Tiburon, Calif.-based SimpleTV announced it’s shutting down the electronic program guide service associated with its Cloud-based DVR products.
An early entrant in the Cloud-dependent DVR space, the company’s products included a single-tuner model that was later replaced by a two-tuner unit. When connected to an off-air antenna and an external hard drive, SimpleTV provided a new way to time-shift broadcast television. As is the case with rival Nuvyyo, sold under the Tablo brand, content was viewed from the local drive but only through a Cloud connection, on a smartphone or tablet using iOS or Android apps, or on a web-based site for PC viewing.
Due to slow sales, the high cost of delivering the program guide service, and servers, as well as presumably funding issues, SimpleTV products have not been available for some time; however, since the program guide servers remained active, the units still functioned. That is no longer the case. A $100 discount on the TiVo Roamio OTA with 1TB of storage was made available as compensation to existing SimpleTV owners.
The fate of SimpleTV’s intellectual property, particularly where it intersects with the cord-cutting Silicon Dust brands, is unknown, but competitor Tablo remains very viable. A new model with onboard storage recently joining its lineup, along with a tuner and Cloud DVR service designed for use with the Nvidia Shield.
Available for sale online and through Best Buy, and with more new products to follow this year, Tablo continues to successfully provide DVR products for over-the-air (OTA) use.
