Apologies if this has been posted elsewhere, but I haven’t been able to find a thread on it (nor have i found it on any official Tablo FAQ / Support info). I currently own a 2-tuner Tablo and i’m [mostly] pleased with the device. I think that the Tablo Connect streaming could be smoother–it drops out on me a lot and sometimes just seems to work based on whichever way the wind’s blowing–but I like the device enough that i’m looking into buying a second device for my parent’s place in order to watch my home teams. So my question(s) to all of you: how does authentication work in such a scenario, when my account is currently associated with one Tablo at my home? Does the my.tablotv.com site show TWO available devices and, therefore, TWO separate local guides? And what happens with the devices on which i’ll be viewing the second stream, do they need to be authenticated on both LANs before they’ll access both Tablos? That of course almost makes it a dealbreaker, although i know i could potentially setup a VPN in that scenario. And what about a Roku, for example–would that be able to access the remote device? Does anyone have any my.Tablotv.com screenshots of what this setup might look like so i can wrap my head around it.
Thanks in advance for any insights, and if this is indeed posted somewhere else, please forward that info along.
Din’t know the answer to your main question, but anything besides Roku can access Tablo remotely. I don’t know if it can handle 2 different LANs. @Tablotv might know but that will be Monday.
Since going to my.tablotv.com is going to search you local LAN for any Tablos first, I don’t see a way to have two Tablos on two different networks, besides for using a VPN to make it look like both Tablos are on the same network.
It does bring up an interesting issue. If you were to visit a friend’s or family’s house where the owner happened to own a Tablo, you could connect to that person’s Tablo if you went on their network, but you would most likely lose any kind of remote connection to your home Tablo.
If your friend or family member has a Tablo, it would still go to your remote Tablo since that is currently paired… But what if you pair to your friend / family Tablo? Would you be able to alternate between them? Crazy possability.
Excellent point, snowcat, hadn’t even thought about that. I’ve been going over various scenarios in my head about how this could work but I think the simple answer is that you just can’t do this. And if that’s the case, it seems like a glaring oversight on Tablo’s part since, like most businesses, one would think they’d want as many as people as possible to use their wares in as many ways as possible. With rumblings that username/password authentication is supposedly in the works for 2016, perhaps they’ll also enable this feature request as well.
If we do get to username/password, I suggest different level of users. For example, only admin could scan for new channels or update firmware on both ui device and Tablo itself.
@ams0478 - It’s totally possible to access two different Tablos on two different networks via the same playback device.
Both will need to be paired on their own home networks before use.
When you bring up my.tablotv.com you’ll be giving a list of Tablos to choose from. The one at your actual home will be viewed via your LAN but the one away will be viewed via Tablo Connect but will look just like you were actually there. Just know that you’ll be using bandwidth at your parents’ place to stream the content to your home.
Is this scenario documented anywhere? I’d like to read more about it, if possible. Also, since pairing of devices has to be done on a given Tablo’s LAN, how does that work? It’s been awhile since i’ve provisioned my Tablo so i don’t really remember the initial process that synched it to an account. Are you saying that when i add this second one at the second site, that there’s some option that allows me to add it as a secondary device on my own account? And, presumably, a second guide subscription will need to be purchased, right?
I saw on the support page that my one subscription will cover multiple Tablos, but does that also mean devices using different guides? Just trying to confirm before i pull the trigger on this. Thanks again.
Well i pulled the trigger, got it all setup, tied the remote Tablo to my subscription account and–drumroll–i can’t see the remote device. I remoted into my Dad’s laptop to provision the device, no problems there. Updated firmware, configured the router for Tablo Connect (and confirmed that, at least within the Settings menu, it’s working), downloaded local guide info. Everything looks good until i try to access the other Tablo; either my Dad trying to connect to mine, or me trying to connect to his. None of my devices show any way of connecting to a remote Tablo. If i tap “disconnect” on my iPad for instance, it’ll take me back to the “Connect to Tablo” screen and show only my local device. So what am i missing here? What didn’t i do to be able to see the remote device, either on my end or his? Thanks again.
