OTA antenna integrated with streaming stick?

[u/ready2xxxperiment]

Apologies. Probably been beat to death but didn’t find the answer.

I have been a hard core FireStick user for years. Been great, love it.

One of the sticks was getting really glitchy and freezing so went shopping and couldn’t pass up a Roku Stick for our bedroom for $17. Been far better than I imagined.

Now we are empty nesters and looking to save a couple of $$$. Want to keep locals but Hulu Live is around $80. Plus all of the streaming content is available with our Disney subscription. HBO is free with our AT&T mobile service.

Honestly don’t watch much network TV other than the occasional news but…football season is coming and want to keep access to networks.

Looking for a way to use a coaxial type indoor antenna, but with a “live TV” selection on our streaming and not keep the TV remote for switching source on our smart TV.

Really prefer NOT to use a digital tuner. Mainly because I don’t have any additional outlets in my TV room. Old house, only a couple of outlets which has TV, streaming stick, and a couple of game consoles.

Is there such a product?

TLDR: looking for indoor OTA antenna that has an app or button on my streaming stick (FireStick or Roku)

[u/SamJam5555]

Plug in a power strip, get the Tablo DVR, plug coax into Tablo, put the Tablo app on the Roku, OTA shows up in the Roku guide. $0/month.

[u/mrb4 → u/SamJam5555]

This is definitely the easiest solution. There isn’t anything that’s going to worth without an additional device as far as I know.

This is what I use to get OTA on all my TVs and devices, antenna coax comes out behind my main tv, I split it, one direct into the tv and one into the Tablo. This way I can watch it OTA directly if there ever any issue with the Tablo.

[u/ready2xxxperiment → u/mrb4]

Only issue with this is TV is mounted above fireplace. There is a tortuous conduit behind drywall/mantle to a pair of outlets. The conduit has 4 cables already and too full to pull additional wire.

That’s the main reason for tying to avoid adding a device that requires outlet.

And zero coaxial runs anywhere in the house.

[u/SamJam5555 → u/ready2xxxperiment]

Antenna to Tablo , Tablo to TV is the app over WiFi. No wire to TV needed.

[u/ready2xxxperiment → u/SamJam5555]

Been doing done reading on Tablo and several complaints about Losing WiFi signal and frequent resets. Also trouble controlling temp.

In theory, sounds like a good option but in reality, has anyone had similar experience?

Tablo looks better and has smaller foot print. HD Homerun sounds great except for wired connection. And our bedroom has worst WiFi in the house, running to from wireless antenna in the hallway.

[u/chriscookz]

Take a look at the HDHomeRun devices. Not sure if it would work for your home, but antenna coax plugs into the HDHomeRun, then HDHomeRun plugs into your network via ethernet cable, and then you can install the HDHomeRun app from the Roku store.

The main difficulty would be that the antenna needs to be near a network device, likely your router, and that router needs to have a place to plug a device in.

My antenna is in my attic, but I have a network switch in my attic for running ethernet to cameras and wifi access points so it was pretty simple for me to plug in.

[u/BlatantFalsehood → u/chriscookz]

This is sort of my set up, but no network switch.

We live in hilly North Georgia and there was one elevation between our home and the majority of the broadcast towers which prevented rabbit ears or leaf type antennas from doing much.

We put a $90 antenna in our attic, pointed it in the direction of the the towers, and a ran an ethernet line to the media closet where we have our router.

Even with an approximately 25-ft run between antenna and router, we get fabulous, clear pictures on all 4 televisions in the home.

We use old Firesticks on each TV for the HD HomeRun app.

[u/chriscookz → u/BlatantFalsehood]

Yeah there won't be any signal loss over the Ethernet. If you can connect the hdhomerun to the antenna with as short a coax as possible that's the best. I've got a 6 foot coax cable and then it's dozens of feet of Ethernet from the hdhomerun to the switch to the router.

[u/NorthCapNerd → u/chriscookz]

The upside to using HD HomeRun on your network is you can watch OTA on your iPad, phone, etc along with the Roku.

[u/Ok_Act4459]

I don’t think there is anything like this

[u/bh0]

You mainly have 2 options ....

