We’ve followed the retail Moxi DVR story arc for years… and, thanks to ARRIS, we finally know when it inevitably concludes:
The Moxi HD DVR and Moxi Mate® are no longer available for purchase. Program guide data and technical support for the Moxi HD DVR will be available until December 31, 2013.
No real surprise here as there’s been very little retail activity while ARRIS instead leveraged their cable partnerships. And I can’t say I blame them. If a DVR pioneer like TiVo has a difficult time finding success in Best Buy, a seemingly pricier mail-order alternative wasn’t going to fly. It may be the golden age of CableCARD, but the perceived cost and complexity remain major roadblocks… for those that even realize they can acquire a set-top outside their cableco.
But the question remains – how many active Moxi HD DVR owners are there… and will enough hammer ARRIS or sign the petition to force a Replay?
Update: Guess the negative feedback was heard? ARRIS has updated their Moxi site to remove the 12/31/13 date and states, “We currently have no plans to discontinue service.”
I never saw one live, but the Moxi’s interface screenshots always looked gorgeous and much better looking Tivo. It’s a shame that they never got traction.
Personally, the VOD advantages of the cable co (FiOS in my case) box, outweigh any functional advantages a cable card box from Moxi or Tivo.
It always appealed to me, but the upfront cost was too high. Also, my wife has been in a Tivo state of mind for a long time now and it would be difficult to convince to her why switching was worth it. I guess she was right.
The UI was ahead of its time and indeed beautiful. At least in still photos (as there are definitely some usability issues). It’s a bummer Moxi has bounced around so much and failed to really find a champion that could move it forward. Perhaps ARRIS will do so with their whole home initiative directly via the cable providers.
Tom, on demand is hard to give up – you’re right that it’s an additional, compelling consideration… and why I ran a FiOS DVR in conjunction with my TiVos.
Coincidentally, I have a Moxi stacked on top of my ReplayTV. Both have their advantages. I still send video from my Replay to my mom’s 200 miles away. The Moxi has the Moxi Mates that I have in two rooms that don’t have cable or ethernet wired in. They work great. I’m already off the Replay mothership and hopefully Moxi will allow us to do the same.
I am a Retail Moxi owner. The news that Arris is planning to stop providing guide data to the Moxi is disappointing and upsetting.
I am including some links to give Moxi some areas where they can reach Arris management and convince them to change their mind. If you are a Moxi owner, please let them know your thoughts.
File a complaint against Arris in GA at the Attorney General Office
http://consumer.georgia.gov/form/consumer-complaint/step1%5B
File BBB complaint here.
https://www.bbb.org/consumer-complaints/file-a-complaint/find-business/name/arris/GA/
File a complaint against FCC
http://www.fcc.gov/complaints
Sign a petition
http://www.change.org/petitions/arris-arris-provide-guide-service-to-retail-moxi-dvr-beyond-december-31-2013
Create a support ticket on the Moxi website expressing your displeasure with the decision.
Please send an (polite) email to (Don’t be an ass):
Robert Stanzione CEO President of Arris
bob.stanzione@arrisi.com
Bryant K. Isaacs President, Media Communications
He is in charge of Moxi
bryant.isaacs@arrisi.com
Ron Miller
Ron.Miller@arrisi.com, Moxi Product manager
Dave,
Can you include some links in your main post?
Yah, I’ll get the petition in there tonight.
“The UI was ahead of its time and indeed beautiful. At least in still photos”
So the thing was real after all? I thought you’d just mocked up some creative screenshots for a fictional product.
I’ll never understand the VoD thing. I have Comcast, in a “modern” franchise. The Twin Cities. It sucks.
Explored it a number of times, a number of years….went through it all…which never took long… nothing interesting…not many episodes…or I RECORDED it on a DVR!!! and watched it already. Poor PQ, sound. Slow response on trick play.
And I’ll be damned if I’ll PAY cable EVEN MORE to watch another bad PPV movie from VoD.
I don’t get it.
I don’t always plan ahead or hear about a show after the season has begun, so on demand has been great for that and how I caught up on maybe half of Homeland after the fact. My in laws have children and find on demand indesoensible – always something suitable and available for them.
Moxi really looked like a great contender. Weren’t the upfront costs in the neighborhood of $800 though? That’s a big turnoff for most people and I bet that’s what limited it’s success in the retail space.
These companies should take a look at the cell phone industry and come up with similar business models. Perhaps you buy a partially subsidized DVR of your choosing for the Comcast or whatever. You pay $200 and a 2 year commitment but its yours (and if you bail out there’s an ETF). Mirror the mobile industry. Look at all the innovation we have in the mobile space because of this. The iPhone, various droids, windows phones, palm, blackberry, Symbian, etc.. Many different makes and models from the likes of Apple, HTC, Samsung, LG, Nokia and others. It just “works” and the software, performance and everything you can do on these devices is just amazing.
The DVR could of evolved into a post “Google TV” era with speedy HD interfaces, apps, social aspects and tons of storage space / multiroom or streaming features. Sadly it’s pretty much a closed market with high license fees for the cable card certification.
So Moxi is going to be available via select cable partners? Good luck with that one because it will be in a VERY limited availability. It will never get mass traction at the pace of cable operators today. In a 100 mile radius from me there are a multitude of providers and not one of them offers a Moxi. Comcast, Service Electric, RCN, Verizon Fios, Blue Ridge Cable, Cablevision, DirecTV, Dish Network. That’s 7 potential television providers and again not one mentions Moxi. They all have their own initiatives. This is not only the death of Moxi retail but the death of Moxi entirely. RIP MOXI. You had the potential but just could never pull it off because of the messed up way this industry works.