I’m not absolutely certain, but it is my belief that you have to pair the machine that will access the device on the same network. Then, when you try to access it, it’ll know it’s remote. Based on what I believe you described here, you simply used remote access to your dad’s laptop - which would pair HIS machine to the Tablo local to him, but not yours. Just for clarification, if you were to visit your dad this weekend and pair with that Tablo with your laptop, when you return home, you should be able to log on to yours as local, and his remote. I believe this is the step that’s missing. Someone else may say I’m dead wrong - but this is how I believe it works.
Thanks for the reply, but i think there’s something else going on here. If you read earlier in the thread, the Tablo rep says the following:
"Both will need to be paired on their own home networks before use.
When you bring up my.tablotv.com you’ll be giving a list of Tablos to choose from. The one at your actual home will be viewed via your LAN but the one away will be viewed via Tablo Connect but will look just like you were actually there. Just know that you’ll be using bandwidth at your parents’ place to stream the content to your home."
I was going along with this assuming that once I had Tablo Connect working on the remote device, that I would be able to go to the my.tablotv.com site and see an option for the new Tablo. That isn’t happening here. And I should’ve mentioned this in my previous post but awhile back my Dad had his iPad here on my LAN and i demo’d my Tablo for him on that device. Fast forward to yesterday when, after getting his Tablo setup, i remembered that he still had the app installed on his iPad and it likely was still paired with my own. When he opened it up, sure enough he was connecting to my Tablo. OK, that’s fine, but what happens if he disconnects? He then is only given the option to pair with his local Tablo, and the option for my device is no longer there – just as is the case with me.
So what’s happening here is exactly as @snowcat described above:
“It does bring up an interesting issue. If you were to visit a friend’s or family’s house where the owner happened to own a Tablo, you could connect to that person’s Tablo if you went on their network, but you would most likely lose any kind of remote connection to your home Tablo.”
If @TabloTV can chime in on this and settle things once and for all, it would be greatly appreciated. This will suck big time if I can’t do what i had planned to do all along.
Have you renamed you Tablo’s so you know which one is which? And you’ll probably also need to “Re-scan” for Tablo’s to find and add the new one. I’m just guessing…
Also, Tablo need to periodically be on the same network as the device. It seems to be about a couple weeks before the device will no longer sync and use the Tablo Connect feature.
Yeah, made sure to give each one a specific name. And the pairing does seem to be the fatal flaw here. Earlier i gave Tablo Support a call to find out what their thoughts are on this, and the person i spoke to said that what i’m trying to do is not currently possible. Obviously, i’m rather pissed given the “official” response from @TabloTV above. The guy said that perhaps the forum poster didn’t understand what i was trying to do and that this is why the person answered in the way that he did – but i think that’s nonsense if you go back and read my original post. And if you re-read his posts, it seems clear (to me, anyway) that he says using Tablo Connect to access multiple devices at multiple sites is indeed possible at this time.
Frustrating, to say the least. I’m basically out $240 on this one.
Would another piece of software added to both networks (yours and your dad’s) like Hamachi help? It would make your dad’s Tablo appear to be local to your network. Just surmising about such a possible solution; I have used Hamachi to link two gaming stations so they appear local to each other though they are across the Internet on different LANs.
Once again insistence of “local pairing” Tablo to mobile device is not making fans of us who “pay the freight” of this device/company.
I’m bummed to see how this OP story is playing out because I was just about to pull the trigger on another 4T for my home on the other side of the USA.
Is Tablo trying to avoid an “Aereo” situation and potential litigation?
I simply don’t understand why it’s so “impossible” to merely allow users to “login” a device or two for remote connect sessions?
This pairing thing couldn’t be more frustrating to myself and many other users. It’s almost as if Tablo were trying to make enemies from customers…
It’s possible that Tablo is just living the technology choices they made with fat javascript, WAMP and things like that. It’s pretty interesting when you look at. But I do understand the end user frustration…