Slingbox M2

Bought this recently to replace an eight-year old Slingbox Pro-HD whose LAN port had failed, right before football season started. I'd been very happy with the Pro-HD and was somewhat reluctant to purchase a replacement due to the many bad reviews and service issues on the M2 and 500 models here and on other forums. Fortunately, I've had good performance so far from the M2.The box itself is about 1/3 the size of the Pro-HD, so it can fit pretty much on or under anywhere, which is nice. Cable connections are the same a the Pro-HD (composite video/audio) with no HDMI connection. As I already had the LAN cable in place, I elected to stay with that versus going through the wi-fi setup. It took me several minutes to switch over the cables and about five minutes to setup the box itself. To setup the box, you'll need your set top box manufacturer and model number to make sure you get the correct remote control configuration.The box is "Assembled in India" and includes: the M2, external AC power supply, component video cable, stereo audio cable, and the IR emitter cable. I am using my old cables and IR emitter right now, and they work just fine. The included cables appear to be the standard, inexpensive off-the-shelf cables, so I stayed with my much better cables. The unit I received was new with shrink-wrapped M2 and accessories.Setup required downloading an update to the M2; that occurred automatically and took several minutes including rebooting the box. I had previously downloaded the desktop update for the Pro-HD; if you need to do that, allow another 5 minutes or so. Once it was all set up. it worked just fine. If you're doing this the first time, you'll also need to set up a user ID and password for login.The interface for the desktop is a little different than before; not completely intuitive, but once you go through the process once you'll have it down. When you first open the TV display, you'll get an advertisement of anywhere from 10-15 seconds, then the TV channel will come right up. There are icons across the top to go to full screen, see your channel lineup, and access the remote control. If you go to full screen after that, you won't get any more ads unless you move your cursor; then you'll get a small banner ad across the bottom and the remote control will appear on the right or left (you can configure that placement). Ignore the cursor and the screen will return to full in several seconds. If you just leave it in full screen, you'll see no ads or remote during the game or movie.The picture quality is as good or better than my old Pro-HD. The HD channels look excellent, and fast motion during a football or baseball game is sharp; my brother in California, who often uses it to watch his home teams in action, notes that there is only occasional stuttering or momentary loss of signal, which we both blame on the internet; not bad for a signal traveling thousands of miles. Changing channels takes several seconds.The iconic upside down "U" now only has one light to indicate that someone is logged in, so less distracting than before. One nice addition: if my cable box is off, the Slingbox remote on the desktop now will turn it on remotely; couldn't do that with the Pro-HD.Also tested this with my iPad and my Android phone (an older HTC M8). No software update to the iPad or phone was required, and it works and looks just like on the desktop. For some reason, though the remote on/off will not work on either, but I'll be playing with that. As noted above I did NOT hook up to wi-fi or test that capability.Overall, a good purchase (one month in), and I'd give it a 4-1/2 star rating overall.

So I got this Slingbox thing, went to set it up, and failed big time. Over a REALLY stupid software user experience design issue.I have no TV in my office. For that matter, I no longer have any devices with NTSC A/V signals. I'm all HDMI or VGA. Every DVD player, workstation, laptop, portable device, you name it. The device with RCA plugs is the cable box. It's the only one that I need to run the Sling Box, but it's not anywhere near the router and Ethernet switches.That's OK, I figure, because I'll just set up the SlingBox in the office where I have lots of wired Ethernet, configure the Wi-Fi, then move it to it's permanent home by the cable box. My Synology servers, the Tablo, the Roku, the Fire TV, even the dumbest "smart" TV and DVD player on the planet, were all capable of being configured where they were to be used.Not so the SlingBox. The setup "wizard" doesn't even show you the network setup until *after* you get past the A/V signals. Which I don't have where the network cable is. So tomorrow I need to find a really long Ethernet cable and run it from the office to the TV and cable box so that I can have both A/V signal and Ethernet at the same time.In other words, a box whose sole purpose is to stream stuff over the network is designed to make sure it has content to send *before* it has a network to send it over. Seriously SlingBox?There's even a warning that points out helpfully that "either the SlingBox and PC must both be on Ethernet or they must both be on Wi-Fi" which is freaking hilarious since it isn't possible for them to both be on Wi-Fi until *after* the setup Wizard runs.Which all boils down to they both must be on Ethernet to run the setup, and that means I can't just run a network cable to the TV. Tomorrow I will have run TWO cables. If I can't find two cables that long then I will run one and attach an Ethernet switch at the far end with a couple of shorter cables to patch in the PC and the SlingBox. And since my laptop doesn't use DHCP for the home hardwired network, I'll be re-configuring the network settings on the laptop no matter what I do.All because, unlike all other devices I've ever set up on the network including upwards of 50 IoT devices, the SlingBox thinks network connectivity is secondary to content.Frankly I haven't decided whether to keep going or just box it up and send it back. I don't want to go through this again every time there's some otherwise minor problem. Also, this seems like it would be a somewhat common use case that should not have been overlooked. Even if it isn't as common a use case as I imagine, the design priorities are wrong on their face. It would be like building and mass marketing cars to a community that has only horse paths. You'd build roads before cars and if you make a streaming content device you make sure there's a network before making sure there's content to send over it. Unless you are SlingBox.Then when I do get this configured...ads. When I think that I'm going through all this so I can watch content that has ads, within a SlingBox imposed frame that itself has more ads, it is incredibly discouraging. Yeah, I think I'm sending it back.

the unit the M2 works great only reason I gave it 3 stars instead of 4, Was sling box tech help just terrible I got it all working no problem went through test the remote will come on screen says lets test your remote channeled 3 channels no problems working fine I could change channels also down below the screen all working,For some reason after I did that and it worked fine up on top of screen this is a desktop there a little icon looks like a remote you have to put your arrow over it and it says show or hide remote you click it remote should come on screen I could not get it to work but video was fine I could change channels down below I changed batteries in my mouse so I called their tech support got a rather sippy lady very rude explain to her happy with this product just could not bring up remote on screen but it did on test , she says it your rounter now if it was my router would everything else worked she was useless as the day is long so their tech support is no good but I did get it to work had nothing to do with router or the internet product good support very bad

Worked great until they stopped supporting it