LOOQS MeeBox Router User manual

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Hi-Jack
If there’s one thing in our homes is missing, than it is a NAS server that fits in with our
stacked media players. Ever since CES 2010 we been promoting such solutions to come
from familiar brands like QNAP and Synology, only to result in an unfamiliar and new
brand, delivering upon our wishes. At least some wishes like silent operation, full featured
NAS tailored for entertainment are returned but the question is, will it live up to
reasonable expectations we have…? Let’s find out…
LOOQS MeeBox / MeeBox Router

MPC Club Reviews 2010
LOOQS MEEBOX
Having the proper “LOOQS” in life
has its benefits, but when it
comes down to products, these
same looks are only valuable for
the first impression that may
drive your purchase decision. The
good stuff comes after testing the unit and its abilities where you fall in love
with the product or not. For me, the introduction to LOOQS was love at first
sight, but only for the design quality and simple finesse of the hardware and
I have a reason that goes with that… I’ve been longing for a NAS storage that
is silent and fits in with my equipment and at least by design, both
requirements are met 100%.
Now, only few hours later, we hooked it up and start playing around to check
if “the love” lasts on or was just fling… Let’s start off with the design which
you will agree is simple, but oh so effective. Everything is almost done
absolutely right and I can only hope the impression will last until the bitter
end…
The design is standard with slightly more width than a regular DVD player,
we measure 43,8cm width design, 4.5cm height and only 21cm deep. The
front of the unit is sober with led integration for HDD, LAN and USB status.
The only button you can find in front is the power button. The dark design
with grey tones works excellent for the
unit and maybe the best of it
all, it isn’t plastic.
The rear of the unit is fitted with the absolute basics only, a GBIT network
connection and 2 USB ports. A minor remark here would be an eSATA would
have fitted in well. A reset switch is available and off course power socket.
The box comes with the unit itself, a CD-Rom with tools for installation, a
quick start guide, and power and network cable. Some screws are contained
in the box for firmly fitting the hard drives into their cabinets of which 2 can
be used inside the MeeBox.
INITIAL SETUP AND FEATURES
Our system, don’t read anything, just hook it up and start playing is a great
system to measure user convenience and the way the MeeBox is presented
and designed, it “LOOQS” as if it has been crafted with the regular John Doe
at home in mind. Let’s see if we get thru it all without wasting time reading
(who read manuals anyway )
We connect the MeeBox to our GBIT lan and fire it up. Insert the CD-Rom. If
we were to start nitpicking on the littlest details, we may state the CD-Rom
is not an auto start CD-Rom launching the application, so we need to start
the setup manually…
And here we go, after a minute booting the MeeBox becomes available on
our network and the setup wizard detects the system. We press “Setup” and
away we go…

MPC Club Reviews 2010
Firstly, we must enter the current admin password where the default
password is shown. The message should be more clear to state the password
is wanted and not the “current admin” (like in “enter current admin
password”)… Are we nit picking again?
Once passed the credentials input, we get to set the IP settings to DHCP or
fixed mode and think of a good name for the unit. As for the reference we
feel the unit has the “LOOQS”, we chose “natasjakinski” as the name
(remember here?)
We leave the unit on DHCP for now and continue exploring the setup. Next
we select date and time including time zone and then get confirmation of all
settings we applied and the option to map network drives via the software.
We will not do this at this stage considering we haven’t configured anything
like user security and folders yet… We’ll be investigating those later on so
right now, the initial setup is completed… Easy setup so far that besides nit
picking from our end, did not reveal any flaws just yet… We save our settings
and start “MeeBoxing”.

