. Conversion metrics demonstrate how well your website prompts visitors to take desirable actions, like signing up for a newsletter, making a purchase, or filling out a form, for instance.

  Let’s say you’re running a lemonade stand, and you want to compare the number of cups sold to the number of people who approached your stand (your conversion rate). This ratio of cups sold to the total number of people can help you reassess your sales approach. If the ratio is low, you might reconsider your approach ; if it’s high, you can analyse what makes your technique successful and double down.

  

  In 2023, we saw the average conversion rate for online shopping grow by 5.53% compared to the previous year. An increase in conversion rate typically indicates a higher percentage of website visitors converting to buyers. It can also be a good sign for marketing teams that marketing campaigns are more effective, and website experiences are more user-friendly than the previous year. 

  Conversion metrics are a marketers’ bread and butter. Whether it’s through measuring the efficacy of campaigns, honing in on the most effective marketing channels or understanding customer behaviour — don’t underestimate the power of conversion metrics. 

  Conversion rate vs. conversion value 

  Before we dive into the top conversion metrics to track in 2024, let’s clear up any confusion about the difference between conversion rate and conversion value. Conversion rate is a metric that measures the ratio of website visitors/users who complete a conversion action to the total number of website visitors/users. Conversion rates are communicated as percentages.

  A conversion action can mean many different things depending on your product or service. Some examples of conversion actions that website visitors can take include : 

  • Making a purchase
  • Filling out a form
  • Subscribing to a newsletter
  • Any other predefined goal

  Conversion rate is arguably one of the most valuable conversion metrics if you want to pinpoint areas for improvement in your marketing strategy and user experience (UX).

  A good conversion rate completely depends on the type of conversion being measured. Shopify has reported that the average e-commerce conversion rate will be 2.5%-3% in 2023, so if you fall anywhere in this range, you’re in good shape. Below is a visual aid for how you can calculate conversion rate depending on which conversion actions you decide to track :

  

  Conversion value is also a quantifiable metric, but there’s a key difference : conversion value assigns a numerical value to each conversion based on the monetary value of the completed conversion action. Conversion value is not calculated with a formula but is assigned based on revenue generated from the conversion. Conversion value is important for calculating marketing efforts’ return on investment (ROI) and is often used to allocate marketing budgets better. 

  Both conversion rate and conversion value are vital metrics in digital marketing. When used in tandem, they can provide a holistic perspective on your marketing efforts’ financial impact and success. 

  9 important conversion metrics to track in 2024

  Based on research and results from 2023, we have compiled this list of predictions for the most important metrics to track in 2024. 

  

  1. Conversion rate 

  To start things out strong, we’ve got the timeless and indispensable conversion rate. As we discussed in the previous section, conversion rate measures how successfully your website convinces visitors to take important actions, like making purchases or signing up for newsletters. 

  An easy-to-use web analytics solution like Matomo can help in tracking conversion rates. Matomo automatically calculates conversion rates of individual pages, overall website and on a goal-by-goal basis. So you can compare the conversion rate of your newsletter sign up goal vs a form submission goal on your site and see what is underperforming and requires improvement.

  

  In the example above in Matomo, it’s clear that our goal of getting users to comment is not doing well, with only a 0.03% conversion rate. To improve our website’s overall conversion rate, we should focus our efforts on improving the user commenting experience.

  For 2024, we predict that the conversion rate will be just as important to track as in 2023. 

  2. Average visit duration

  This key metric tracks how long users spend on your website. A session typically starts when a user lands on your website and ends when they close the browser or have been inactive for some time ( 30 minutes). Tracking the average visit duration can help you determine how well your content captures users’ attention or how engaged users are when navigating your website. 

  Average Visit Duration = Total Time Spent / Number of Visits

  

  Web analytics tools like Matomo help in monitoring conversion rate metrics like average visit duration. Timestamps are assigned to each interaction within a visit, so that average visit duration can be calculated. Analysing website visit information like average visit duration allows you to evaluate the relevance of your content with your target audience. 

  3. Starter rate

  If your business relies on getting leads through forms, paying attention to Form Analytics is crucial for improving conversion rates. The “starter rate” metric is particularly important—it indicates the number of who people start filling out the form, after seeing it. 

