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.
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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?