The next TiVo sale

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I had forgotten this initially, but - I've actually never bought a new TiVo! They've mostly been refurbished units, and those have been pretty reliable. I started off with two refurbished Series 2 boxes (from back when you could buy them from Philips, IIRC); then I had a refurb TiVo HD purchased on tivo.com in 2008; and now this Bolt I purchased today.

The TiVo HD did have power supply problems in 2014 - but I'd also purchased a used HD XL from a third party a year previously (the only TiVo I've had which DIDN'T last) - which meant I had a spare already available.

Anyway, the point is my experience with refurbs has been good.

 

What's the difference between Bolt and Bolt+ that makes + worth 2x the price?

 

The Bolt+ was just released this fall and TiVo decided to not discount it yet. Kind of like new 2016 & 2017 model cars sitting on a lot next to each other, 2016 model will likely have rebates or deeper discounts than the 2017 model even if the models are nearly identical.

If a Bolt+ is worth paying the current premium over a Bolt is in the eyes of the beholder. As far as what it offers over the Bolt, that is fairly simple 2 more QAM (cable) tuners and 3TB of storage (versus 500GB or 1TB for the Bolt) while giving up the ability to do OTA. Oh and of course for all those that are offended by white electronics, it is black.

 

That was the sale I needed, new 500GB Bolt with all-in for $509.
I already am looking for a good 3TB to upgrade it with and I'll retire my S3 OLED.

 

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This is very tempting to me also.

 

Thanks! Not sure it's worth it for me yet, I still need a 4k TV to take full advantage of at least the streaming until cable systems start delivering 4k.

 

Question about purchase. I am looking to pick a device up for my folks for xmas, and was wondering if there would be any benefit to adding it to my existing account? Ultimately I think them having their own account would be better, allowing them to customize TIVO.com, etc. without needing my intervention. Assuming it would be the same process as selling a TIVO to someone (transfer of service to them). Is this correct?

 

I'd think you'd want them to be on their own account, to make accessing their device via the mobile apps or TiVo Online more straightforward. (You wouldn't want them accidentally connecting to one of your devices.) And it's easy enough for you to connect to their account via the apps or TiVo Online to manage their systems.

 

Thanks krkaufman. Sorry, I didn't make my post more clear, but my real concern was about the online ordering process which asks if you are a returning customer or new customer. I would like this to be a surprise xmas gift so signing up as a new customer would require me to use their email address, which would then send them the confirmation/activation email. So in order for this not to happen I should activate under my account and then transfer to their own account later, correct?

 

Oh, yes, sure. You could certainly buy it and set it up under your account, but I'm not sure what happens when the device is transferred between accounts in terms of access to existing recordings.

One *other* option would be if you had a few spare unused email accounts available under your current ISP. In which case you could create a new "parents" email account, even if temporary, that you could use for the initial account setup... and then you would simply update the email address and other necessary info after they've torn the wrapping paper off. A side benefit of using a TiVo-only email address for setting-up your parents TiVo account is that you could keep it in place long-term and either share the access with them, or configure email forwarding within the account to forward emails to you and/or your parents. A Gmail account would work, as well.

 

Sounds great, thanks for the tips.

 

Billed 11/22/2016 TiVo Roamio OTA 1 TB $199.99 $0.00 $199.99

Does this make it MORE tempting?

 

How did you get 1TB for that price? I only see 500 GB.

 

Not sure whether this information or the ad information is correct. Will find out when the box arrives.

 

My statement says nothing about the size of the HDD ...

 

ditto, my order email simply says "Roamio OTA TiVo Series 5 refurb with lifetime TiVo service included"

 

It's tempting me, anyway. Although, HD size aside, these are refurbished units. Is $199 still a good price? I don't know what the OTA sells for normally.

 

Amazon has been selling the 1TB Roamio OTA lifetime units for $360.

 

I ordered 2 of the $200 Roamio OTA DVRs on Tuesday morning immediately after the deal was live, both were received Wednesday evening and both are 500GB models.

 

Black Friday-only one day for remotes, $20 off! Hooray!

*clicks through to purchase*

Checkout displays lowest option for shipping + tax to my area: $9.85

*sulks, closes window*

At least the units are shipping free…