MPC Club Reviews 2010
ADMINISTRATIVE PANEL
Now the setup is completed as far as
making the unit operational is
concerned, we can start exploring
the rest of setup options using the
online administrative control panel.
We logon and find several categories
of settings. It is important to know
the MeeBox works on port 8090 so
connections are made using the
IPADDRESS followed by the port (or host name):
http://192.168.1.14:8090 or http://natasjakinski:8090 in our case.
After login in the first time, we are
prompted to change the password,
obviously LOOQS is concerned on
safety. Good.
We are presented with a form where we can do just that, update the
firmware and a feature to install application software. We don’t know yet
what this means but will get to that eventually.
The simplicity of LOOQS
MeeBox continues
online now. Our system
status page offers an
overview on loaded
firmware version, disk
space usage, IP address
and a reference to “disk
image” used in a
nutshell. The other
categories available
next to “System Status” are “Network, Features and Administration” which
we will explore one by one…. It is clear, the MeeBox offers limited setup
functions due to its design for home users and media streaming, but let’s not
have that fool us believing the product is limited…
NETWORK SETTINGS
Network settings are as within the setup section limited to fixed IP settings
or DHCP. Obviously there’s wishful thinking to have wireless integrated
(insufficient for HD streaming) and jumbo frames (never used it) but I don’t
feel these are really missing due to the targeted audience. What is missing is
a “Wake on Lan” function that always comes in handy to remotely fire up the
NAS.
FEATURES
Also limited in available options are the features. We can enable or disable a
list of functions like database server, web server, UPnP server and iTunes
server. No mention of NFS so far and that may very well be an issue for
media streaming knowing SAMBA is not the media player’s best side in
general that need to go pull data from this server… and what about AFP,
CIFS, FTP? Services we may want to enable and disable…

MPC Club Reviews 2010
Before you make the wrong assumptions, Apple is supported and so is FTP
among other services like NFS. The specification list includes SMB, FTP,
SFTP, SSH, Telnet, VPN, HTTP, MySQL and regular printer sharing. The only
question there is, is where are they?
Here we go again being happy the MeeBox supports both “basic interface”
and “advanced” interface… and switching between both reveals where all
the goodies are located.
We get user and group management, share folder management, apps and
service management on top of the basic settings we’ve seen before… The
user management allows a quota to be set to every user separately so you
can define how much space any user is allowed to consume on the MeeBox.
The user creation is a three step wizard where the first step is entering the
username and password + quota, second step is selecting which groups the
user belongs to…
… and last step is defining which folders the user is allowed to access, both
read and write modes can be defined by a click of the button. It doesn’t get
any simpler really…
Group configuration is as simple too… You enter a name and next you get to
select which users belong to this group… We quickly created our own
account and create a multimedia group adding ourselves as a member in
under 15 seconds…

MPC Club Reviews 2010
The shared folders is a bit of a mess and could do with some better design.
It’s not difficult but this is the first window that looks like a VB applications
in progress… A better layout could do wonders here…
We can create new folders, assign users and groups to folders for access,
even guest account can be enabled, but most important for streaming, we
finally get to see “NFS”. What surprises me most here however is that CIFS
(SAMBA) and FTP permissions are intertwined which isn’t always a good
idea…
NFS management is done by adding IP addresses that are allowed
connecting to the MeeBox or by subnets. Unfortunately, no masking is used
for instance, if we want to allow all IP addresses in the range 192.168.1.* we
may have to add each IP separately and that’s quite a bit of work.
Even though subnet’s can be added, we rather had an option to enter an IP
range in addition to a single IP for instance 192.168.1.1 up to 192.168.1.254.
Maybe a little something MeeBox can still look at in upcoming firmware.
Where most NFS servers require explicit permissions, MeeBox includes and
“allow for all” option but we don’t recommend that for security reasons.
RAID CONFIG
The MeeBox supports RAID. Go figure… Both RAID0 (Stripe) and RAID1
(Mirror) are featured but given only two drives, the likely choice is using
striped mode so the volume of two disks are available and performance wise
you gain speed as well. Not necessarily should MeeBox be limited to these
two and offering JBOD would be great, combining both hard drives into 1
volume… It’s a lot safer for your data…
For those unfamiliar with RAID, let’s explain this briefly. When using STRIPE
mode read and writes action happen on both disks at the same time
(performance gain) however, parts of every file are located on both disks. If
any disk would fail beyond recovery, your data is lost. With JBOD however,
all files are written normally to disk and not spread, if any disk fails, at least
a part of the data is not lost.

