Sling TV Vanishes From TiVo, Reappears on Amazon Echo

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And yet another inglorious end to a TiVo app. This time around, the TiVo Stream 4K has lost launch partner Sling TV. It just up and vanished… despite TiVo email marketing (text below) I received a few weeks ago and Sling TV continuing to advertise its deep TiVo integration.

Press the GUIDE button on your remote control and see all your TiVo+ channels – including Pluto TV, Freevee, Tubi and more – plus Sling or YouTube TV (subscriptions required). With a list of channels, times and what’s playing, it’s easy to browse for great entertainment in the
Guide.

For me, the TiVo Stream Android TV dongle never lived up to the company’s integrated content pitch, for a variety of reasons. This certainly doesn’t help. Nor did betting the farm on someone else’s platform (Google), who then decided to assert their own content discovery interface elements ahead of licensee TiVo. The Stream’s primary differentiator and saving grace was the ability to de-TiVo the whole experience, via various hacks, and serve as a decent Channels DVR endpoint — with numeric keypad remote.

All is not lost for Sling TV aficionados, as the Amazon Echo Show 8 & 10 now streams live television. It’s been a long wait. In limited testing, Sling TV has been somewhat sluggish on my original 8 (par for this device) and the video feed dropped a few minutes into viewing. But I expect it’ll improve and am looking forward to consuming “television” from this countertop and desktop form factor.

4 thoughts on “Sling TV Vanishes From TiVo, Reappears on Amazon Echo”

  2. Unfortunately re Channels DVR, the end might be nigh for it too with the introduction by NBC of DRM to their streams, including USA, SyFy, etc. If more of the networks do this too, then Channels may fade away too and/or be relegated to OTA channels or Docker add-ons.

  3. I’m able to get some of the sling channels for free on my Fire TV. I just signed up for a sling account and then closed the sling app when they ask for money. Then I can open the Sling app again and many channels are available for free, but most of them I’m not the least bit interested in. The Sling app will also integrate into the fire tv guide. Sling has its own network OTA tuner device that will integrate the OTA channels into the Sling App, but you must pay for a sling subscription. Not sure if the Fire TV guide will integrate the OTA channels from the Sling Network Tuner.

  5. Sling TV has been on the ES10 for a long time. Switched to it once Amazon wrecked Recast support on that Show. Did not know it was on the ES8. Thank you for the heads up.

    The Sling AirTV DVR is my favorite whole house DVR. Love the out-of-home stream and that there is no charge for guide data or some streamed programming.

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