Signing up for a subscription

did most users , start with a monthly ?? yearly?? or lifetime?? love the tablo unit and its functionality,

but shelling out 3 years, seems a bit risky ??

thoughts ??

I did lifetime, and now it will be paid off this year (I think subscriptions started in 2015, at least for the early adopters).

Since this subscription works on all Tablos on your account for life, it didn’t seem like a big risk. I do hope that if there is ever is a Tablo 2.0, that the subscription works on it too. My only concern is that a Tablo subscription does not cover the Tablo Engine.

I have read more regrets from people buying a one year subscription. Since subscriptions aren’t prorated, a person who does so and loves the Tablo still has to pay $150 for lifetime. It’s safer to buy the lifetime.

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I did lifetime as well. I did consider it a bit of a risk but one of my goals was to get my monthly bills as low as possible.

The wife had lost her job and knew her unemployment wouldn’t last long.

Figured we could afford it then and should it take her a long time to find work, that would be one less thing to worry about.

Once the satellite system was cut off, I allocated much of what I WOULD have paid to Dishnetwork toward the cord cutting experience.

So one month I would add another Roku, another month, I paid for the Tablo lifetime, then the next month I added a second antenna to get more channels, etc…

It took a while to build it all up but each month I was still paying less into this endeavor than Dish would have received JUST for programming.

In summary, I wasn’t JUST looking at the potential return on investment of the lifetime sub as much as it was a bit of insurance / safety for me. Pay for it while I can because I don’t know what tomorrow will bring.

I did the year subscription for my 1st year and then paid for the life time. I have had my Tablo since the beginning.

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I bought the life time and it’s paying for itself now. I’v Had it long enough that I’m saving the 4.99 each month

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I went with an annual the first year to prove it in, then went lifetime. After this year, it’ll have paid for itself.

When I subscribed for lifetime I thought it was a way to support the company, and as a cordcutter I tend to want to get rid of monthly fees, so I couldn’t get myself to pay a monthly or even annual fee for this.

You also have to keep in mind your lifetime subscription follows your account and not your product, therefore when Nuvvyo will release an ATSC 3.0 unit your subscription should follow.

I’ve had my Tablo for a year now and purchased the annual subscription. With the upfront cost of my journey I opted to just spend the $50 and see how it goes. I’m all in and will be purchasing the lifetime subscription in a couple of days. I don’t mind spending $200 total for the subscription because this device along with the rest of my setup has saved me a lot of money. I was spending more than $200 every month at one point before I began trimming and eventually cutting the cord.

I signed up for the lifetime shortly after the purchase of a 4-tuner Tablo.

It was a risk but I rationalized that after just 2-3 months, the cost of this experiment, would break even and I could always go back to cable.

It’s been almost 2 years I’ve been free of my $200/month cable bills!

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old thread… it appears the lifetime use to be linked to the acct… but the current text I see makes it look like it now follow the hardware?

“The active Tablo unit associated with this subscription will have access to guide data with no recurring bills.”

That’s correct. It’s been that way for a year or so now.

@zim2dive

No this is not entirely true. When you pay for the lifetime subscription it is only for 1 Tablo device.

If you get a new Tablo device, say go from a 2 tuner to a 4 tuner you can swap the devices on your lifetime subscription. The old 2 tuner wouldn’t have a subscription anymore.

So it doesn’t “follow the hardware”. You can change which Tablo is the “active” Tablo on the subscription.

@theuser86 thanks! That helps me feel better about getting a lifetime (haven’t paid attention to ATSC 3.0, etc, etc but could imagine that being relevant before the lifetime would pay for itself (vs yearly)

“Your Tablo TV Guide Service subscription is tied to YOU, not a specific device.

You can change or upgrade to a new Tablo DVR and keep your existing TV Guide subscription.”

https://www.tablotv.com/tv-guide-data-subscriptions/

sure… I guess my point is that on the subscription purchase page, the wording is

The active Tablo unit associated with this subscription will have access to guide data with no recurring bills.

which I concede could be interpreted either way. I took it as being tied to the HW permanently… but I can understand the nuance of being tied to the HW currently associated with the account.

You can go for an extra month and easily change to lifetime, there have been a few with regrets. It’s tied to YOU, non-transferable and not refundable… If you need a bit more time to be absolute certain.