This was a quick setup that was actually so easy it threw me for a loop. I had no choice but to get a replacement for my Amazon Fire TV Recast. Support was dropped for that and mine finally just failed.After reading reviews, I settled on the 4 tuner (4 x ATSC 1.0, with 2 x ATSC 3.0 capable). There are a couple of things to be aware of on this model and I'm going to go with them under the pros and cons, but suffice it to say, so far, I'm satisfied with it. I wasn't satisfied with my Recast unit from almost day 1, but read on.Pros1. Handles through ATSC 3.0 so it'll do NextGen channels if you have them in your area and your gear is capable of getting them.2. Has four tuners so you can record or watch programming on four different tuners, though only two can handle ATSC 3.0.3. The apps to facilitate getting programming from the HD Homerun appear to work well so far on both the Fire TV, Windows 11, and Android. Scratch that - they work. The Windows 11 app almost locked my system up solid while doing this review.4. The picture is not only good, on HD broadcasts, it's OUTSTANDING on both the Fire TV and via the Windows app, and it looks fine on the phone, but why bother with a phone when you've got a larger screen?Cons1. This doesn't come with a guide - if you want the guide and DVR capability you have to do the following:a. Shell out $35.00 for a year of DVR / Guide capabilityb. Shell out for an external hard drive - yeah, you heard that right - this comes with no hard drivec. While I have nothing good to say about my previous Recast unit, at least that came with a guide, DVR capability and a TB of storage for $179. This was $199 with no no disk or guide.3. That you even have to use an app to view it on the Fire TVs, but it's not an Amazon product4. While you may see that I did a scan and found 99 channels (I have 2 x HD OTA antennas) probably 10 to 12 of those cannot be viewed because they're DRM protectedSo, with those cons, why did I buy this one?First, read the reviews on the other units outside of Amazon. From what I could find online, the top models appeared to be the Silicon Dust HD Homerun models, the Tablos, and the ZapperBox. They each had their pros and cons and the ZapperBox also has a similar setup to the HD Homerun for recording and a guide. The Tablo would have been the more economical model in initial cost, that it came with storage, and has no charge for it's guide. Unfortunately, it's only equipped for ATSC 1.0 (I'd like to be ready for 3.0) and if you look at some of the reviews, no thanks, they're not very good. There was a greater than 20% return rate on the models I looked at on Amazon. I already had enough of that with my Recast unit.So that's why I went with the HD Homerun 4-tuner model.My photos include out of the box (the first 2), via the Fire TV app, and on my Windows 11 Desktop which uses an HDMI input into the same Fire TV as it's monitor. These photographs do not do the HD broadcast pictures any justice. You have to see them in person.Yes, I'd recommend this just out of taking everything into account including technology, customer service (I read ZapperBox now has customers IM or email them?), cost, and the aggravation I was hoping to avoid. It's my hope that in the future, some company will come out with something that's a bit more reasonably priced overall, like the Recast was, if only it had worked right out of the gate.

