HDHomeRun CONNECT QUATRO

TL;DR: Amazing cord cutting TV solution provided you live in an area that can receive good antenna signal. One device, one antenna to provide TV across the entire home.Pros-Extremely simple setup-One device can provide channels to several TV’s across the a home-HD local channels (dependent on location)-No lag or channel disruption with a whole home mesh network-Apps across all devices including Smart TV’s, streaming devices (Apple TV, Nvidia Shield, Fire TV, etc.) Mac/Windows.-Flawlessly compatible with Plex Pass (Lifetime purchase and monthly subscribers)-Can get TV in rooms with no antenna signal since it streams on internal networkCons-Native app works very well but the navigation is badAfter a very bad experience with my cable company, I have decided to pull the plug and become an official cable cutter. I live in a metro area of Arizona so I know I get great HD antenna service at my home. I have one antenna and was looking to purchase a few more as I have 5 TV’s in my home. I started looking up solutions for whole home antenna service and I stumbled across the HDHomeRun.There are several different models of the HDHomeRun, some of which include 2 simultaneous streams and some that have 4. Others have Hard drives with DVR capabilities (extra subscription cost required) and one that even allows you to connect a paid cable provider which would allow you to have one cable unit to provide cable across several TV’s instead of renting multiple cable receivers. I chose the HDHR5-4US Connect Quatro 4 Channel Tuner because I have a home that often runs 2-4 TV’s at a given time and I am not interested in DVR.Once I received the unit, setup was a breeze just as everyone else says. The box includes everything you need, the tuner, power cable, and CAT5e Ethernet cable to connect to your modem/router. I have a mesh network where all of my satellite units have their own Ethernet ports so I chose the room that had the best window access to the antenna towers. There are several websites you can go to which can help you learn what channels you should expect to get and where the towers are located.Once I connected my HDHomeRun to my router and power, I let it fully power on(only solid green light on the back) and then went to my computer to do the final setup. You go to a website specified in the instructions, scan for channels, then download the app to view. It is that easy! Once you open the app, as longs it is running on the same network as your HDHomeRun, TV will start playing!The native app is less than desirable. It is clunky and hard to navigate but once the channel is playing, it works very well. I personally do not use the native app. I use Plex as I have a Plex server and am a paid Plex Pass subscriber. Setup on Plex was also very easy, but I will not go into detail as this review is not for Plex. There are also other third party apps you can download/purchase if desired.After a few weeks of using the HDHomeRun exclusively, I am very happy o say that cancelling cable has never been easier. Yes you may only get a small handful of channels vs hundreds from the cable company, but depending on your needs, this product works excellent for getting TV across an entire home without the need of several antennas. Plus if you only get antenna reception in one room, you can still get good reception across an entire home including a basement that normally would not have access to TV signal since it streams over in home router equipment. Highly recommended for cable cutters who want local TV.

Update 2/3/2018:I upgraded my router and bought another hdhomerun model (HDHR4-2US) and am now very much a fan of the silicon dust tuners. The new router is a NETGEAR AC1750 Smart WiFi Router Model R6400v2. My setup is the tuner located near the antenna with a long ehternet cable to a port on the router and the hdhomerun app on three android devices. I loaded the hdhomerun dvr program on a clean Raspberry pi 3 and 1 TB USB drive (formatted as ntfs) with Raspian and connected that to the same router as the tuner via ethernet. I bought the 1 year hdhomerun dvr and guide subscrption and after some confusion used a windows 10 computer to register the tuner with the subscription.I now have a system that provides clear real time viewing of 37 channels with pause and rewind, along with scheduled recording. I find the hdhomerun app very easy to use and the program guide terriffic. It's easy to find programs, and schedule them to record, and to select recorded programs to watch. Now I am watching using an android phone chromecast to my tv, but am planning the get an Amazon TV and try the hdhomerun app.In short, with the new tuner (which looks different from this one but has the same name) I am delighted to be a be to finally take advantage of OTA with the critical features of recording so I don't have to be there to watch stuff (and can skip thru ads) and am not ties to any single particular device for viewing.Old review:I struggled to like this product. I loved the idea of having tv tuners available in my home on any device. I got it working in short order, but experienced problems as diverse as halting, intermittent streaming, and "all tuners in use" errors. I used the android apps for phone and tablet, and the windows 10 hrhomerun app. My OTA signals were pretty good on all channels but they mostly exhibited the halting and break up.I connected the tuner to an ethernet port on my wifi router (tplink TL-WR841N) I accessed the tuner from windows 10 and android, as well as from a browser pointed at the tuner ip address. I even wired an ethernet cable from the unit to my router through the house at considerable expense so the tuner could be near the antenna. Nothing solved the problems of picture breakup, stalling, unable to see channel due to "all tuners in use", even though I carefully turned off all possible other users of the app.I am returning the unit. I spent too much time trying different solutions and too much money installing ethernet cable to support it, so I am very disappointed.A good feature of this device was the channel information displayed on the app. You see the local station name and some graphics indicating what program is on at the time.It also shows a short green line below the graphic whose purpose I couldn't figure out. Signal strength? Elapsed time?Hardware Model HDHR5-2USFirmware Version 20171208Device ID 1063E2D8MAC Address 00:18:DD:06:3E:2DIP Address 192.168.1.108Subnet Mask 255.255.255.0