  When you’re working to increase conversion rates and capture more leads, keeping an eye on the starter rate helps you understand where users might encounter issues or lose interest early in the form-filling process. Addressing these issues can simplify the form-filling experience and increase the likelihood of successful lead captures.

  Try Matomo for Free

  Get the web insights you need, without compromising data accuracy.

  Start for free

  No credit card required

  Concrete CMS tripled their leads using Form Analytics in Matomo—see how in their case study.

  4. Bounce rate

  Bounce rate reflects the percentage of visitors who exit your site after interacting with a single page. Bounce rate is an important metric for understanding how relevant your content is to visitors or how optimised your user experience is. A high bounce rate can indicate that visitors are having trouble navigating your website or not finding what they’re looking for. 

  Matomo automatically calculates bounce rate on each page and for your overall website.

  

  Bounce Rate = (# of Single-Page Sessions / Total # of Sessions) * 100

  5. Cost-per-conversion

  This metric quantifies the average cost incurred for each conversion action (i.e., sale, acquired lead, sign-up, etc.). Marketers use cost-per-conversion to assess the cost efficiency of a marketing campaign. You want to aim for a lower cost-per-conversion, meaning your advertising efforts aren’t breaking the bank. A high cost-per-conversion could be acceptable in luxury industries, but it often indicates a low marketing ROI. 

  Cost-per-Conversion = Ad Spend / # of Conversions

  By connecting your Matomo with Google Ads through Advertising Conversion Export feature in Matomo, you can keep tabs on your conversions right within the advertising platform. This feature also works with Microsoft Advertising and Yandex Ads.

  Try Matomo for Free

  Get the web insights you need, without compromising data accuracy.

  Start for free

  No credit card required

  6. Average order value (AOV)

  AOV is a conversion metric that calculates the average monetary value of each order. AOV is crucial for helping e-commerce businesses understand the value of their transactions. A high AOV means buyers spend more per transaction and could be more easily influenced by upselling or cross-selling. Low AOV isn’t necessarily bad — you can compensate for a low AOV by boosting transaction volume. 

  

  AOV = Total Revenue / Total # of Orders 

  Matomo automatically tracks important e-commerce metrics such as AOV, the percentage of visits with abandoned carts and the conversion rate for e-commerce orders.

  7. Exit rate

  Exit rate measures the percentage of visitors who leave a specific webpage after viewing it. Exit rate differs from bounce rate in that it focuses on the last page visitors view before leaving the site. A high exit rate should be examined to identify issues with visitors abandoning the specific page. 

  Exit Rate = (# of Exits from a Page / Total # of Pageviews for that Page) * 100

  

  In the Matomo report above, it’s clear that 77% of visits to the diving page ended after viewing it (exit rate), while 23% continued exploring. 

  On the other hand, our products page shows a lower exit rate at 36%, suggesting that more visitors continue navigating through the site after checking out the products.

  How to improve your conversion performance 

  If you’re curious about improving your conversion performance, this section is designed to guide you through that exact process.

  

  Understand your target audience and their behaviour

  You may need to return to the drawing board if you’re noticing high bounce rates or a lack of brand engagement. In-depth audience analysis can unveil user demographics, preferences and behaviours. This type of user data is crucial for building user personas, segmenting your visitors and targeting marketing campaigns accordingly.

  You can segment your website visitors in a number of web analytics solutions, but for the example below, we’ll look at segmenting in Matomo. 

  

  In this instance, we’ve segmented visitors by mobile users. This helps us see how mobile users are doing with our newsletter signup goal and identify the countries where they convert the most. It also shows how well mobile users are doing with our conversion goal over time.

  It’s clear that our mobile users are converting at a very low rate—just 0.01%. This suggests there’s room for improvement in the mobile experience on our site.

  Optimise website design, landing pages, page loading speed and UX

  A slow page loading speed can result in high exit rates, user dissatisfaction and lost revenue. Advanced web analytics solutions like Matomo, which provides heatmaps and session recordings, can help you find problems in your website design and understand how users interact with it.

