Placeshifting

AirTV arrives… without OTA guide integration

In what one customer suggests “feels like a bait & switch,” AirTV has shipped without its primary selling point enabled. Instead of directly integrating over-the-air television content into the Sling TV guide, there is merely a button to launch the separate, Google-produced Live Channels OTA app. Further, the promised Netflix integration may also be incomplete leading another owner to describe the suspiciously backordered Android-powered box as “basically equivalent to a Nexus Player.”

Sling TV CEO Roger Lynch indicates beta software was pitched at CES and that they intend to deploy OTA integration “soon” whereas another source indicates “early 2017” — whether or not they’ll deliver within the 30 day return window is anyone’s guess, but it’s certainly an inauspicious beginning to this initiative. Consumer trust is difficult to recapture, once lost…

Published by
Dave Zatz