I decided to move this project forward after the rather long break. I'm seeing some king-of-the-line media center products that would share similar form factor, but based on different hardware platforms would address different use cases.

It started with ESP32, which is the smallest of the lot, then Onion, then Raspberry Pi zero, and then Orange Pi.

Onion is not a powerhouse compared to the Raspberry, but it is much easier to work with, compared to the ESP platform. It has both Ethernet and WiFi onboard (which both Raspberry Pi Zero and Orange Pi One don't), also it doesn't rely on the SD card, which makes it indestructible in the long run.

All and all I think this is a fun platform to tinker with (although slightly forgotten these days), with a lot of potential yet to be discovered and developed.