It turns out Netflix isn’t solely interested in recouping lost revenue due to password sharing as both our Roku and Fire TV streaming devices spammed prompted us to upgrade the Ultra HD (UHD) tier earlier today. Upon selecting the account holder’s profile, the above interstitial appeared, before my daughter could pull up Captain Underpants. The … Read more
If you were unfortunate enough to purchase or factory reset a TiVo Stream 4K this weekend, your online video plans are on hold. Potentially until July 5th. You see, TiVo, in their infinite wisdom has taken their entire customer portal down for several days… to include TiVo Stream’s requisite web-based activation, which redirects to this … Read more
Hot on the heels of the recently refreshed Onn Google TV 4K Streaming Box, Walmart is prepping what could be a new “Google TV” streaming stick based upon this new FCC filing. While I don’t actually see mention of “HDMI Stick” in a quick skim of the documentation, the “streaming device” details and label above … Read more
Blink is poised to refresh their camera line with 4th gen models that will likely replace 3rd gen. Of course Blink is an Amazon subsidiary, sitting alongside Ring in providing a number of monitoring solutions, that built their brand on affordability and a pair of AAs. As such, I don’t expect much change in relation … Read more
By way of June FCC filings, we learn that IKEA plans to introduce at least two new smart home sensors. In a first, the Scandinavian retailer will be offering a contact sensor. The IKEA Parasoll Open/Close Sensor is likely a two part affair — the larger main unit shown below, to include wireless capabilities, and … Read more
Seems like I’ve stumbled upon the reason much of Arlo’s line of cameras and doorbells are 40-60% off right now… as the smart home video pioneer has a number of new products in the hopper. And, two of several unreleased products I’ve identified are displayed above: The Arlo Essential 2 Video Doorbell and Arlo Essential … Read more
By way of the US Patent and Trademark office, we learn that Wyze has been preparing a smarthome AI chatbot. And the Wyze “Home Copilot” trademark filing accounts for both app and cloud implementations, as detailed below. Downloadable software; Recorded software; Downloadable software for the artificial production of human speech and text; Downloadable software for … Read more
Due to expanded DRM deployment and associated consumer disruption, Cord Cutters News recently resurfaced the story that various ATSC 3.0 broadcasters had began encrypting their antenna channels beginning early this year. While televisions imbued with so called “NextGen TV” tuners for direct playback are unaffected, network tuners that relay video content and platforms that record … Read more