Hi, ich möchte auch einen 
br
Josef
Bitte PM
Unfortunately, I’m sold out (again).
No confirmation yet whether I can get another 10 from this excellent, near new, supply of units.
I should know more by the middle of next week.
Gé
Hello everyone.
It was just three weeks ago I read about the “bundle” of Gé / @gkkpch: a small, pre-owned, thin-client equipped with Volumio 3. And yesterday I’m done verifying and setting up a bunch of Wyse 3040 I got from him, with two shipping. Of these units, one is for me, the other ones for some friends of mine.
All the units I received are just perfect: no scratch, no stain, no dust and so are the power suppliers. The packages were safely assembled and Volumio 3 was correctly pre-installed.
The Wyse 3040 is a very cute, small, all square, mini-pc. Including the feet, is 3x10x10 cm (HxWxD). It just fit into your hand. Its appearence is of a robust, high industrialized and optimized product.
Being the only, between my friends, to know someting (just a little) about Volumio (I own a Pi3, running Volumio 2, and a Pi4, running Volumio 3) I was in charge of buying, QC and customize each of the unit for the final owner.
TBH, nothing I really had to do other than choosing the italian language of the UI, the correct DAC to play with and correctly inputing the net share as music source.
Ah, well, beside that, I had to check compatibility with the accessories we need:
- wifi dongle
- display port to hdmi adapter
- remote
You’ll find details about these pieces of hardware on the end of this report.
About the remote
After experimenting remotes with diodes you need to connect to the bus, I found a simpler solution with the “Air Mouse” types. A remote like that provides out-of-box, plug&play, functions of play/stop & track skip togheter volume control for Rasperry. With a Wsye 3040, you can enjoy a safe ON/OFF functions, too, with just a simple bios setting. More again, since the air mouse communicates with the unit wirelessly via its own USB dongle, you can drive the unit through the wall of another room. This is the perfect solution for me, since I have to hide my wyse, the dac and the amplifier, inside a furniture of my living room.
Generally speaking, compared to my Pi4 4GB, I have to report a (little) faster execution of Wyse, but on top of that I’m happy I’m done hassling with the goddam Pi4’s fan (I had to change 3 different cases, to stop listening to its wizzzzz). But be aware, even the Wyse produces (just a little) of heat, so I think it’s better to leave with some room all around it.
And, btw, I compared the boot time of my Pi4 vs my Wyse. Strange enough, wyse was a bit faster: pi4 was 1’30’’ / 1’40’’, wyse 1’10’’ / 1’20’’, both to show the Volumio 3 screen on the connected TV.
Complainings? just a couple, minor ones. First, the on/off button has a very dimmed light and it is placed on top, so you can’t tell if the unit is on, looking at it’s front. Then, its a pity not having the WIFI on-bord. Not because of the ridicoulus cost of the dongle, but just because you have to waste a precious USB port, out of four. Well, nothing that could stopping me buying it again if I should need more.
Ok, no more useful to say, but to thanks Gé, with all of my heart, because of the great opportunity he gave me and my friends to get a great working and real affordable product and for the expertise and patience he helped me via PM on some hassles I had because of my clumsyness.
It’s a real pity that Gé is not able to supply on regular basis more of these little appliances. They could be a great starting point for new Volumio users, as long as an arrival point for experienced ones.
Giovanni
Here is the list of “certified” add-ons accessories, the ones that Gé, my friends and me, had chance to test on our Wyse 3040s:
-
display port to hdmi adapters
https://www.amazon.de/JSAUX-DisplayPort-Vergoldeter-geflochten-kompatibel/dp/B0859Y9QYY
or
https://www.amazon.it/gp/product/B08XKB7PRP/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=A334EWGUV6D481&psc=1 -
wifi dongles
https://www.amazon.it/gp/product/B07M69276N/ref=ox_sc_act_title_4?smid=A11IL2PNWYJU7H&psc=1
or
https://www.amazon.it/gp/product/B0859M539M/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?smid=A11IL2PNWYJU7H&psc=1 -
air mouse remote
https://www.amazon.it/gp/product/B07RRTT1ZT/ref=ox_sc_act_title_3?smid=A1DQAMNB57IEYM&psc=1
Thanks for this great overview.
I used a UGREEN display adapter and works great.
For using the remote control do I need to install some adapter on wise side?
Other than inserting the dongle supplied with the remote, into a USB port, nothing at all. No bios config, no drive, no OS script or setup-up. An Air Mouse is just a mouse with multimedia buttons on it. After a while of use, I can, now, navigate the Volumio UI from my armchair, just looking at the TV set.
It needs some exercise, since you have to learn to rotate just the wrist, not move the arm.
Thanks a lot. Make sense now. I thought that the remote comes without USB dongle 
Giovanni,
thanks for a very nice review and yes, pity there aren’t going to be more units. My sources sort of “dried out” for reasonable prices. Some ask 250€ for a batch of 6, per PIECE!
