Dave Zatz, Author at Zatz Not Funny!

TiVo Alexa Voice Control Arrives*

As foreshadowed by yours truly and then announced at CES, Alexa has finally come to TiVo retail boxes. Well, sort of. Over the weekend, a placeholder app appeared – announcing the imminent arrival of Amazon’s voice assistant. Although TiVo has introduced their own native voice remote, it requires an additional purchase, vs those who already own Alexa gear, and is limited to units running the less desirable TiVo Experience 4 (Hydra) on a subset of TiVo hardware. By comparison, Alexa will be made available to a broad swath of devices, dating all the way back to the Premiere and running either Hydra or the HDUI Encore interface.

The TiVo Alexa skill isn’t live yet, but we know it’ll utilize Amazon’s beefed up media api. And, based on some of the documented commands that’ll be available to us, the delay will have been well worth the wait:

Who’s Taking Over TiVo Retail Manufacturing & Sales?

As Rovi foreshadowed, prior to their 2016 TiVo acquisition, the merged company wants out of the retail hardware business. Not consumer services itself, but the manufacturing and distribution. As such, from Seeking Alpha’s transcript of the TiVo quarterly call yesterday: In addition, we have signed on a major device manufacturer as our direct-to-consumer box partner. … Read more

Springtime Stocking Stuffers

Don’t know what sort of stockings you’re sporting this time of year, but here are a few decent deals on some low ticket items that might interest you.

Aukey USB Charger – $6
I replaced an older, bulkier two-port Anker model with this little guy back in February and have been pleased. It’s unobtrusive in the kitchen, travels well, and simply does what it’s supposed to do. Use code FORMOM32 to knock $2 off and it’s shipped free via Prime. If you need more power (for iPads) or faster charging, this somewhat larger Anker is also on sale for $9.

Anker SoundBuds Slim – $20
I’ve been rocking these since December and use them more frequently than my Apple AirPods (for music) given the customizable fit (see the multiple options above) and comparatively superior blockage of ambient noise. Decent sound, decent battery life, and fairly quick recharging. I also appreciate the

Significant Apple TV App Updates Expected in 2019

Noted Apple gossip blog Bloomberg indicates the company intends to beef up its TV app on Apple TV, iPhone, and iPad: Right now, the TV app aggregates content from other providers, allowing people to locate shows from a wide array of apps and channels like ABC, NBA League Pass and HBO, rather than having to … Read more

First TiVo Hydra Feature Update Rolling Out

The TiVo Hydra experience has seen a number of updates, since its October release, but they’ve primarily been focused on squashing (numerous) bugs. While that work continues, TiVo has begun rolling out their first “feature update” to existing Hydra owners — beginning two weeks ago with 5000 randomly selected boxes and now expanded to the … Read more

Arlo Baby Display … Is Or Isn’t Happening?

An Arlo Baby with 7″ touchscreen display just popped up on Best Buy for $350, which represents a $100-150 premium over the Arlo Baby itself. Like all Netgear Arlo products, the camera feed can be viewed from both Apple and Android devices, so what’s obviously new and notable here is the bundled tablet. Sadly, the production description doesn’t provide a whole lot of insight – but here are the relevant bits:

This Arlo Baby monitoring system includes a 7-inch touch-screen display for real-time footage viewing.

The 7″ color LCD display lets you clearly see the full-motion video to ensure your little one is safe.

I’m just going to go ahead and assume it’s a heavily skinned and slimmed down lower-resolution Android affair. But, really, the bigger question is: Will this product actually see the light of day? While there’s been a year of display-related chatter, to compete with the traditional baby monitors, Arlo staff recently posted a note to their forums suggesting they’ve pulled the plug:

How To Offload Tablo Recordings

We often jump on newly released gadgetry, as we’re wont to do, and my co-conspirator Adam Miarka just picked up the recently unveiled Tablo Dual Lite over-the-air DVR given his dissatisfaction with Plex DVR playback (as run from his Synology DS218+ NAS). The Tablo primarily records shows his toddler requires (hello Daniel Tiger and Ready Jet Go). While Tablo hasn’t yet provided a feature to offload recordings, Adam is running the community-produced Tablo Ripper from a Windows laptop to ~~hoard~~ move recordings from his smaller Tablo external drive to a Plex directory on the more capacious and aforementioned NAS. Tablo Ripper can be run as a service and does integrate with commercial skip software, but Adam’s keeping things simple by running on demand (and PBS doesn’t show a whole lotta commercials). From the NAS, Adam streams shows to his Apple TV Plex app and I suspect he’ll eventually get around to Plex iOS downloads for network-free mobile entertainment before the family heads out on their vacation.

The 2018 TCL Roku Televisions Have Arrived

One of the best bang-for-your-buck televisions last year was the TCL P Series, combining exceptional visuals (given the price point) and a top flight app platform in Roku. Unfortunately, the company cancelled plans for multiple sizes, simply shipping a single 55″ set that was occasionally unavailable due to demand (and perhaps production bottlenecks). TCL has … Read more