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Year-End Tech Alternatives
How to Use a Brand or Product You Might Not Have Thought of Before By Michael Heiss
While some hold to a regimen of “spring cleaning,” others clear things out at year-end. You know the drill: Throw out those magazines that have piled up unread, remember to make those year-end tax payments and charitable contributions, prepare to replace the current calendars with ones for the new year. I’m certain that you have a similar routine. Mine, however, is a bit different. Over the course of a year, it is simply not possible to write about all the new products that are appropriate in our business space and personal lives. The mess that passes for my office has a few shelves devoted to products I couldn’t mention or review simply due to the press of other news in our constantly evolving industry. However, as the year comes to a close it seems appropriate to let you in on some of these interesting products, either as the solution to an installation challenge, as a holiday gift for others, or just to reward yourself. The theme here will be alternatives. In some cases, the way to use a brand or product you might not have thought of, or in some cases a product that does something different than the solution you might otherwise have used. Let’s start with cord-cutting. To many, that means cutting the cable cord to switch to streaming services. This is all well and good, and the devices, smart TVs, and services for that are something that you will continue to see covered here. However, there is one cord I suggest that you might not want to cut, and that is the one to your TV antenna, either indoors or outdoors. Why pay for the local and network stations when they are free? Even better, why miss out on the wide range of educational, ethnic, religious, nostalgia, special interest, and
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Residential Tech Today | Nov/Dec 2021
shopping channels typically not carried on either cable or streaming services?
subscription to Sling and there are also add-ons for both indoor and outdoor antennae.
Sling AirTV Two alternative answers for that here, particularly if you would like more than one tuner and would like to “DVR” the off-air channels. Two options are the AirTV products from Sling. Both connect to the antenna and do not need a direct connection to the TV. Instead, you load the Sling app for free to your streaming device, smart TV or mobile device and simply select the channels to watch there. The grid guide makes it easy to select those that you would like to record.
Thanks to Sling, I’ve used the AirTV products with an outdoor antenna and received 178 offair channels. That’s great, but what if the viewer prefers a traditional remote rather than an app interface and needs a direct connection to the display rather than depending on a Wi-Fi connection? That’s where Tablo’s new DUAL or QUAD HDMI models shine. Tablo’s other models, which I have used with great success, operate in the same way as the AirTV2 other than you connect to them using the Tablo app. The interface is clean, easy to view, and navigate. There is also a “commercial skip,” which is particularly useful for over-the-air broadcasts.
The AirTV 2 ($99.99) has two tuners with the caveat that you also need to add an external USB drive for recording. For those who want even more recordings at the same time, the AirTV Anywhere ($199.99) has four tuners and a built-in 1TB drive. Discounts for both are available with the purchase of a three-month Sling AirTV
The real benefit of the new models is that the direct HDMI connection makes it easy to use an over-the-air DVR on a “not smart” TV. Even better, the included remote makes it easy to navigate the guide and menus, and there are
