Which tivo has been the most reliable

Every TiVo I've owned has worked for at least 7, some for 14 years. I can't complain about any of them.

 

I've only ever owned Roamio/OTAs. I have five. Three are nearly six years old, one is more than four years old, and one is more than three years old. All work fine. I didn't vote because I cannot compare this model to the others as I have owned no other model.

 

I have been lucky. I have owned every model TiVo since the Series 1 through the Roamio. That also includes the old Philips unit with the DVD burner and DirecTiVos as well. None of them ever died on me during ownership. I never had to repair anything on any of my models, although I did HDD capacity upgrades on my TiVo HD and Premieres. I was able to sell all of them on eBay over the years to help subsidize upgrades. All of them were on lifetime plans ever since they started offering them (Series 3?).

I've been on my Roamio Pro on TE3 since 2014 and it's still going strong. For a variety of reasons, I have no desire to get a Bolt or Edge. If this one ever dies in a way I can't repair, I'll be looking at either getting a refurb replacement or using it as an excuse to cut the cord.

 

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I've owned a few in my time (not as many as some of you have) but all have been reliable

Series 3 OLED...LOVED that machine since I could see what was being recorded.
Series 3 HD...still use it so yeah its reliable
Premiere (had 2 of them...sold one and have one in closet..picked them both up for $20 total from goodwill and they both had lifetime on them. Upgraded one hard drive from 320gb to 500gb)
Roamio...lets see owned 3 of them. Bought the Roamio OTA the first day they came out (this is when the basic was $200 and the OTA was $50). Used that for over a year until I needed one for cable. Tivo upgraded me to a Roamio basic for $100 that I used until they came out with the Roamio OTA + lifetime for $200. Have used that for over 4 years now in 3 different areas and added the cable card option so could use it with cable at last location I lived at. Other than upgrading it from a 500gb to a 2TB drive and switched remotes no issues

 

Roamios seem pretty reliable. I have only had hard drives crash and the usual HDMI blowout due to electrical storms etc. Much easier than formatting disks with special commands and replacing power supplies of the Series 2s, though those were probably my favorite.I still have every series 2 hard disk clone on a drive somewhere for repairs haha.

 

Overwhelmingly the Roamio.

 

I have had the following Tivo's over 20ish years...two Series 2's, a Tivo HD, a Premiere Elite and two Bolts. I have had some failed drives, but none of the boxes themselves ever failed, so I have found the hardware reliable. If only I could say the same about the current guide data.

 

There was a batch of basic Roamio boxes sent out as part of BF day a few years ago. The fan became defective in about six weeks. Simple fan change and problem gone. I have a 500GB Premiere that still works.

 

The s3 model HD was really solid, but it suffered from the problem of many electronics of the time with the faulty capacitors, which sometimes compounded by causing hard drive corruption. All the s1's (all labels) were great but had a pretty short useful life in terms of capability.

Roamios had a couple of small bad production runs but overall probably had the best track record of dependability.

 

I would disagree... my S1 (original Phillips), with an upgraded HD installed very early on, ran for about 14 years. I did have to make use of a digital to analog converter that Comcast provided, and had to use the infrared dongle that came with the TiVo to control the cable box.

 

There should be an "All of the above" choice. I've had all models of the Tivo with the exceptions of the Premiere, the Edge, the Direct Tivo and the one with the DVD burner in it. I've had two hard drives fail (including one in a Bolt, known problem). Otherwise I've never had a Tivo to fail. The only reason to buy a new Tivo was additional features.

 

I said the s1 was "great" in terms of dependability, just saying for most people (not including you and some others) its period of relevant capability was somewhat short.

 

I've only owned three TiVos and the only reason I updated was to get some kind of new feature that was not widely available at the time of release.
Upgraded a Series 2 to a TiVo HD to get HD, upgraded a TiVo HD to a Premiere to be able to use a Mini.

In my experience, it's the only piece of technology that has lasted longer than I expected.

 

Exactly the same for me... I bought my S1 in 99, upgraded around 2006, when the first HD model (S3 OLED) came out, and then in 2013 when the Roamio, with 6 tuners and paired with a mini came out.

 

How many people have owned multiple Tivos and not just Romaios ? This poll could be skewed.

 

My tivo experience started with the DSR-6000 Directivo and I have crossed paths with every Series Tivo since then. Other than upgrading hard drives and a brother in-law experiencing a bad power supply on a Premiere, they have been rock solid. I recently cut the cord from Comcast Double Play and was looking for a Tivo Edge OTA since my Roamio Lifetime OTA was showing it’s age. The TC recommendations of using a WD Red Drive brought it back to life. I stayed with the 3TB so as to not have to perform advanced formatting. Being tech support for friends and family, the complaint I have heard most is roamio fan noise. So far, Roamio gets my vote on repairability and performance.

 

I just like to add, Series 3 was to me the most fun to use and it’s reliability was fair. At least it worked out of the box

 

The Series 3 has documented capacitor issues and I think some of the Series 2s do also.