I ran it off of a $10 5gig hotspot for a long time. I wasn’t watching FAST channels back then, but it worked just fine for live playback and watching recordings. The only drawback was the speed at which the guide downloaded once I hit my cap.
Just an idea.
That’s a thought, thanks. I am wondering, was/is that with a Gen2 or the new Gen4? I just tested a quick OTA session to see (I have a gen4) what things look like and it appears to be hitting api.tablotv.com/443, sends 6KB and pulls 8KB of data, then it’s hitting cloudfront using 80, pulling about 314KB which might be the guide info maybe? I have to start capturing and see, but I suppose based on the amount of data, the 443 traffic is prob a phone home. Interestingly, it’s not doing much else over the course of an hour of watching OTA, other than NTP Every 10-20mins (time paranoia? lol), of course I am not changing channels or anything else so… I’d be willing to bet the “api” is just that, to do some screwy uuid garbage back and forth to authorize use, but hey maybe I’ll get lucky and the 443 is just data to point it to an update if needed. Dunno will see when I get more time to drop a transparent proxy in the mix to see what the “secret” traffic is…
It was with my first two 4th gen pucks. I became interested in FAST channels and knew it wasn’t going to cut it!
Right now, there’s no easy way to switch between networks, but there is a way to trick it. (Basically, shutting off your original network and when it goes into “no connection” or whatever, going from there.)
Since on legacy roku and fire tv apps you can watch TV, view a recording, and make new recordings without the internet working the answer must be zero. The affect of turning on viewer data in settings is unknown.
Of course not everyone is paranoid enough to think that the clock can’t maintain the time longer 20 minutes.
Last night I set up a new router for my parents. The blue light was solid, despite there being no network for over 4 hours. A quick reboot brought it to pulsating, which allowed me to go through the set up app on her phone again, but it hung at the very last step. Force quitting the app/clearing cache did nothing; rebooting the Tablo did nothing. I had to reboot the router in order for it to finish the setup app on her mobile.
So, again… it’s possible! I’m just glad that my setup is working solid and I have no plans to change anything!!!
Very true about switching wifi’s with Tablo. It is a royal PITA as I found out when I changed ISP’s recently. Took multiple tries (around 10 for one of them, I have two boxes and one took “only” 4 tries) for the stupid thing to find/connect. So, no, this would not be a good solution. All my other devices had no problem switching with just a name and password. But Tablo software has always been flaky. I’m still getting kicked out of the app sometimes on backing out of a program (on Roku). No other app I have shows this issue. I think we who own legacy Tablos aren’t going to get much in the way of support anymore.
I have two old Tablos and I sure hope they keep working. My solution to no internet is to download the program to my computer and serve it up via Plex. A very kind soul on these forums wrote a program to do that, but it only works with legacy Tablos and has been since discontinued.
It’s kinda surprising in this era of OTA cord cutters that no one really has an good alternative to Tablo.
Blocking that gateway kicked me in the nards as well.
Here’s some food for thought - If two weeks of guide data is downloaded at once, what possible reason is there to need an internet connection more than, at most, once a day to update the guide data?
This is the way my current win 7 media center is set up. I could even lose my internet for up to two weeks and still be able to watch/record my local OTA programming.
Yes, I’m very upset with the Tablo, because it’s ADVERTISED AS A OTA DVR. I expected it to work like a tuner equipped TV which does NOT require the internet to work. I feel like I’ve been hoodwinked by false advertising. At the very least the ads should have a disclaimer that the Tablo won’t work without an internet connection.
It will still record your OTA programs when the Internet is down.
That’s what it’s supposed to do!! However I can’t simultaneously watch live tv or other tv recordings if the internet is down. This is a MAJOR design flaw for a “TV DVR”. Think logically about this, does your am/fm radio or tv tuner not work if the internet is down???
The Tablo quad tuner costs over $140 delivered, not $99. This is a lot to “eat” when you get ripped off.
This level of internet dependency isn’t by accident, it was by design. Whoever approved this design probably got a promotion and a bonus.
I suspect the reason for the Internet requirements is that was a condition for offering the FAST channels that helps pay for the free guide data. Personally I have no interest in the FAST channels…
Maybe it was a consideration for the new Tablos, but the same ‘must be connected’ restriction applies to the old Tablos. I’m imagining the pretty pictures are downloaded every time you start up (but I could certainly do without if I could watch what I’ve already recorded). It’s a poor design by intention on Tablo’s part and people have been complaining since day one. There used to be a ‘fix/hack’ in that you could offload the programs by using a 3rd party app. It was incompatible with the new Tablo’s and has been since discontinued.
To a much lesser degree for my legacy Tablos using streaming devices…
Requires internet, and Tablo (or affiliate) servers:
brief nightly guide updates;
brief once in a blue moon firmware updates.
A email was sent out on 9/9 saying they were working on this but still not working since my Internet is down now.
"While the issue was resolved in a few hours, we are taking immediate steps to ensure this does not happen again, including:
It’s too little too late. I purchased a hdhomerun flex quatro, ditched the roku for an onn 4k pro android/google tv box and kept the crucial x6 2TB for the hdhomerun dvr function.
It’s now been almost a month of uninterrupted glitch and bug free operation. I highly recommend this tv/streaming combination.