  Making a website that focuses on users and has an easy-to-follow layout will make the user experience smooth and enjoyable.

  Try Matomo for Free

  Get the web insights you need, without compromising data accuracy.

  Start for free

  No credit card required

  Create compelling calls-to-action (CTA)

  Research shows that a strategically placed and relevant CTA can significantly increase your revenue. CTAs guide prospects toward conversion and must have a compelling and clear message. 

  You can optimise CTAs by analysing how users interact with them — this helps you tailor them to better resonate with your target audience. 

  A/B testing

  A/B testing can improve your conversion performance by allowing you to experiment with different versions of a web page. By comparing the impact of different web page elements on conversions, you can optimise your website with confidence. 

  Key conversion metrics takeaways

  Whether understanding user behaviour to develop a more intuitive user experience or guessing which marketing channel is the most effective, conversion metrics can be a marketer’s best friend. Conversion metrics help you save time, money and headaches when making your campaigns and website as effective as possible. 

  Make improving conversion rates easier with Matomo, a user-friendly all-in-one solution. Matomo ensures reliable insights by delivering accurate data while prioritising compliance and privacy.

  Get quality insights from your conversion metrics by trying Matomo free for 21 days. No credit card required.

• getting 2 video streams in output.mkv ?

  3 janvier 2024, par Kirito

  In short, I have 1 video.mkv and 1 subtitle.ass. Using ffmpeg, I am adding subtitles to the video without removing the previous subtitles that came with the video. The problem is that some videos' output.mkv files are getting a duplicate video stream. Not all the videos I tested have this issue. I have added the log of one of those for reference.

  


  Here is my code :

  


   ffmpeg -i input_video.mkv -i subtitle_path.ass -c:v copy -c:a copy -c:s copy -map 0:v:0
 -map 0:m:language:jpn -map 0:s -map 1 -metadata:s:s:3 language=ara -max_interleave_delta 0 -y output_path.mkv


  


