There's a new project on Kickstarter that is taking aim at Chromecast. It's called Matchstick, the streaming stick built on Firefox OS.
Chromecast is a HDMI dongle from Google that works over Wi-Fi and plugs into your HDTV, allowing you to stream content - such as movies, TV, music, games, and more - from your laptop or mobile device to the big screen. And Matchstick will do the same thing. The difference is Matchstick doesn't run on Google software but rather Firefox OS, the open source mobile operating system built by Mozilla on Firefox's underlying engine.
Apart from Chromecast, Matchstick is entering a streaming media space already dominated by big players such as Amazon's Fire TV, Apple TV, and Roku, all of which have content partnerships with Netflix and the like. Matchstick is claiming however that Netflix, HBO Go, Pandora, and others will be on board as its developer community grows and new apps become available.
Matchstick might be able to live up to its claims, should it succeed on Kickstarter. The project has been getting support from Mozilla as well, in that the company apparently helped the Matchstick team develop a streaming stick that was low cost but also high design and adaptable "without the walled garden for app developers that tends to slow progress".
"We also approached the hardware as a break even, open reference design, creating an app ecosystem where the app developers drive the economy," explained Matchstick through its Kickstarter page. "It's what Chromecast wanted to be."
Matchstick has currently received $73,942 in pledged after just one day, and it still has 29 days left to go and about $30,000 more to raise (as of 4:30 PM PST on 30 September). You could pledge $12 to back Matchstick and recieve one streaming stick, but that option has come and gone already. You'd now have to pledge $18 to get a streaming stick, with delivery sometime in February.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2040419302/matchstick-the-streaming-stick-built-on-firefox-os/widget/video.html
The retal price for Matchstick is expected to be $25, and anyone outside of the US must pay $5 on Kickstarter for shipping. Watch the above promo video, which apparently was filmed on a tight budget at some Ikea store, for more information.