This is a quality product for tuning in & recording OTA TV. Paired with a Winegard Elite 7550 Outdoor HDTV Antenna & 2TB external hard drive I purchased separately, I was able to pull in 78 clear channels 37 miles from my local antenna farm. Five ATSC 3.0 channels scanned in, but only 3 ATSC 3.0 actually displayed pictures and sounds; none were broadcasting in 4K so far. I purchased the $35 channel guide & DVR recording capabilities (the whole point of buying this product) separately from SiliconDust online. Here is a rough cost breakdown for my setup: SiliconDust HDHomeRun Flex 4K $200, Winegard Elite 7550 Outdoor HDTV Antenna $150, 2 TB external hard drive; $70, SiliconDust DVR/Channel Guide 1-year service $35, two Onn TV Android boxes $40, 30-foot telescope mounting pole/hardware/coaxial cable/professional installation $460 equals $955 total, a lot of money, but a professional clean weatherproof performance ensemble. Cable TV with DVR (w/o internet) in my area is about $145 a month with NO premium channels, so ostensibly my breakeven is at 7.5 months. I did not want to further complicate my life with a Plex server and/or Channels guide, nor the associated extra costs and complexity, which is not necessary since the SiliconDust UI is top-notch/excellent. ONE CAVEAT: If your TV or streaming device is running Roku software (like mine & millions of others)—my SiliconDust HDHomeRun app was prone to crashing frequently, and the FF/rewind did NOT work AT ALL. I solved this problem by buying/installing two $20 Onn TV Android boxes from Walmart and using the free SiliconDust HDHomeRun Android app from the Google Play Store. Now FF/Rewind works as it should, and the HDHomeRun Android app does not crash. Some internet searching will reveal this is a common SiliconDust HDHomeRun/Roku problem/issue that SiliconDust has been unsuccessfully working on debugging for a long time. It should have been resolved by SiliconDust and/or Roku long ago, and I should NOT have had to figure out this workaround on my own. Still, this is a solid OTA tuner w/DVR capabilities with superb channel tuning and UI that I will give it 5 stars despite my Roku caveat.6 MONTH UPDATE: SiliconDust HDHomeRun Flex 4K is still a solid choice. I have really warmed up to the excellent UI. The FF/rewind is still working on my Onn TV Android box. I must report the SiliconDust HDHomeRun Onn TV Android app does not load easily, or as it should, like all my other apps. Restarting the Onn TV box is typically necessary, usually 2 times, to bring up the SiliconDust HDHomeRun UI. I am not sure if this is a SiliconDust HDHomeRun Android app issue, a Google bloatware issue, or both. I have yet to try an alternate launcher, which I have some reservations about. SiliconDust has still not fixed the aforementioned Roku app problem. A SiliconDust sad state of affairs. Customers should not have to figure out a Roku workaround. I have given serious thought to trying the newest Tablo (despite having so many problems with an old Tablo Quad, Tablo’s poor customer support, & no hardware repairs offered), or "rounding up" 2 older used model TiVo’s that work with an antenna. Why the latter? I have owned a Tablo Quad, a Silicon Dust HDHomeRun, and 2 TiVo (very old) Premiers—all fed by antennas. TiVo (the most expensive option that works best with a box for each TV) has the best UI, works flawlessly, responds the best by far instantly, and has a one-button auto commercial skip that actually works.12 MONTH UPDATE: I have now surpassed my breakeven point. I’m in the black with my SiliconDust HDHomeRun/antenna setup vs. cable TV cost by a wide margin. Admittedly, there is some loss with OTA programming vs. cable, but not by $0 vs. $145 a month margin. Not to mention, if I really want to see a program, I can easily find it and stream it. With the last SiliconDust firmware/app update, I have found that the previously discussed SiliconDust HDHomeRun app loading issues do not occur if the app is returned to the Live TV mode before exiting and not left in DVR mode. I have given up on the idea of “rounding up” a used older TiVo since my SiliconDust HDHomeRun is performing better after the latest firmware/app update. You’d also need a TiVo for each TV, and TiVo has really abandoned the OTA DVR business altogether. I recommend SiliconDust HDHomeRun and hold out hope that SiliconDust fixes the Roku app soon to accommodate the FF/Rewind function.