  \TEST> ffmpeg -i input_video.mkv -i subtitle_path.ass -c:v copy -c:a copy -c:s copy -map 0:v:0 -map 0:m:language:jpn -map 0:s -map 1 -metadata:s:s:3 language=ara -max_interleave_delta 0 -y output_path.mkv
ffmpeg version 2023-12-28-git-c1340f3439-full_build-www.gyan.dev Copyright (c) 2000-2023 the FFmpeg developers
  built with gcc 12.2.0 (Rev10, Built by MSYS2 project)
  configuration: --enable-gpl --enable-version3 --enable-static --pkg-config=pkgconf --disable-w32threads --disable-autodetect --enable-fontconfig --enable-iconv --enable-gnutls --enable-libxml2 --enable-gmp --enable-bzlib --enable-lzma --enable-libsnappy --enable-zlib --enable-librist --enable-libsrt --enable-libssh --enable-libzmq --enable-avisynth --enable-libbluray --enable-libcaca --enable-sdl2 --enable-libaribb24 --enable-libaribcaption --enable-libdav1d --enable-libdavs2 --enable-libuavs3d --enable-libzvbi --enable-librav1e --enable-libsvtav1 --enable-libwebp --enable-libx264 --enable-libx265 --enable-libxavs2 --enable-libxvid --enable-libaom --enable-libjxl --enable-libopenjpeg --enable-libvpx --enable-mediafoundation --enable-libass --enable-frei0r --enable-libfreetype --enable-libfribidi --enable-libharfbuzz --enable-liblensfun --enable-libvidstab --enable-libvmaf --enable-libzimg --enable-amf --enable-cuda-llvm --enable-cuvid --enable-ffnvcodec --enable-nvdec --enable-nvenc --enable-dxva2 --enable-d3d11va --enable-libvpl --enable-libshaderc --enable-vulkan --enable-libplacebo --enable-opencl --enable-libcdio --enable-libgme --enable-libmodplug --enable-libopenmpt --enable-libopencore-amrwb --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libshine --enable-libtheora --enable-libtwolame --enable-libvo-amrwbenc --enable-libcodec2 --enable-libilbc --enable-libgsm --enable-libopencore-amrnb --enable-libopus --enable-libspeex --enable-libvorbis --enable-ladspa --enable-libbs2b --enable-libflite --enable-libmysofa --enable-librubberband --enable-libsoxr --enable-chromaprint
  libavutil      58. 36.100 / 58. 36.100
  libavcodec     60. 36.100 / 60. 36.100
  libavformat    60. 20.100 / 60. 20.100
  libavdevice    60.  4.100 / 60.  4.100
  libavfilter     9. 14.102 /  9. 14.102
  libswscale      7.  6.100 /  7.  6.100
  libswresample   4. 13.100 /  4. 13.100
  libpostproc    57.  4.100 / 57.  4.100
Input #0, matroska,webm, from 'input_video.mkv':
  Metadata:
    encoder         : libebml v1.3.5 + libmatroska v1.4.8
    creation_time   : 2018-04-21T21:21:39.000000Z
  Duration: 00:24:26.56, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 2453 kb/s
  Stream #0:0(jpn): Video: h264 (High), yuv420p(progressive), 1920x1080 [SAR 1:1 DAR 16:9], 23.98 fps, 23.98 tbr, 1k tbn (default)
      Metadata:
        BPS-eng         : 2291326
        DURATION-eng    : 00:24:26.465000000
        NUMBER_OF_FRAMES-eng: 35160
        NUMBER_OF_BYTES-eng: 420018724
        _STATISTICS_WRITING_APP-eng: mkvmerge v22.0.0 ('At The End Of The World') 32-bit
        _STATISTICS_WRITING_DATE_UTC-eng: 2018-04-21 21:21:39
        _STATISTICS_TAGS-eng: BPS DURATION NUMBER_OF_FRAMES NUMBER_OF_BYTES
  Stream #0:1(jpn): Audio: aac (LC), 48000 Hz, stereo, fltp (default)
      Metadata:
        BPS-eng         : 159375
        DURATION-eng    : 00:24:26.560000000
        NUMBER_OF_FRAMES-eng: 68745
        NUMBER_OF_BYTES-eng: 29216626
        _STATISTICS_WRITING_APP-eng: mkvmerge v22.0.0 ('At The End Of The World') 32-bit
        _STATISTICS_WRITING_DATE_UTC-eng: 2018-04-21 21:21:39
        _STATISTICS_TAGS-eng: BPS DURATION NUMBER_OF_FRAMES NUMBER_OF_BYTES
  Stream #0:2(eng): Subtitle: ass (default)
      Metadata:
        BPS-eng         : 99
        DURATION-eng    : 00:21:35.870000000
        NUMBER_OF_FRAMES-eng: 302
        NUMBER_OF_BYTES-eng: 16109
        _STATISTICS_WRITING_APP-eng: mkvmerge v22.0.0 ('At The End Of The World') 32-bit
        _STATISTICS_WRITING_DATE_UTC-eng: 2018-04-21 21:21:39
        _STATISTICS_TAGS-eng: BPS DURATION NUMBER_OF_FRAMES NUMBER_OF_BYTES
  Stream #0:3(spa): Subtitle: ass
      Metadata:
        BPS-eng         : 92
        DURATION-eng    : 00:20:05.580000000
        NUMBER_OF_FRAMES-eng: 254
        NUMBER_OF_BYTES-eng: 13877