MPC Club Reviews 2010
REPORTS
Available reports are limited to disk space consumption and consumption
per user. When a quota has been implemented, we can determine if any
users are likely to reach their quota and decide upon expanding.
MISCELLANEOUS
When using advanced management, a NTP server can be used to make sure
the time on the MeeBox is correct. There are power recovery settings which
allow us to set the system to boot up when a power is restored after failure
and the usual restart and shutdown buttons are integrated here. We rather
have these last two available in the header without the need to navigate
down to advanced settings. Another feature that may come in handy is the
ability to save the settings we made to a file and reload it whenever
necessary and the factory defaults option that allows us to start over.
Disk Utility is limited to formatting the internal hard drives. While the
internal hard drives are limited to EXT2/Ext3 (no ext4?), the external drives
can be either Linux formatted with ext2/ext3, formatted in XFS or windows
formatted, both NTFS and FAT32 are supported.
Last option we find is the ability to upgrade the firmware and apparently
there’s a disk image too… We believe the disk image contains the features
installed for this unit so it is not stored on internal memory or flash, but a
part of the hard drives is reserved for this.
APPS AND SERVICES
Another section in the advanced menu is the application section and inside
the application list, all we find is Apache Web Server and the torrent client.
Underneath services we have the ability to enable or disable the Web Server,
MySQL, SSH/SFTP, web proxy cache and the UPnP Media Server.
Separated from these services are the telnet server, print server and
Bonjour/iTunes Server. Each of these can be enabled or disabled in their
respective sections.
That kind of completes the options available to us and although there’s quite
few options available, we did miss some options along the exploration of the
MeeBox, some of whom are popular while others simply make life a lot
easier for any NAS server.

MPC Club Reviews 2010
One of the features people may want are Jumbo Frames although I never
seen that function as a benefit for streaming purposes as there are no media
players supporting jumbo frames and frankly, they would not benefit from it.
I’m skeptic about Wake-on-Lan missing if people choose not to have the NAS
located nearby or a system that allows uptime configuration inside a daily /
weekly/weekend schedule so we can define what hours the NAS should be
operating. Definitely something LOOQS must be looking into adding as it
promotes convenience and automation which is always good.
TORRENT CLIENT
The torrent client is my first real disappointment on the MeeBox. Sure we
can add files and set fixed up and download limits but there’s more wrong to
the torrent client than good… Let me explain after showing you a screenshot,
which possibly will show you what’s wrong even before I tell you 
So why is this bad? We can upload torrent files and set up and download
limits. Problem is, there’s no NAT we can add, no port settings we can
configure, no way to upload multiple files at once. No PC application that
catches torrent links and sends these to the NAS so this is very limited and a
resource intensive solution especially since we have to download torrents
first and then import these into the Torrent client integrated… This is too
weak to pass our appreciation so LOOQS, there’s some work pending on this.
Secondly, the torrents are saved in the “public” folder if you upload the
torrent files however placing torrent files manually inside this folder are not
detected. At least some form of automation would be possible with such
“live” system although at the cost security as the Public folder is widely
visible to everyone obviously. By default the public is limited for read access
so in order to place torrents up there, we would need to open our security….
Torrents also don’t start automatically, an extra click on the start button for
each torrent is necessary. Once torrents are listed and started, an overview
is presented of all downloads lined up…

MPC Club Reviews 2010
And the trouble does not end there. With any torrent feature tailored for
convenience, flexible use, automation, we also expect some intelligence like
not being able to add the same file twice which, as you can see, we were able
to do…
When deleting one of the double files, apparently both files are deleted…
Starting a torrent then takes 5 to 10 seconds each and a page refresh.
Stopping a torrent takes a few seconds and a page refresh. There’s no option
to pause downloads or rearrange downloads in priority. This does need an
automated start of downloading files and obviously a setting for max
simultaneous downloads, information like expected remaining time and so
on…
PERFORMANCE TEST RESULTS
Ow o wow… it hurts… While the unit is absolutely amazing so far in design
for the purpose of media usage, the LOOQS and easy setup + overall features
cannot overcome the limitation applied not only by the weak torrent client,
but most of all, a weak performance. For write access over GBIT cross link,
we measure hardly 14MB/s while expecting to squeeze at least 30 –50
MB/s out of a GBIT NAS. The read performance on top is rather erratic in its
performance balancing below 2MB/s up to 9MB/s…
Although we were very positive so far about this unit, this is a crack in the
shield of finesse and our overall appreciation about the LOOQS MeeBox is
altered, all that is due to performance and the torrent side of the product.
When a device is designed as a home entertainment, especially in these
times of HD, we’d expect it to perform accordingly and transferring HD files
at these rates measured will take ages and that’s simply not a good thing. If
LOOQS can overcome this (in my opinion) poor performance and enhance
few aspects of the torrent integration and overall convenience features, we
would have a hell of a device. Now we have a great and easy device that
unfortunately does not perform well enough in the most important part of it
all: transfer performance.

