We recently moved. At our old residence we had coax directly to the TVs and we watched OTA TV using the tuners in the TVs. After we moved, we no longer had coax to the TVs, and I heard that Tablo could provide OTA TV over wifi. The Mrs. really likes this as she hates cords – the fewer cords the better. We bought the Tablo, and it does what it’s supposed to do.
While the Tablo 4th gen is not perfect yet – nothing is – but most of the time it works really well. We appreciate the efforts of the developers who are working on fixing issues and delivering an even better experience to the customers. It lets us watch OTA TV without paying the cable company.
I will probably have little to say about the DVR features as we rarely (if ever) use that. We never had it before we moved and didn’t miss it. Who knows; maybe we’ll use it now that we actually have it.
But for me, the “killer app” of the Tablo is “stream OTA TV over wifi.” It does that. There are some “rough edges,” to be sure, but mostly it “just works.” Glad to have this device and looking forward to what enhancements it will get in the future.
Yes, I’ve been using an Amazon Recast for over 5 years at our vacation home, with an 8-bay bowtie antenna in the attic. I tried a second Recast in our regular home but it didn’t quite cut it. Tried a Tablo 4G/Televes Dinova at the regular abode hoping the slightly newer tech might work better and it does! I think the difference is the Tablo’s built in amplifier and the fact that it’s only a 2 tuner model (the recasts are 4 tuner models).
Yes, I’m using the amplifier in the Televes and the amplifier in the Tablo - shouldn’t work but it does.
I was surprised how much I like the OTA-via-streaming-device aspect of the Tablo. It has made it very convenient when I wanted to add a TV to a guest room. Also, now that I watch everything… and I mean EVERYTHING… via my Roku, I was able to get all my TVs down to one remote, and the same remote, so all my TVs work the same way.
You just need to make sure that you have a rock solid home network.
I have to say, my wife relies on the Gen4 to work and, for the most part, it has worked pretty steadily for us over the past 13 months.
For the OG Legacy, except for the first year or so, we hadn’t had many problems at all in the past 9 years. We’re still using it for large series recordings.
I think things changed for the better when, as @KGBnut says, we started improving our home network.
That’s a good point and one I forgot to mention. We upgraded to Roku Ultras and the Roku remotes can operate the TVs directly.
My wish for Tablo would be for improved navigation of OTA channels in the app. I would prefer the app to open directly to the channel list rather than “Home” which we don’t use.
It would also be nice if there was a way to “page up” and “page down” in the channel listing rather than scroll. It would also be nice to have a way to enter a channel name or number directly instead of being forced to scroll to it.
@wysiwyggin I think a large portion of users here need Tablo to work for their wives. Mine needs it. Weekly on time, on schedule. Happy Wife Happy Life.
We’re using firesticks exclusively at our two homes. We tried the Roku sticks but they weren’t compatible with our Recast or, ahem, some other “apps” we use…