        _STATISTICS_WRITING_APP-eng: mkvmerge v22.0.0 ('At The End Of The World') 32-bit
        _STATISTICS_WRITING_DATE_UTC-eng: 2018-04-21 21:21:39
        _STATISTICS_TAGS-eng: BPS DURATION NUMBER_OF_FRAMES NUMBER_OF_BYTES
  Stream #0:4(por): Subtitle: ass
      Metadata:
        BPS-eng         : 91
        DURATION-eng    : 00:20:05.580000000
        NUMBER_OF_FRAMES-eng: 254
        NUMBER_OF_BYTES-eng: 13846
        _STATISTICS_WRITING_APP-eng: mkvmerge v22.0.0 ('At The End Of The World') 32-bit
        _STATISTICS_WRITING_DATE_UTC-eng: 2018-04-21 21:21:39
        _STATISTICS_TAGS-eng: BPS DURATION NUMBER_OF_FRAMES NUMBER_OF_BYTES
Input #1, ass, from 'subtitle_path.ass':
  Duration: N/A, bitrate: N/A
  Stream #1:0: Subtitle: ass
Stream mapping:
  Stream #0:0 -> #0:0 (copy)
  Stream #0:0 -> #0:1 (copy)
  Stream #0:1 -> #0:2 (copy)
  Stream #0:2 -> #0:3 (copy)
  Stream #0:3 -> #0:4 (copy)
  Stream #0:4 -> #0:5 (copy)
  Stream #1:0 -> #0:6 (copy)
Output #0, matroska, to 'output_path.mkv':
  Metadata:
    encoder         : Lavf60.20.100
  Stream #0:0(jpn): Video: h264 (High) (H264 / 0x34363248), yuv420p(progressive), 1920x1080 [SAR 1:1 DAR 16:9], q=2-31, 23.98 fps, 23.98 tbr, 1k tbn (default)
      Metadata:
        BPS-eng         : 2291326
        DURATION-eng    : 00:24:26.465000000
        NUMBER_OF_FRAMES-eng: 35160
        NUMBER_OF_BYTES-eng: 420018724
        _STATISTICS_WRITING_APP-eng: mkvmerge v22.0.0 ('At The End Of The World') 32-bit
        _STATISTICS_WRITING_DATE_UTC-eng: 2018-04-21 21:21:39
        _STATISTICS_TAGS-eng: BPS DURATION NUMBER_OF_FRAMES NUMBER_OF_BYTES
  Stream #0:1(jpn): Video: h264 (High) (H264 / 0x34363248), yuv420p(progressive), 1920x1080 [SAR 1:1 DAR 16:9], q=2-31, 23.98 fps, 23.98 tbr, 1k tbn (default)
      Metadata:
        BPS-eng         : 2291326
        DURATION-eng    : 00:24:26.465000000
        NUMBER_OF_FRAMES-eng: 35160
        NUMBER_OF_BYTES-eng: 420018724
        _STATISTICS_WRITING_APP-eng: mkvmerge v22.0.0 ('At The End Of The World') 32-bit
        _STATISTICS_WRITING_DATE_UTC-eng: 2018-04-21 21:21:39
        _STATISTICS_TAGS-eng: BPS DURATION NUMBER_OF_FRAMES NUMBER_OF_BYTES
  Stream #0:2(jpn): Audio: aac (LC) ([255][0][0][0] / 0x00FF), 48000 Hz, stereo, fltp (default)
      Metadata:
        BPS-eng         : 159375
        DURATION-eng    : 00:24:26.560000000
        NUMBER_OF_FRAMES-eng: 68745
        NUMBER_OF_BYTES-eng: 29216626
        _STATISTICS_WRITING_APP-eng: mkvmerge v22.0.0 ('At The End Of The World') 32-bit
        _STATISTICS_WRITING_DATE_UTC-eng: 2018-04-21 21:21:39
        _STATISTICS_TAGS-eng: BPS DURATION NUMBER_OF_FRAMES NUMBER_OF_BYTES
  Stream #0:3(eng): Subtitle: ass (default)
      Metadata:
        BPS-eng         : 99
        DURATION-eng    : 00:21:35.870000000
        NUMBER_OF_FRAMES-eng: 302
        NUMBER_OF_BYTES-eng: 16109
        _STATISTICS_WRITING_APP-eng: mkvmerge v22.0.0 ('At The End Of The World') 32-bit
        _STATISTICS_WRITING_DATE_UTC-eng: 2018-04-21 21:21:39
        _STATISTICS_TAGS-eng: BPS DURATION NUMBER_OF_FRAMES NUMBER_OF_BYTES
  Stream #0:4(spa): Subtitle: ass
      Metadata:
        BPS-eng         : 92
        DURATION-eng    : 00:20:05.580000000
        NUMBER_OF_FRAMES-eng: 254
        NUMBER_OF_BYTES-eng: 13877
        _STATISTICS_WRITING_APP-eng: mkvmerge v22.0.0 ('At The End Of The World') 32-bit
        _STATISTICS_WRITING_DATE_UTC-eng: 2018-04-21 21:21:39
        _STATISTICS_TAGS-eng: BPS DURATION NUMBER_OF_FRAMES NUMBER_OF_BYTES
  Stream #0:5(por): Subtitle: ass
      Metadata:
        BPS-eng         : 91
        DURATION-eng    : 00:20:05.580000000
        NUMBER_OF_FRAMES-eng: 254
        NUMBER_OF_BYTES-eng: 13846
        _STATISTICS_WRITING_APP-eng: mkvmerge v22.0.0 ('At The End Of The World') 32-bit
        _STATISTICS_WRITING_DATE_UTC-eng: 2018-04-21 21:21:39
        _STATISTICS_TAGS-eng: BPS DURATION NUMBER_OF_FRAMES NUMBER_OF_BYTES
  Stream #0:6(ara): Subtitle: ass
Press [q] to stop, [?] for help
[out#0/matroska @ 000002995bf18bc0] video:820349kB audio:28532kB subtitle:65kB other streams:0kB global headers:5kB muxing overhead: 0.122471%
size=  849986kB time=00:23:40.86 bitrate=4900.6kbits/s speed= 326x