MPC Club Reviews 2010
THE MEEBOX ROUTER
Everything we said so far, is valid for both the MeeBox and the MeeBox
router, only the router does handle more while integrating wireless and a
regular 4 port router. Design wise neither can be distinguished from each
other if it wasn’t for the antenna in the rear
and additional network ports.
The integrated wireless is B/G only so no wireless N and that is strange for a
product to come to market only today. Obviously the WAN port and 4 LAN
ports are in the rear. Other than that, no differences can be found. As with
the MeeBox, no fans, so the only noise comes from the hard drives. An extra
led in front joins the HDD and USB led’s for both Internet and WiFi.
The setup options are obviously
extended in order to configure
the WAN/LAN part of the
MeeBox router. WAN Mode can
be set to static IP, DHCP, PPPoE
according to your internet
provider. MTU settings can be
changed and network
translation.
IP Address configuration and
DNS are next. Once set, the
connection to our internet
provider is made and the
MeeBox router is now the
gateway to the internet in our
network.
When this is the only router in the network, the MeeBox router can be set to
become a DHCP server and the option is provided to add clients that require
a fixed IP address.
The usual details for applying a local IP for the
router are provided, there’s an integrated dynDNS
service should one want to remotely access the
device over the internet and there’s the wireless
settings, unfortunately only B/G, featuring shared
(WEP), WPA/PSK and WPA2/PSK security.
The firewall integration provides port mapping, port
triggering, QoS and traffic control options.

MPC Club Reviews 2010
Predefined rules for a set of known applications are provided by default. All
in all, the router is simple but features the wanted suspects in general. Other
than the Wireless being limited to B/G, we have no remarks to make on the
MeeBox router as far as the router functionality goes.
Obviously, the limitations discussed in the MeeBox section are valid here as
well so also the MeeBox router can profit from a few updates to reach a
higher level of satisfaction, convenience and performance.
With the results on the MeeBox router, we can say the read performance is
more stable and reached up to 12MB/s, not a massive performance but
slightly better than the MeeBox standalone version. In write performance
however we see the performance is not just a bit less, but 50% less almost…
THE MEEFRAME
Part of the concept at LOOQS is integration and proof of that is not only the
MeeBox with integrated router, also a picture frame can be acquired with
interchangeable covers that works standalone or by pulling data off the
MeeBox NAS / Router.
The photo slideshow can pull data from the
internal 1GB memory, SC/MMC card that
can be inserted, USB attached storage or
the NAS. When talking about NAS, the
functions are limited to any NAS/PC
featuring UPnP and not regular SMB or
NFS. The connection is made wirelessly to
the MeeBox router or your regular router
in operation. All we need to do is press
connect and a wizard assists us detecting the wireless options available on
our network for selection. Online options include Picasa and Flickr which
are available on the unit as well pr even the MeeChannel from LOOQS itself
can be worth looking at as storage for your images.
With the 8” display, everything is clear and well arranged and thanks to the
touch functions of the device, everything is setup in minutes. The MeeFrame
is however not limited to showing images only, it’s a music player, news
reader, weather channel, clock / alarm clock and internet radio station all
the same and integrates a file manager. The web radio function is Shoutcast
so you know there are loads of channels available. The lists are not always
coming up properly and fast as some lists required us to repeat selection
several times or it may be, we expect it too fast…

