TiVo Mini Vanishes From Site After Corporate Merger

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During the same week that TiVo consummated its merger with Xperi and installed a new CEO, the TiVo Mini Vox has been excised from their website.

While I do wonder about the future of retail initiatives (continuing? spun off?), it seems far too early for a seismic shift in consumer strategy. As such, perhaps plans were already underway to replace the DVR extender (inventory still available at Amazon) with a soft client on the TiVo Stream 4K or maybe some sort of hardware refresh is on the way. In any event, I pinged TiVo PR Friday afternoon and will update the post with any new information that comes my way.

UPDATE: The PR team has responded with, “TiVo Mini VOX has been discontinued and will be replaced shortly with a newer model.”

(Thanks for the hears up Elan!)

22 thoughts on “TiVo Mini Vanishes From Site After Corporate Merger”

  1. Fingers crossed for a client on the Stream 4K. I didn’t check yesterdays update to the Stream 4K to see if it fixed/added anything.

  2. Let’s hope it’s a poorly implemented replacement strategy or stocking issue. An exit from distributed viewing or requiring a full box at each location would be a bad sign.

    Just purchased 2 mini this year, still feels like the best Fios experience. All on the old UI.

  4. Interesting that the Edge for Antenna and the Bolt OTA are listed as out of stock at the TiVo online store. Unlike the Mini, they haven’t (yet) been removed from the marketplace. The only hardware in stock is the Stream 4K, the Edge for Cable, and the Bolt VOX.

    Makes me wonder if the new post merger strategy is to exit the OTA DVR hardware business, especially with ATSC 3.0 on the horizon in some markets.

  5. Old news. A TiVo employee, Michaela Logan, posted on Tivo Facebook group that:

    1) Confirmed Mini Vox is discontinued

    2) A replacement is in works

    I don’t know how to post a screen grab of that post here

  7. Thyname, thanks for the intel, which would support Matt’s thought. Hopefully, TiVo PR confirms … along with details on what comes next and when. But still pining for a Stream client.

    Mjk, my TiVos remain unplugged. But, as I wrote a month ago, I intend to continue covering developments. For now, anyway.

  10. The TiVo Stream 4K update seems to have fixed both the CEC issues, as well as the occasional black screen when going back to Android TV’s home. It’s starting to shape up as a pretty solid dongle. Their best bet is to keep it at $50 and not raise it back up, to be honest.

  11. Thanks MZ. The one response from the guy still awaiting the Fire TV client is on point. For TiVo, and really all companies (ahem Apple AirPower), until a product is available for purchase (or installation), it’s just noise.

  14. Tivo is a great concept now with $7.50 a month for the great giant useless inefficient electric consumption of a cable box that take 5 min. to reload. If Tivo would get to become a friendly consumer product without the hurdles of connection, loss of network, going to your account etc. Lets follow Amazon stick or Roku a simple plug and play which is now Tivo’s waking up call and coming up with there unit. Issue is you have now million out of date Tivo family of boxes, your letting the consumer down and this is why Tivo is die hard group of users. My view as a consumer is simple provide a great easy to use product, stop nickle a dimming your customer, reduce my cable bill. As a company Tivo has lost its way trying to make money Amazon gives content and a reliable product Roku has a great easy to use unit with provider of content.

    Cable is on its way out this is why Verizon sold 3 biggest states of cable providers California 40 million, Texas 29 million and Florida 21 million that’s total of 90 million population. Households of millions all lost the best service in cable, which leads to everyone going to internet and other services. This also makes for serious loses for Tivo as well it would make good business sense to make Tivo work both ways, cable and internet friendly a plug and play unit. So I guess we are all waiting for the perfect storm of a content provider magic box mean time I have a bunch of Tivo units sitting around.

  15. I think Antonio reads too much into Verizon’s motives. They divested themselves of wired telco operations in those three states both to raise cash, and out of concern that the Net Neutrality act would end up having them classified as (and regulated as) a public utility in those states. Adding the FiOS operations in those markets to deal made it more attractive for Frontier to purchase. Verizon sold all of this off in 2016. They also netted almost $10 Billion in cash, half of which they used to buy back their own stock to satisfy their shareholders, and used the balance to pay down debt and improve their credit rating. Their cash crunch was real, as Verizon also sold off their cell towers (veritable cash machines) at the same time to American Tower.

    And the market consensus year later was that Frontier way over-paid for those assets.

  16. The PR team has responded and I’ve updated the post.

    “TiVo Mini VOX has been discontinued and will be replaced shortly with a newer model.”

    Sadly, no details on timing, pricing, or what has changed beyond the seemingly newly bundled backlit remote.

  18. Newer model my a**. It’s just the existing model with with the LUX remote instead of VOX remote. Big deal

  19. I’d verify with TiVo PR, but they went radio silent after indicating they were going to check on the delayed Stream 4K update. Even when they do respond to inquiries, questions require more detail on my part and responses are slow to come back (vs when I worked with Ted and Ira). Feels too much like work. :) So I’ll also assume it’s the same hardware, with new glowing remote packed in, until proven differently.

  20. Looks like the Tivo Mini Vox got replaced by the Tivo Mini Lux on the website now. Don’t see any difference other than a backlit remote control and an increased price of $199.

  22. Can’t get On-Demand anymore, now HBO will go too! Great! Paid lots of dough for the lifetime paid service plan and they take away working channels and services?! They or Comcast haven’t put together apps that work. Was a day I though TIVO was great, now not so much, and I will be starting the search for service and electronics that will keep up with the Crumbcrust. TIVO is not the way to go anymore. Too-bad. Guess I’ll have to watch my HBO on computer until I find another box or service. My advice is don’t buy any TIVO products until their current products work the way they once did and more. If they can’t do that then they need to go into something else.

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