By way of Engadget and the FCC, we learn there’s a next gen TiVo Mini in the works. And it’s a curious little beast. While there’s nary a reference to traditional WiFi frequencies, as requested by both RCN and myself, RF communication is present in the form of Zigbee – the up and coming home automation protocol. At this point, it’s unknown if this is intended to provide an existing partner like Control4 more hooks or signals TiVo is entering this space with aspirations that they or a cable partner control my new networked GE bulbs. But it sure is interesting… and possibly sheds some light on the TiVo Mini price drop, that expires in early January with this new hardware having a standard 6 month short term FCC confidentiality request in regards to photos and user manual. Having said that, CEDIA starts tomorrow and TiVo wasn’t shy about pre-announcing their $5,000 24TB DVR server slated for 2015. Stay tuned.
What’s the over/under we see a Roamio with similar communication capabilities pass thru the FCC? Hm. One thing’s for sure, TiVo laying off their industrial design team seemingly hasn’t stopped them from working hardware.
How about if Apple announces today that HomeKit will use Zigbee, instead of inventing yet another standard? It would be amazing for it to automatically work with a good chunk of the stuff out there (however unlikely.)
Doesn’t the current RF remote use RF4CE, which is a version of zigbee?
I believe Apple HomeKit is agnostic. It will aggregate the various standards under a common interface. The part that Apple is missing is the hub. But I’d bet an Apple TV refresh could fill that gap. Who knows. I guess we’ll see eventually.
I suspect Dave is right and TiVo’s Zigbee is at the behest of a partner. I would not count Wifi out yet.
It is interesting, however to imagine that TiVo is reinventing itself to be a home hub not just for entertainment, but for automation and, who knows, security? It’s not a stretch to imagine a TiVo product designed to record security cameras. The home security industry already uses industrial DVRs. It’s not a stretch that future hardware could talk wirelessly to cameras and alarm systems.
I find it amazing that Cable Companies and Telcos are trying to get in on the home security market. Mainly I find it horrifying because the most unreliable service in my home is Time Warner Cable. They constantly have outages and slow downs. When I lived in an apartment they constantly turned off my cable when a new person moved into the building due to their incompetence. I can’t imagine trusting the security of my house to TWC.
I was hoping for a headphone jack similar to the Roku 3 for the bedroom.
I’d also like to see them return to a remote with a switch on it. I use an older TiVo remote with a switch. One setting is for the Mini. The other I use for my Apple TV, which has the ability to be programmed to respond to other remotes. I really adore TiVo’s remotes. But they’ve been making them dumber lately. The new one doesn’t learn and it doesn’t have the code to mute my Yamaha sound bar. And I can’t quite justify buying the slide since it couldn’t double for my Apple TV. *Sigh* First world problems.
One home automation expert I ran this by suspects it’s not related to home automation but a RF4CE remote as Shoeboo also speculates above. I thought it was a rarer and thus more pricey standard than say Bluetooth or WiFi Direct, but I’m told it’s already a standard and cheap – Comcast and Echostar are using it in their boxes, for example. Of course, that makes the story less exciting. And still waiting on WiFi. ;)
I wonder if the new Mini’s will include Broadcom’s new 4K chip?
Broadcom Corporation today announced it will power TiVo’s Ultra 4K HD set-top box technology. Broadcom and TiVo TIVO will demonstrate TiVo’s new Ultra HD set-top box technology that can deliver 4X the resolution of traditional 1080p60 HD displays at IBC, September 12-16, RAI Amsterdam, in Broadcom’s booth 2.C25.
Decoding provided by Broadcom’s flagship video decoder system-on-a-chip (SoC), the BCM7445, with high efficiency video codec (HEVC) compression, 60 frame-per-second resolution and 10-bit color standard
Reliable source indicates there is a minor Mini refresh tentatively slated for around March to bring RF control. Which is probably what this FCC filing is all about.