MPC Club Reviews 2010
For music, the MeeFrame integrates speakers and a stereo out port to
connect to an external device and supports MP3, PCM and WMA. A small
remote control is included. IN ways of functionality, we can apply a “shuffle”
on the list being played. Sadly, we found no integration of actual playlists.
We can fast forward (with sound) or rewind, skip numbers and add an
alarm. Unlike with pictures, the music features do not include UPnP support.
There’s a lot of fun integrated into the MeeFrame where we consider the
network integration to work for the MeeFrame as a standalone option. No
need to purchase a MeeBox / MeeBox Router in addition for the purpose of
showing pictures and that is simply well done by LOOQS, not forcing their
own solutions but leave consumers the choice. The MeeFrame does receive
our strongest recommendation. It’s cool, It’s FUN!
In addition; considering the vast amount of options integrated like weather,
news, image slideshows, we would be hungry for a feature that allows us to
mix options like using the MeeFrame as an info display for weather during
slideshows… Some light form of signage… Maybe I’m dreaming aloud but
those are the kind of functions that offer instant distance from the big pile of
frames out there… although LOOQS MeeFrame has quite a different concept
than the overall batch.
One more minor detail, the touch screen is not always as responsive as I
would hope. The regions that react to your finger presses not always cover
the full icons. For those scared of dirty fingers, there’s a pen included.
Now for the design, it works on power and not batteries. A “on and off”
switch is integrated and one free cover is included in the box alongside of
the MeeFrame, a USB cable and off course, the mini remote control. For
additional covers, you can purchase these separately from LOOQS.
For full specifications and features on the MeeFrame, please visit the LOOQS
web site at http://www.looqs.com/features.php?code=MF801W .
TIP: According to LOOQS, in the future a MeeFrame with MPEG4 support
will be launched as to where the current MeeFrame does not support video.
For the videos created with cameras this may come in handy as longs as it is
an MPEG4 recording (AVI for instance).

MPC Club Reviews 2010
CONCLUSION
Let’s start with the MeeFrame, it’s simply
an excellent device that integrates streaming
from the internet, PC and NAS (UPnP only
for images). 1GB internal memory,
interchangeable frames, SD/MMC cards,
USB disks and then loads of features make
it a great device for the price of $150 at Amazon
however mixing several features is not possible and that would have been
even better. As with the MeeBox the wireless is limited to B/G only.
In Europe pricing was expected around €150 (translate Amazon $ price to
€), but pricing using 1 on 1 rate conversion is not always accurate. Check
RSHAARLEM for pricing on these products or look at the MSRP delivered to
us by LOOQS.
MEEBOX /MEEBOX ROUTER CONCLUSION
I don’t know where to begin but let’s start with the good points. The MeeBox
can support up to 2TB hard drives and all products come with a 2 year swap
warranty, no repairs take place, units are swapped 1 by 1. Somehow this
kind of warranty and service needs to be kept in mind evaluating the cost of
the units.
The concept is so refreshing, quality is excellent but the three main issues
both MeeBox and MeeBox router are battling with are:
1. Torrent integration (poor)
2. Copy performance slow (ok for streaming)
3. Hard drives are not removable (need to open the unit to replace or
add a hard drive)
Other than that, the unit is well featured, easy to setup and handle in general
but could still use several updates to increase the level of convenience and
abilities.
If only the performance would have been better, drive cages would have
been used, despite the torrent limitations, this device would run away with
an award and be considered by us everything the Xtreamer Pro should have
been but isn’t (without the media player part). We can’t get passed the most
important part of it all though so even though we recommend the LOOQS as
a stylish network storage unit for the living room, the limited performance is
a thing to keep in mind. All else, can be rectified or added by firmware.
Bring us a LOOQS MeeBox that performs better with removable drive cage,
and we’ll be having a field day as besides the performance, there is no real
deal breaker. The unit limits its gadgetry value most other solutions are
overloaded with and remains truthful to what it is designed to do. All the
rest of our remarks fade away in the background and as said, can be
overcome…
I hope LOOQS is already working on some upgraded models keeping
performance in mind for more “advanced” and “demanding” users and
maybe even 4-bay solutions as they have found the way to go for living room
usage and that is an ever growing market…
LOOQS has a great concept in their hands that meets 80% of our
expectations, now it needs to achieve those last few steps to blow us away.
Not a bad achievement as a first ever device we would actually consider for
dedicated living room operation.
More info: www.looqs.com
PRICING INFO
Model
Enduser
Price
Meeframe
€199,00
Meebox NAS version
€199,00
Meebox Router Version
€239,00
Meebox NAS version 500 GB
€289,00
Meebox Router Version 500 GB
€329,99
Meebox NAS version 2 x 500 GB
€369,00
Meebox Router Version 2x 500 GB
€399,99
Meebox NAS version 1TB
€309,99
Meebox Router Version 1TB
€359,99
Meebox NAS version 2 X 1TB
€429,99
Meebox Router Version 2 x 1TB
€459,00