I’ve been a Silicon Dust HDHomeRun fan for quite a few years. I bought a HDHomrRun PRIME nine years ago to try leveraging my home network for TV distribution. Shortly after that I sent my cable box packing and relied only on the HDHomeRun along with Plex to pickup DVR duties. I did try out the HDHomeRun DVR when it first came out, even using the Kickstarter to get early access to it. However, in the end, I preferred the ease of use of Plex.Over the next few years, I found that I was watching less and less TV, for a number of reasons. I scaled back my service to the point that I was eventually just getting the local channels. All I was using it for was the local news and an occasional show like American Ninja Warrior. It was becoming harder and harder to justify the cost. It was about $30/month plus another $6/month for the cable card as part of a TV and Internet bundle.Fast forward to early 2023. While doing some tech upgrades in the house I found that I had an easy way to get a coax connection from my basement, where my entertainment center and most cable endpoints are, up to the attic. I decided to take the plunge, install an antenna in the attic, and then swap my HDHomeRun PRIME for a HDHomeRun FLEX 4K. Best decision ever!The antenna I put in the attic is an Antennas Direct ClearStream 4V. This is a big antenna designed to pull in stations from a long way away. As it is, I’m only about five miles from the Washington DC stations, so this antenna was overkill. I didn’t want to take any chances being that the antenna would be in an attic and the house across the street from me, in the direction of the transmission towers, is about twice as tall as my home. The antenna more than handled the situation and even picked up some stations I was not expecting, from Baltimore, that were not even in the beam width for how I had the antenna aimed.Now, we get to the HDHomeRun. When I hooked it up, is spotted 90 channels! A few of them seem to be ghosts as they report a signal with no content. Of the 90, I could tune in 82 of the channels. Plex had a few more issues and only knew about 67 of the channels, but it got the ones I cared about along with dozens I really didn’t care about.For my usage, I could have got away with a HDHomeRun DUO, two tuners being one more than I typically need on a given day. However, I’m trying to future proof and wanted to be ready for ATSC 3.0 (aka, NextGen TV). The DC area is fortunate to have ATSC 3.0 signals for all the major networks. The FLEX had no trouble receiving these signals.I’ve been able to fire up all four tuners at once using a combination of a computer, a phone, a tablet, and a Chromecast with Google TV. The HDHomeRun app runs on all of them. The app isn’t perfect, but it works. The only thing I would ask for in the app is the ability to get technical details on the stream. The only way I’ve found to get that is to go to the web interface for the HDHomeRun and look at the tuner status.Only two of the tuners support ATSC 3.0. That is good enough for a first generation product, especially since the ATSC 3.0 stations are only simulcasting the regular broadcast at this point. The FLEX 4K is smart enough to give preference to the non ATSC 3.0 tuners when tuning in an ATSC 1.0 signal, to keep the 3.0 tuners available if you need them.As for handling the signals it receives, the FLEX does a great job. For the local stations, the image is rock solid all the time. The interface shows 100% across the board, so I would expect no less. The Baltimore stations were the biggest surprise. The ones I receive, come in about 56% power but the symbol quality still shows as 100% and the image has been stable for them as well. Oddly, there are some stations that are on the same towers as the ones I get that don’t come in at all. WBAL, the NBC affiliate, is one of those. It is as if it isn’t even there. I don’t really care about the Baltimore stations, but this did leave my scratching my head.No product is perfect, and there are a few things I think could be done a little bit better. The biggest one would be to send the signal from a single tuner to multiple destinations. If two users tune in the same station, it still takes up two of the four tuners. With four tuners available, this won’t likely be an issue but it would be more efficient.The only other thing I don’t like about the FLEX 4K is the total lack of indicator lights. It is truly a black box and the only way to check the status on it is through the web interface. For contrast, my PRIME has a power light, cable connectivity light, and a separate light for each of the three tuners that come on when in use. You know what is going on with that box with a single glance.To wrap it up, my HDHomeRun PRIME will be looking for a new home. My cable provider has lost a video customer, although I did up my Internet speed with some of the savings. I’m receiving more stations than I did via cable and can watch them anywhere in the house via either the HDHomeRun app or Plex’s Live TV feature. Hopefully the HDHomeRun FLEX 4K will get to flex its muscle on some 4K content once the local broadcasters start providing it. Even while waiting for the next generation of TV, add me to the cord cutters club.

