AirTV 2 by AirTV-LLC (Open Box)

I have been a long time user of HD Homerun and Channels Whole House DVR - I have a lot of experience using an over the air antenna hooked up to my WiFi to broadcast TV signals to every Roku and AppleTV in my house. Over the years I’ve gotten tired of switching between apps for premium content, then to Channels app to watch network shows. In an attempt to combine everything into one app, I signed up for Sling Blue because I read that the AirTV would put my locals from my OTA into the Sling guide, and allow me to record OTA series into the same app. Sounded great - just what I was looking for! Unfortunately, reality did not meet expectations! In order to get the AirTV 2 to record, you need to attach an external hard drive to it. Depending on which external drive you select, you’re talking anywhere from $30 - $100 dollars on top of the price of the AirTV 2. Not too bad, but needs to be considered. I connected the AirTV to my OTA, my WiFi (an Eero 6E router) and the hard drive. You can only set it up with Sling via a mobile device connected to WiFi. Setup was glitchy through out. The AirTV would lose the connection to my iPad during the setup, randomly shut down several times, but finally connected and scanned for local channels after about 30 minutes of frustration. Once connected the good parts were few - the channel logos on the guide looked nice! That’s it! That’s when the real frustration started! The frustrations - Some shows being recorded from the OTA lacked icons. Some shows could not be setup for a “Series” record - they would have to be done manually every time they aired. And I’m not talking about some local produced weekly show, I’m talking about NATIONAL shows - SNL, This Week, Celebrity Jeopardy, etc. Any show that would allow a “series” recording would only do so with the “Record new and reruns” option. It would error out whenever I tried to set it to “Only record new episodes”. The resolution for the live shows was HORRIBLE! Blocky, smearing - just miserable. Made my 4K OLED look like it was playing 1970’s low def rabbit ear antenna broadcasts. Just to confirm, I dropped out of Sling and checked the same shows on Channels - looked like they were in 4K off of Channels. Live shows were buffering so much, it was nearly impossible to watch. It was literally buffering every 2 to 3 minutes for LONG times. Again, checked Channels - no buffering. I figured a recorded show would not have issues with buffering - I WAS WRONG! The recordings looked just as bad, and were buffering just as much. I next thought maybe it was the WiFi connection limitations - connected the AirTV to the nearest Eero station via Cat5e cable - still horrible resolution and buffering like wild. Checked online for solutions to fix either issue - the only thing I found was to unplug the AirTV for 10 seconds, plug it back in, hard reset the app, wait 5 minutes, start the app again. Did that - no improvements. I contacted the Tech Support line for the maker of the AirTVs - their solutions for everything was to tell me my antenna, WiFi or Internet providers were probably to blame. When I explained that I had experience with, and still using an HD Homerun w/ Channels, and there were none of the issues with the Antenna, WiFi, Internet providers on that device like I was having with the AirTV - they basically told me they couldn’t believe it. In the end, Tech Support could not provide a solution to fix the issues. So everything got removed, and returned to Amazon. Sling subscription cancelled! Back to the drawing board!