I’m kind of shocked that we’re all in agreement here, but I also have Ultras and Streaming Stick+ throughout my house. I started with just one Streaming Stick for years, but after falling deeply in love with it, I then put in Rokus on every TV. When you can hardwire them, do it. For every reason. Wireless will work just fine, but it’s a strain on your wireless network, and one more thing to worry about.
As for which model to get, I got my two Ultras on a Black Friday deal at Wal-Mart as an afterthought and I love it. I love that I can customize the “find remote” sound it plays. I love the integrated TV power and volume buttons. I never use the voice option, but my 6-year-old loves it. One other feature I use from time to time: the built-in headphone jack on my Ultra remote. SUPER nice to be able to plug in headphones if I’m up early or late and don’t want to bother the rest of the family. You may not need that so it wouldn’t matter.
The primary differences between the Streaming Stick and Streaming Stick+ are the “advanced range” of the +, but I never had a problem with range anyway. The + also does HDR and 4k, but I don’t have HDR or 4K TVs, so I don’t care about those features. That’s all that separates them.
If you don’t need TV Power and Volume controls on the remote, 4K or HDR, and your wifi is extremely underutilized, you can even look at the Express. But for the MIMO on the Streaming Stick and the additional power and volume buttons, I wouldn’t personally go lower than that.
AppleCordCutter, just to be clear, I think AppleTV is probably fine. I hate everything Apple and don’t own any Apple products. I think AppleTV and Roku work pretty much the same when it comes to Tablo. Amazon’s Fire Stick is OK, I just hate the interface.
The primary reason I wrote this post in the first place was so that people wouldn’t buy a Tablo to use it with a Chromecast, realize it’s a PAINFUL experience, and give up. Basically every other device is great with Tablo.
Also, the bugginess I mentioned in my original post is almost entirely gone. I can’t remember the last time Tablo didn’t work just fine except for when I was messing with my home network, and that was on me. I rarely have to think about Tablo at all, it just works. Can’t wait to get commercial skip!!!
I"ve been reading this since it’s revival. I realized your original post was several years ago - Jun 26, '17. I found it absurd - this is what everyone should know and all caps never with out roku.
As though one user’s experience is definite. It may not then, but they clearly stats