  


  I am very Clueless as the command is working on some videos

  


• My SBC Collection

  31 décembre 2023, par Multimedia Mike — General

  Like many computer nerds in the last decade, I have accumulated more than a few single-board computers, or “SBCs”, which are small computers based around a system-on-a-chip (SoC) that nearly always features an ARM CPU at its core. Surprisingly few of these units are Raspberry Pi units, though that brand has come to exemplify and dominate the product category.

  Also, as is the case for many computer nerds, most of these SBCs lay fallow for years at a time. Equipped with an inexpensive lightbox that I procured in the last year, I decided I could at least create glamour shots of various units and catalog them in a blog post.

  While Raspberry Pi still enjoys the most mindshare far and away, and while I do have a few Raspberry Pi units in my inventory, I have always been a bigger fan of the ODROID brand, which works with convenient importers around the world (in the USA, I can vouch for Ameridroid, to whom I’ve forked over a fair amount of cash for these computing toys).

  As mentioned, Raspberry Pi undisputedly has the most mindshare of all these SBC brands and I often wonder why… and then I immediately remind myself that it has the biggest ecosystem, and has a variety of turnkey projects and applications (such as Pi-hole and PiVPN) that promise a lower barrier to entry — as well as a slightly lower price point — than some of these other options. ODROID had a decent ecosystem for awhile, especially considering the monthly ODROID Magazine, though that ceased publication in July 2020. The Raspberry Pi and its variants were famously difficult to come by due to the global chip shortage from 2021-2023. Meanwhile, I had no trouble procuring these boards during the same timeframe.

  So let’s delve into the collection…
  

  Cubieboard
  The Raspberry Pi came out in 2012 and by 2013 I was somewhat coveting one to hack on. Finally ! An accessible ARM platform to play with. I had heard of the BeagleBoard for years but never tried to get my hands on one. I was thinking about taking the plunge on a new Raspberry Pi, but a colleague told me I should skip that and go with this new hotness called the Cubieboard, based on an Allwinner SoC. The big value-add that this board had vs. a Raspberry Pi was that it had a SATA adapter. Although now that it has been a decade, it only now occurs to me to quander whether it was true SATA or a USB-to-SATA bridge. Looking it up now, I’m led to believe that the SoC supported the functionality natively.

  Anyway, I did get it up and running but never did much with it, thus setting the tone for future SBC endeavors. No photos because I gave it to another tech enthusiast years ago, whose SBC collection dwarfs my own.

  ODROID-XU4
  I can’t recall exactly when or how I first encountered the ODROID brand. I probably read about it on some enthusiast page or another circa 2014 and decided to try one out. I eventually acquired a total of 3 of these ODROID-XU4 units, each with a different case, 1 with a fan and 2 passively-cooled :

  

  Collection of ODROID-XU4 SBCs

  This is based on the Samsung Exynos 5422 SoC, the same series as was used in their Note 3 phone released in 2013. It has been a fun chip to play with. The XU4 was also my first introduction to the eMMC storage solution that is commonly supported on the ODROID SBCs (alongside micro-SD). eMMC offers many benefits over SD in terms of read/write speed as well as well as longevity/write cycles. That’s getting less relevant these days, however, as more and more SBCs are being released with direct NVMe SSD support.

