Tablo TV

* Note: As an Amazon Affiliate I may earn from qualifying purchases. There is/was no incentive to review this product…just simply an item I have thoroughly researched / purchased and wanting to share my experience with you. I do appreciate any click throughs as it does help justify the time spent in sharing the following.

Looking to CUT THE CORD?

I did…with a Tablo TV…and it works!!

If you are needing to just CUT THE CORD and will deal with what every you need to do, and don’t want to read everything below to make a decision, just buy it! I will say there are some hiccups, and it is not perfect. But, I am definitely pleased with the purchase, and would buy it again. Tablo is one of the ONLY OTA DVRs out there, especially at this price point. And after discovering a few neat features, as well as getting more used to it, I am missing my TiVO a lot less…and saving $60+ per month.

Here is an Amazon Affiliate* link to the Tablo Products*. I bought the TabloTV with 2 Tuner. Had I known how effective the product was going to be, I would have definitely have gotten the TableTV with 4 Tuner. I had also already purchased an antenna previously, and it proved to be very effective. This is the antenna I purchased: GE Long Range 80 Mile Yagi Directional Antenna*.

Overview: 30+ Years with cable (Spectrum)…including ~20 years with a TiVO DVR, two things happened that forced the need to cut the cable. First and foremost, the local channel broadcast fee had increased again and again to an outrageous $26/mo to watch ABC/NBC/CBS and PBS. The second, Spectrum had been dropping support for TiVo. I had decided to get the locals OTA…but they would not allow me to make any changes to my Channel Line up. Any changes, and it would be the end of TiVo. So, it was time to CUT THE CABLE!

Initially, I had mixed reviews about the Tablo. And was really missing our TiVo…and Cable.Tablo is not perfect. I had some setup issues right off the bat. Wifi was hinking (there has been an update that I have NOT tested)…requiring Ethernet Connection. An antenna is required. And the better the antenna, the better the deal. And sometimes it messes up… and the menu system quirky. But it is working, and the company is actively developing and updating it. There are not a lot of options when it comes to OTA DVR, and definitely not at this price point. I bought it with a Black Friday Deal, with the idea I would try it for 30 days.

The day I plugged in the Tablo, I knew I could terminate cable and say good bye to TiVo. It had some challenges, but it worked…and the desire to leave cable was strong. But, then I spend the next few weeks connecting antenna to TVs, and trying to figure out Roku and Tablo. But it turns out I didn’t need to. Tablo worked BETTER than I realized, in ways I didn’t realize.

I discovered two things in the past few days that move this from MEH to pretty cool. These details are subtle in the marketing hype. I just didn’t understand the impact of some of “features”

The two things I learned include:

1. Internet only programming can be recorded. The Unit pulls in several channels that are “streaming only…not OTA”. This is only kind of useful, but it is pretty cool when there is something to record. So, this includes channels that you might find on the Roku Channel or PlutoTV or Sling. But what cost money at Sling, and not possible with Roku, is a show can be scheduled to record. I thought only the OTA channels could be recorded, like KFDM. So this is only cool to a degree because it is based on what Tablo “pulls” in for free. But it is proving to be much better than what I thought and the only product of its type. And this feature mitigates the “good” antenna requirement a little because it “pulls” in some channels that are broadcast on the digital side bands of 4, 6, 12, 29, etc. Most of the side bands are crap, but there a couple that are decent.

2. One Tablo works for all TVs…and phone/devices. IOW, content from the antenna can be streamed to any device with the Tablo app (via ROKU)…and phone via the TABLO app. Now this is pretty cool. Not only can I watch a recording that Tablo made, I catch watch a live OTA broadcast, say of 6.1, on any device that has Roku and thus Tablo. What does this mean? You don’t need more than one antenna for the house. And, the antenna can go anywhere you want…as long as the Tablo can be next to it and next to the Router. This is not perfect, but opens up a lot of options…so IOW, the antenna does not have be anywhere near the TV at all. So what does this mean? Well, when our cable went dark on 12/23/25 after 30+ years, I thought I needed to put antenna on each TV. I put last year a really good antenna outside for the main TV, but thought I also needed an antenna on the bedroom TV…and back room, etc. but I discovered yesterday that the outside antenna connected to the Tablo basically provides OTA , pausable LIVE Tv on every device. I am still wrapping my mind around the implication of this, but this is very cool. I was out in the barn trying to watch the Texan game yesterday, trying to get the crappy antenna to work when all of sudden I discovered the game was coming in on Tablo from the main antenna in the house connected to the Tablo, which is not only a pretty good directional antenna, but also power amplified. So not only did the signal snap in, I got Tablo’s pause live TV capability.

Summary: very cool device…with a learning curve…and some glitches and challenges…but definitely worth $150 one time purchases…saving about $85/month.