My cord cutting experience began in late summer of this year, when I discovered (and bought) my first Tablo. In less than five months, I have spent over $3,045 in my cord cutting efforts, as the world of OTA and it’s ancillary features, benefits, products and devices exploded in front of me.
I had the benefit of knowing nothing of the OTA world and therefore entered it with no pre-conceived notions and no bias. Some might say an AirTV player is a “piece of junk”, for example, whereas I saw it as a beautiful and exciting android box with DVR abilities. Stream + by some company called Channel Master? SURE, I’ll take one!
Having not bought into any ecosystem, I didn’t care if it was Amazon, android, Roku or what. Didn’t matter, as long as it had good features and excellent benefits. My Tablo started it all, from that I got the incentive to buy an antenna, install it on the roof and things unraveled from there.
Each new discovery was pretty much covered in these forums, as I revealed what was (to me) some new and exciting thing, each time I stumbled upon one - many of which, came from people (and topic discussions) in these forums. This is the path that Tablo set me onto, and how it snowballed:
Tablo Dual Lite $155
External HD for Tablo $72
Anthop 400BV Outdoor Antenna $142
Cable, Pole, Mounts, Brackets & equipment for Rooftop Install $70
HD Homerun, ACEPC AK1 Mini PC (for Plex Server), External HD - $355
Air TV Player $86
Two-Tuner OTA upgrade for Air TV $30
External HD for Air TV Player $75
Channel Master Stream + $109
External HD for Stream + $70
Nvidia Shield - $153
Amazon Recast $308
External HD for Recast $72
Harmony 650 Universal Remote $43
Harmony Ultimate One Univeral Remote $121 … 1,258
Mediasonic Homeworx STB180 $36
Caavo System / HDMI Switcher $110.00
Sharp 58" Roku TV (for guest house) 550
Antop UFO 360 Antenna $93 (for guest house)
Cable, Pole, Mounts, Brackets & equipment for Rooftop Install (for guest house) $50
Amazon Fire Stick 4K $55
Xbox One S 1TB
Roku Premiere $43
Cordcutters News Coffee Cup $17
Ota2GO! $2.99
Coke Zero 1.79
Total: $3045.78
What I find most interesting so far, is that I haven’t found anything I dislike. No buyer’s remorse on any single item on this ridiculous list. After all this, Tablo still stands at the forefront and center, as my default device and has become my measuring stick against which I compare all other discoveries and products.
A new year begins soon and I’m hoping to have gotten most of this out of my system. Either that, or it’s back to cable, where I can relax in the relatively low cost of $225 per month, what I was spending before cutting the cord (Just Kidding!).
*** Forgot Xbox One S, added to list and edited numbers to reflect it.