  I had initially wanted to make a retro-gaming device built on this platform (see the handheld section later for more meditations on that). In support of this common hobbyist goal, there is this nifty case XU4 case which apes the aesthetic of the Nintendo N64 :

  

  ODROID-XU4 N64-style case

  It even has a cool programmable LCD screen. Maybe one day I’ll find a use for it.

  For awhile, one of these XU4 units (likely the noisy, fan-cooled one) was contributing results to the FFmpeg FATE system.

  While it features gigabit ethernet and a USB3 port, I once tried to see if I could get 2 Gbps throughput with the unit using a USB3-gigabit dongle. I had curious results in that the total amount of traffic throughput could never exceed 1 Gbps across both interfaces. I.e., if 1 interface was dealing with 1 Gbps and the other interface tried to run at 1 Gbps, they would both only run at 500 Mbps. That remains a mystery to me since I don’t see that limitation with Intel chips.

  Still, the XU4 has been useful for a variety of projects and prototyping over the years.

  ODROID-HC2 NAS
  I find that a lot of my fellow nerds massively overengineer their homelab NAS setups. I’ll explore this in a future post. For my part, people tend to find my homelab NAS solution slightly underengineered. This is the ODROID-HC2 (the “HC” stands for “Home Cloud”) :

  

  ODROID-HC2 NAS

  It has the same guts as the ODROID-XU4 except no video output and the USB3 function is leveraged for a SATA bridge. This allows you to plug a SATA hard drive directly into the unit :

  

  ODROID-HC2 NAS uncovered

  Believe it or not, this has been my home NAS solution for something like 6 or 7 years now– I don’t clearly remember when I purchased it and put it into service.

  But isn’t this sort of irresponsible ? What about a failure of the main drive ? That’s why I have an external drive connected for backing up the most important data via rsync :

  

  ODROID-HC2 NAS backup enclosure

  The power consumption can’t be beat– Profiling for a few weeks of average usage worked out to 4.5 kWh for the ODROID-HC2… per month.

  ODROID-C2
  I was on a kick of ordering more SBCs at one point. This is the ODROID-C2, equipped with a 64-bit Amlogic SoC :

  

  ODROID-C2

  I had this on the FATE farm for awhile, performing 64-bit ARM builds (vs. the XU4’s 32-bit builds). As memory serves, it was unreliable and would occasionally freeze up.

  Here is a view of the eMMC storage through the bottom of the translucent case :

  

  Bottom of ODROID-C2 with view of eMMC storage

  ODROID-N2+
  Out of all my ODROID SBCs, this is the unit that I long to “get back to” the most– the ODROID-N2+ :

  

  ODROID-N2+

  Very capable unit that makes a great little desktop. I have some projects I want to develop using it so that it will force me to have a focused development environment.

  Raspberry Pi
  Eventually, I did break down and get a Raspberry Pi. I had a specific purpose in mind and, much to my surprise, I have stuck to it :

  

  Original Raspberry Pi

  I was using one of the ODROID-XU4 units as a VPN gateway. Eventually, I wanted to convert the XU4 to something else and I decided to run the VPN gateway as an appliance on the simplest device I could. So I procured this complete hand-me-down unit from eBay and went to work. This was also the first time I discovered the DietPi distribution and this box has been in service running Wireguard via PiVPN for many years.

  I also have a Raspberry Pi 3B+ kicking around somewhere. I used it as a Steam Link device for awhile.

  SOPINE + Baseboard
  Also procured when I was on this “let’s buy random SBCs” kick. The Pine64 SOPINE is actually a compute module that comes in the form factor of a memory module.

  

  Pine64 SOPINE Compute Module

  Back to using Allwinner SoCs. In order to make this thing useful, you need to place it in something. It’s possible to get a mini-ITX form factor board that can accommodate 7 of these modules. Before going to that extreme, there is this much simpler baseboard which can also use eMMC for storage.