I live about 25 miles west of Philadelphia, and have a GE Attic Antenna (29884-PK1), GE 50-ft RG6 Quad Shield Coax (33532), GE Antenna Amplifier (42178), two way splitter, and finally this device. 1GB internet is provided by a Verizon Fios.Physically, the device is everything I could wish for. It is well made, has a tiny footprint (4" x 4" x 3/4"), is very light, and only has the four connections in the back (power, network, usb, and antenna). It has a 12 watt (12 volts @ 1 amp) DC power adaptor with two unpolarized prongs. With no connections, it uses about 2 watts. With all four tuners running, it consumes about 5 watts, which is nothing.On an m1 mac mini, the HDHomeRun app works fairly well. I used the terminal command, "open -n -a HDHomeRun.app" to run four instances of the app at once, with two ATSC 1.0 and two ATSC 3.0 channels running at the same time. Video and audio worked fine. The app uses 10 to 20 percent of the CPU resources, which is far more than something like Youtube on Chrome. It has some minor bugs. Sometimes, it will not support all four tuners when one or two of the tuners is playing an ATSC 3.0 station. On a portrait-mode secondary monitor, sometime the picture flips back and fourth between horizontal and vertical orientation. It also crashed a couple times, but I was stressing it out with multiple instances on a single computer. In general, a single instance of the HDHomeRun app runs reliably on a mac mini. On an old Windows 10 PC, a single instance of the application was actually more responsive and reliable than on the mac mini. The Windows software also includes two small configuration applications.With a first-generation 9.7-inch iPad Pro, the app supported both audio and video with both ATSC 1.0 and ATSC 3.0 stations, and seemed to work well. On a cheap Android Nord N20 phone, the ATSC 1.0 worked fine, but the ATSC 3.0 was audio-only. On a TCL 49S405 49-Inch 4K Roku TV (2017 Model) connected with wired Ethernet, the ATSC 1.0 worked, but the ATSC 3.0 had no audio. Same thing with a Roku Express 4K+ connected to a VIZIO P602ui-B3 HDTV (2015). Finally, on a TCL 43S433 43-Inch 4K Roku TV (2020 Model) connected via WiFi, the audio and video worked on ATSC 1.0 and 3.0.On the mac mini, iPad, Windows PC, and android phone, the app supports pause, fast forward, and rewind. With the roku app, the pause always works, but the rewind and fast forward are not so reliable. I attached an old USB 2.0 16 GB memory stick to extend the buffer time from five minutes to over an hour.I pick up about 30 channels (100 sub-channels) in the Philadelphia area. We have six ATSC 3.0 stations, but only two are not encrypted with DRM (6abc and Fox 29). Both stations work well, as do most of the ATSC 1.0 stations. The tuner has more than adequate sensitivity. Like its physical construction, the system web interface for the HDHomeRun is minimalistic but functional. You access it using its IP address or "hdhomerun.local". It has functions to list and rescan the channels, show tuner status, and show the digital frequency, bitrate, signal strength, and quality percentage of the tuned-in stations. It also shows the model number, IP address, Mac Address, etc, as well as the system logs. But that is it. You do not have to setup an account to use the device as a tuner. I have not setup an account with the manufacturer (SiliconeDust), and have not used the DVR.Finally, for those who are technically inclined, this device is fantastic. Stations can be streamed directly over the network to video players such as VLC or Windows Media Player. The Plex and Jellyfin media servers can utilize the device for live TV and DVR recordings. The Windows, Mac, and Linux client installation programs also install an hdhomerun_config command line utility. This supports functions such as channel scans and streaming tv video to mpeg files. The libhdhomerun library can be used for direct programmatic control of the HDHomeRun.The device reports the signal strength and signal quality using precise percentage values. A signal strength of 100% indicates an ideal power level of -48.75 dBm = 60 dBuV = 1 mV across 75 ohms. Each 10 percent drop in signal strength corresponds to a 6 dBm drop in signal power. A signal quality of 100% indicates an ideal signal to noise ratio (SNR) of 33 dB =~ 2000:1 power ratio =~ 45:1 voltage ratio . Each 10 percent drop in signal quality corresponds to a 3.3 dB drop in SNR. The tuners provide reception with both the signal strength and signal quality above 55% (-75 dBm level and 18 dB SNR). Above 70% is very reliable. Unfortunately, the percentage values only go up to 100%, so it is hard to check when the signal is too strong.