Gé
So, I also thought I would add my thoughts about this device. This response will get a bit long and technical so here is an Executive Summary first:
As a Volumio Appliance this is a great solution for most people. The sound is good (maybe not great but not bad) from the built in headphone jack - I will probably get an USB DAC eventually and the limitations of this device (memory + storage) are not required for Volumio and the pre-installed build that @gkkpch provides is perfect. But I did try to do more with this device.
So I am a big fan of low power SBC devices - I have 3 ODroid’s and 2 Raspberry PI’s already in my home network running various things - like homebridge, plex, nextcloud and of course for Volumio.
Specifically for my collection music (hosted on a NAS), I have 2 Volumio’s (RPI’s with DACs HATs) + PlexAmp (really just an Odroid with a an instance of Plex), Navidrone and OWNTONE (and I have even played around with MoodeAudio as an alternative to Volumio). Volumio is probably the best solution though all this music ‘collection’ software have their benefits in particular ways.
So, musically I would not consider myself an Audiophile (and I certainly do not have ‘golden ears’) but I do think the RPI’s with HifiBerry DAC’s have slightly better audio - but I might end up using the 3040 driving some small bookshelf speakers - where I don’t think I will be able to tell any difference.
One thing that attracted me to the 3040 was that its is intel based rather than ARM based. Specifically because I have some software that can take advantage of the GPU within X86 devices (but not ARM devices). Specifically Plex has 2 extra features that require an X86 GPU - specifically its sonic analysis (for use within PlexAmp) and its hardware transcoding. So my initial thoughts where boot this device on an external SSD plugged into the USB3 connection and use Volumio in the foreground but run a Plex Server instance in the background (just for music) to allow the sonic analysis take advantage of the X86 GPU.
But sadly it seems like you cannot permanently boot from the external SSD. In fact, as a ‘general’ purpose computer this device have a few limitations:
- 8GB boot drive storage
- 8GB storage is very slow ( at least compared to an SSD)
- 2GB RAM is limiting for running multiple processes
- No obvious way to boot permanently from alternative
But after a little of playing around I did come up with a solution which works for me which I will use (at least for a while) that allows me mostly to do what I wanted with this device.
So I wanted to have a second copy of my music collection (roughly 1 TB of music) - in case something happens to my NAS - so I wanted a different “low powered” device on the network with USB3 and one that is running Volumio is perfect (as Volumio can then access the music locally). So a simple rsync script running in a cronTab is now keeping the music on a 1TB SSD plugged into the USB3.
But I also wanted to take advantage of the X86 GPU (for Plex) as I really wanted to host just a Plex Server for PlexAmp separate to my ‘main’ Plex server instance. While technically Plex might be installable in the free space left on this device I did not think it would be a workable solution but I am very familiar with Docker (and Docker-Compose) and with a little bit of unix ‘magic’ I have the Plex ‘Docker’ image running in the background on this device.
The ‘magic’ is specifically to symbolically link ‘/var/lib/docker’ with a folder on the SSD. Docker will use this folder for everything (its images, configurable, temporarily files) so mounting (or symbolically linking ‘/var/lib/docker’ mostly means that almost no space from the 8GB storage is used up (and is free for Volumio upgrades - I did one volumio upgrade already).
The extra setup I have then done is to limit the docker image memory (so its always leaves enough for Volumio) and to expose the ‘Docker Plex’ configuration to a separate folder on the SSD (so I can move this whole Docker Plex instance easily to a different machine if I decide to use it different).
So how is it working - very well - its still running the Sonic analysis (probably will be for another week) but PlexAmp and Volumio work well with the music on the external USB3 SSD. I even tried some Plex Hardware Video transcoding as an experiment and it runs much better transcoding video that my RPI4 and my Odroid N2+.
So overall it a great device for Volumio and with right technical configuration its limitations can be overcome and provide an excellent device for a home music collection.
1 Like
I’ve got 2 more units for sale, 50€ each.
Shipping EU
13.99€ with tracking
10.49€ without tracking.
Shipping Germany
5.49€ with tracking
3.99€ without tracking
Edit: DHL shipping prices were updated
Hi gkkpch
Still one available? I would be interested.
Sorry, PM did not work.
BR Matthias
New stock available!
See the opening post in this thread.
1 Like
Tried to PM you but you do not accept messages?.
i’ll fix that. Meanwhile i’ll PM you
1 Like
PM issues fixed
Black Friday discount offer
There are 5 units left with 10% off the normal unit price of 50€.
So 45€, only valid from Thu 24.11.22 22:00 CET till Friday 25.11.22 24:00 CET
Dell Wyse 3040 thin clients are an excellent alternative for an RPI or Tinkerboard while the market is still dried out.
People know I’m not doing this for big profit, it is to make people aware that you can have Volumio working on perfectly suitable, budget devices like 2nd hand Thin Clients (Dell/HP). And whenever possible, fanless.
2 Likes
I just setup my Dell Wyse 3040 that I purchased from ebay with a PSU for £40 it’s bloody great! It looks brand new, comes in a nice case that fits in you hand and it has great specs for Volumio! Lovely stuff. Recommended 