  

  Baseboard with SOPINE, eMMC, and heat sinks

  I really need to find an appropriate case for this one as it currently performs its duty while sitting on an anti-static bag.

  NanoPi NEO3
  I enjoy running the DietPi distribution on many of these SBCs (as it’s developed not just for Raspberry Pi). I have also found their website to be a useful resource for discovering new SBCs. That’s how I found the NanoPi series and zeroed in on this NEO3 unit, sporting a Rockchip SoC, and photographed here with some American currency in order to illustrate its relative size :

  

  NanoPi NEO3

  I often forget about this computer because it’s off in another room, just quietly performing its assigned duty.

  MangoPi MQ-Pro
  So far, I’ve heard of these fruits prepending the Greek letter pi for naming small computing products :

  • Raspberry – the O.G.
  • Banana – seems to be popular for hobbyist router/switches
  • Orange
  • Atomic
  • Nano
  • Mango

  Okay, so the AtomicPi and NanoPi names don’t really make sense considering the fruit convention.

  Anyway, the newest entry is the MangoPi. These showed up on Ameridroid a few months ago. There are 2 variants : the MQ-Pro and the MQ-Quad. I picked one and rolled with it.

  

  MangoPi MQ-Pro pieces arrive

  When it arrived, I unpacked it, assembled the pieces, downloaded a distro, tossed that on a micro-SD card, connected a monitor and keyboard to it via its USB-C port, got the distro up and running, configured the wireless networking with a static IP address and installed sshd, and it was ready to go as a headless server for an edge application.

  

  MangoPi MQ-Pro components, ready for assembly

  The unit came with no instructions that I can recall. After I got it set up, I remember thinking, “What is wrong with me ? Why is it that I just know how to do all of this without any documentation ?”

  

  MangoPi MQ-Pro in first test

  Only after I got it up and running and poked around a bit did I realize that this SBC doesn’t have an ARM SoC– it’s a RISC-V SoC. It uses the Allwinner D1, so it looks like I came full circle back to Allwinner.

  

  MangoPi MQ-Pro with more US coinage for scale

  So I now have my first piece of RISC-V hobbyist kit, although I learned recently from Kostya that it’s not that great for multimedia.

  Handheld Gaming Units
  The folks at Hardkernel have also produced a series of handheld retro-gaming devices called ODROID-GO. The first one resembled the original Nintendo Game Boy, came as a kit to be assembled, and emulated 5 classic consoles. It also had some hackability to it. Quite a cool little device, and inexpensive too. I have since passed it along to another gaming enthusiast.

  Later came the ODROID-GO Advance, also a kit, but emulating more devices. I was extremely eager to get my hands on this since it could emulate SNES in addition to NES. It also features a headphone jack, unlike the earlier model. True to form, after I received mine, it took me about 13 months before I got around to assembling it. After that, the biggest challenge I had was trying to find an appropriate case for it.

  

  ODROID-GO Advance with case and headphones

  Even though it may try to copy the general aesthetic and form factor of the Game Boy Advance, cases for the GBA don’t fit this correctly.

  Further, Hardkernel have also released the ODROID-GO Super and Ultra models that do more and more. The Advance, Super, and Ultra models have powerful SoCs and feature much more hackability than the first ODROID-GO model.

  I know that the guts of the Advance have been used in other products as well. The same is likely true for the Super and Ultra.

  Ultimately, the ODROID-GO Advance was just another project I assembled and then set aside since I like the idea of playing old games much more than actually doing it. Plus, the fact has finally crystalized in my mind over the past few years that I have never enjoyed handheld gaming and likely will never enjoy handheld gaming, even after I started wearing glasses. Not that I’m averse to old Game Boy / Color / Advance games, but if I’m going to play them, I’d rather emulate them on a large display.

  The Future
  In some of my weaker moments, I consider ordering up certain Banana Pi products (like the Banana Pi BPI-R2) with a case and doing my own router tricks using some open source router/firewall solution. And then I remind myself that my existing prosumer-type home router is doing just fine. But maybe one day…

  The post My SBC Collection first appeared on Breaking Eggs And Making Omelettes.