Update: Failed after 2 months. I get a message to connect ethernet cable when it is already attached. I also replaced the router to see if that would help but it didn't. It gets a lot hotter now than it used to also, much hotter.--------------------I don’t want to make it sound like this thing is no good, because that’s not the case, it’s just that it is a very unusual piece of ‘AV’ electronics that has little information floating around on it with some strong points, and just as many weak points.First off, the tuner is not all that sensitive; my plane Jane Vizio 436-G1 in my office has a better tuner.The side scroll channel guide has both good and bad aspects. Some may love it, some may hate it; it’s definitely a different take on channel guides. You can expand to the left to display upcoming shows and then scroll down and the expanded section remains to produce a comprehensive display of programs currently or soon to air. The ‘Discover’ option is another way to browse upcoming programs but for some reason the channel the programs are on is not indicated (this is probably to eliminate duplications but is another oddity that has both good and bad aspects).The app design seems to have been intended to be idiot proof, so it doesn’t have a lot of options or flexibility. ‘Surfing’ isn’t possible, it takes anywhere from 2 to 4 seconds for the system to change a channel. AV enthusiasts may be a little disappointed on how little control you have. Things like the channel scan; there is only one option and that’s to do a complete channel scan. There is no add channels or single channel search or anything like that. Some signal information is available on the web at my.hdhomerun.com where there is a signal strength meter and channel signal format info display. This kind of information is not available in the app itself. The web signal strength meter there is instantaneous, not real time. When you open the web page you can’t even see the device info, you have to scroll up to the top to see it. There is a .exe you can download (the support/downloads option at the top of the webpage) that has a real time signal meter that you can view on your computer called hdhomerun_config_gui.exe and hdhomerun_setup.exe has other tuner information you can access. To get the most detailed information regarding signal reception you really need both the Web and the .exe files.The app for my android TV crashes hard sometimes, there is no response from the remote at all. Exiting and restarting does not help, even going as far as turning off the TV and unplugging the HDHomerun box itself would not unfreeze it. Turns out the easiest way to fix it is to go to Settings (for the TV), go to apps and ‘force stop’ on the HDHomerun app, then relaunch.I found that if you have more than one station that share the same virtual channel number, only one can be included in the channel list. I assume the second (higher frequency) one during the search overwrites the first. I really need both, but if I can only have one, the one I want is the one that is overwritten. It can also display channel ID for the channel it gets, but shows guide data for the one that it doesn't. This is an outright flaw in system software that needs to be corrected and you may get hit with it if you have repeaters in your area. Note that for ATSC 3.0 stations, this problem doesn't occur since those stations get a prefix number to separate them from their ATSC 1.0 counterparts.(Note: I have since found there is an odd quirk in the software that if you do a channel scan from the Android App (maybe others too) for some reason the channel that does not show appears in the channel list while the search is being done but is then replaced by the channel that does show when the scan is complete. Odd for sure but if you start a scan and then cancel it, the channel that was not showing before sometimes will stay in the list and you can now view it but it usually won't stay that way for more than a week or so, sometimes just days. Of course, the one that was showing, now is not but you do have a back door way to force the channel you want to use to be in the list.)There is no DVR capability without buying the yearly $35 Silicon Dust channel guide. Even though the record functionality appears to be there, it is hobbled and does nothing. The Pause function is active without a subscription but I find the fast forward and rewind buttons to be pretty clunky. You press the button and wait for about 3 to 5 seconds for the action to complete (probably a 30 second jump). The progress bar does not always reflect the fast forward and reverse inputs and the whole thing requires practice to use efficiently. Note that the fast forward and rewind function if fairly smooth and reasonably fast on recorded shows (meaning that you did buy the yearly subscription). The record menus are as unique as the channel guide; interesting in some ways and frustrating in others. You get the option to record from a specific channel, but not from a specific time slot. Also, there are two options for seasons to record, either current or all. Unfortunately, current must mean the current season, not the season currently being shown on the show you want to record.For Windows users (and probably Apple and Linux too), the audio can’t be controlled from the Windows sound slider, and the audio slider on the HDHomerun Windows app does not alter the volume (other than 0 volume does mute it). You have to use the physical volume control on whatever device is producing audio. Also, to view ATSC 3.0 content on Windows you have to download the HEVC extension for 99 cents.The device states it draws 1 amp at 12 volts (12 watts), it does not get very hot, the router is much hotter.Tuner is weak and may not have the kind options and flexibility AV enthusiasts would want or expect but it is a unique and interesting (and sometimes frustrating) design. Really needs an HDMI output. The user interface is clunky in some aspects but useful and efficient in others. Not a bad device though, just may be a little different than what you are used to.