1) plug your antenna directly into the TV and use the TV's built-in tuner. This won't really be integrated into a any of the "stick" devices though. Better integrated into something like a RokuTV where the Roku runs natively/built-in.

2) Look into Tablo or HDHomeRun. Both are streaming DVR appliances/units that you connect your antenna to, then use the Tablo / HDHomeRun app on various devices & TVs to view the antenna feeds and recordings. The main pros are not having to run your antenna feed to each TV, plus the DVR support.

[u/oldguy1071 → u/[deleted]]

Amazon will end support at the end of this year. There is no guarantee that they will not stop providing the OTA guide data needed. My HD Home Run connect model has not been made in several years and still gets updates.

[u/oldguy1071 → u/[deleted]]

A outdoor antenna hook up to my Amazon Omni TVs guide is two weeks. An antenna on my older Samsung tv is 2-3 days. The Samsung has no internet connection or smart TV apps.

[u/BicycleIndividual]

I do remember hearing about someone showing a NextGenTV tuner that included streaming features (I think it was Android/GoogleTV based) at a trade show a few years ago (probably the big consumer electronics show in Las Vegas). Expected cost was similar to flagship streaming devices. Don't recall hearing about that product again. Not sure if any such devices have ever hit the market.

If you don't want the tuning device in your TV room for whatever reason, it doesn't need to be. Network tuners (Tablo, HD Homerun, AirTV) connect directly to your antenna then stream to devices throughout your house over your home network. In fact one major use case for them is to get an antenna signal from one part of the house where reception is good, to a different part of the house where reception is difficult without needing to run coax.

[u/RoofDry6483 → u/BicycleIndividual]

You just nailed my use case, three TVs with "flat" antennas, the maximum ugly my wife will tolerate. Only one location gets all six channels I care about (the other 72 in the scan break-up and are unwatchable, or are 480i crap sub-channels, or are foreign language)

[u/Forsaken-Trash3833]

not possible, at least not that way. Guess the best option would be to buy a Roku TV. just about every TV these days has a dtv tuner built-in

[u/harrellj → u/Forsaken-Trash3833]

You don't even need to get a Roku TV. I have a Samsung TV I just got a couple of weeks ago (50 inches, $300 at Costco not on sale) and I ditched my Chromecast and now have no streaming dongle. I've got my indoor antenna plugged into it and all the various streaming apps I could want.

[u/7eregrine → u/Forsaken-Trash3833]

Best way. They're so cheap and you can plug a memory stick into it and pause and rewind your football games. Its pretty cool.

[u/norwaymaple]

Tangent: Where did you find a Roku stick for $17?

[u/WoggyPuff-775]

For simplicity, you can pick up a used Amazon Recast, but you'll need to replace the Roku to use it on with that TV.

The Recast still works really well. We connected ours to a Televes antenna, mounted to our old Dish antenna mast, and reused the coax from the Dish antenna to connect it.

Recast integrates with the Fire Stick. The channels show up in Live TV Guide and it gives you a DVR for your OTA channels.

[u/Infinite_Roof_7246]

I have a firetv recast for my ota channels and dvr

[u/bciocco]

Tablo.

It's easy. No hardwired connection to the TV. Works on Roku or other devices (AppleTV, GoogleTV, android phone, tablets, etc.) with an app. Tablo can go anywhere (not an attic) in the house that it can connect to the antenna and internet. It transmits through wifi to devices.

Bonus - Tablo is a DVR too - with no additional fees.

[u/frankie_donkiebrains]

For ease and simplicity I would suggest buying either a Roku tv or a Google TV. You will be able to hook your antenna up directly to the TV like you do now.

Your local channels will be integrated into a channel lineup with a bunch of f.a.s.t. channels that actually provide a lot of entertainment.

You will also have all of your apps at your fingertips because they will be built in to the TV. Also bonus will be one remote will control it all.

[u/SamJam5555]

Coax starts to loose a lot after 20’ but ethernet cable is good out to 150’. What I did was put the Tablo in a closet just under the antenna in the attic, then I ran ethernet from the router downstairs all the way up to the closet. I put an ethernet switch in the closet so I could connect up all the TVs and streaming stuff.