“I’ll never understand the VoD thing … And I’ll be damned if I’ll PAY cable EVEN MORE to watch another bad PPV movie from VoD.”
The VOD provided by an MSO CableCARD box is not synonymous with PPV. A section of most MSO’s VOD is free, as long as you are paying for the relevant cable channel.
Personally, I find locally caching to be a better solution for a variety of reasons, (I’m not a fan of windowing schemes), but it is one of the few advantages the MSO DVR”s offer over a retail TiVo DVR.
With TiVo seemingly abandoned the Preview streaming boxes at the retail level, my goal of having one main DVR hub and a fleet of tiny, energy efficient extenders all over the house is now dead. The best option for this is now a DirecTV HR34 and Samsung TVs that include RVU built in. Disappointing to say the least.
I had a Moxi, provided by Charter, for 2 days about a year ago. The interface was really nice. The unit was really loud, though. It looked like I just got someone else’s old unit and it looked pretty dusty inside. I’d expect a newer, better kept Moxi to be a lot quieter. I couldn’t take it and took it back to Charter and got a Motorola box.
Re: On-Demand
I like the idea of On-Demand. It’s great to go check out a show that you’ve heard about and not recorded. Even better would be if everything was On-Demand (why does everyone need a hard drive under their TV spinning 24/7 when it could just be provided by the cable company’s central server?). The big problem with On-Demand to me is the interface. It’s this weird collection of categories and sub categories that you have to wade through to -maybe- get to the show you were looking for. Worse, if you get to where you think the show you were looking for should be but it’s not you’re left wondering, “Did I go down the wrong path of categories? Is the show I’m looking for even carried On-Demand?”
It’s a good idea but a stupid implementation.
I’ve been using the Arris Media Gateway and Media Players for about two months now. The equipment is well built and the MOXI software/interface is pretty stable after a few bug updates. The company I work for plans to launch to customers within 1 – 2 months after employee testing is completed. For customers that have more than one DVR in their house, it will also save them money.
With TiVo seemingly abandoned the Preview streaming boxes at the retail level, my goal of having one main DVR hub and a fleet of tiny, energy efficient extenders all over the house is now dead.
Anthony, IMHO TiVo hasn’t abandoned the Preview at retail. There are a number of shortcoming in the Preview that TiVo needs to overcome before it will be ready for mass distribution. A few that have been highlighted by the RCN rep on dslreports include the ability to hijack a tuner off of the main DVR to allow a user to pause and rewind live TV at the Preview box. Also the ability to schedule recordings needs to be added. I think you’ll see a significant update of TiVo software in the summer that includes a release of the Preview box to retail.
Interesting… ARRIS has updated the Moxi web page to remove the line I quoted about ceasing service next year. Are they rethinking their strategy already? I’ve emailed them for clarification.
Someone pointed out that the end of service date is still buried in the FAQ information. So maybe they’re rethinking it or maybe the just don’t want to cause any confusion for cable customers who might end up on the page.
http://www.moxi.com/us/
A few weeks ago we incorrectly posted a notice
regarding discontinuation of our Moxi program
guide data. We currently have no plans to
discontinue service. Thank you for your support.
Given the specificity of the message (services, date), I’d say this is more likely a bit of revisionist history and they’ve changed course. Regardless, I’ve pinged ARRIS (again) for comment. I’ll provide an update if they choose to respond. I also dropped a note to Fierce Cable to see if they might get further with ARRIS. We can also have our pals at Light Reading and MultiChannel reach out if FC yields nothing. Although, at this point I think we have a pretty good idea of what went down and where things stand. For now.
I heard back from ARRIS, but didn’t actually learn anything. So as of now there’s no service discontinuation date and we can only assume how things played out.
As Replay learned it’s a whole lot cheaper to continue to provide guide data than to face litigation…
I still wonder what Google might do with SageTV.
I’m still hoping I’ll see support for Comcast VOD on my Tivo Elite sometime in the near future (meaning before I die). But its not a big deal to me. As Chucky says, I cache a lot of stuff locally and that covers most of my needs. And for things I just didn’t notice when they premiered there are of course other *cough* ways.
And of course I have Comcast’s excellent Xfinity on PC and iPad (and HBO Go) to tide me over until then. Sure it has the stupid windowing thing going on (unlike HBO Go) but at least it has a reasonable interface. That blue bubbles thing Comcast has going on for their VOD is just impossible to navigate as far as I’m concerned. Just not worth the trouble.
I wonder if the same people designed both the VOD GUI and those Nav apps built in to Honda/Acura cars? You know how if you want to know where the nearest 7-Eleven is in Google Maps you just search for it? Well, on your typical Honda GPS system they make it even better by requiring you to pick a category before they show you the nearest one. Do you want the shopping 7-Eleven? The retail 7-Eleven? The Gas Station? Or one of the ten or more other random categories they’ve assigned different 7-Elevens across the country into? Pick the wrong one and you’ll find the nearest 7-Eleven is 500 miles away…
Hey I’m just letting you know ARRIS is trying to make the moxi system run better then they are going to pitch the boxes back to cable providers, They still are in beta testing of the new boxs
I used Moxi for my cable company and it was horrible. The UI was great and it was user friendly but that is all I can say about it. The box was known to be missing things such as On Demand and burning out was common. Eventually our cable company decided to just phase them out because there were so many complaints and technicians couldn’t stand dealing with them.
Now we use Motorola and while its got an ugly UI and isn’t as easy to use, hopefully it’ll be more reliable.