I've owned and used a tablo duo and an AurTV 2, they worked with some problems. I live 38.5 miles south from the TV tower in San Francisco in north San Jose. Right next to a busy commute hiway. I have an RCA digital Antenna on the roof. So, the tablo had reception problems, dropouts resulting in things getting out of sync and distorted audio. The AirTV did better, but also had drops and watching live sports the video would get jerky (buffering I guess due to signal problems). After reading reviews for this device, decided to give it a try!

So the tuner in HD homerun seems better then the Tablo and AirTV. Drops with this device results in picture freeze but still get audio and when the picture comes back, it's in sync! This is far superior result over the competition. Less drops, no audio problem, gets back in sync.

PROs: it works like it should! Was easy to install and get up and running. It's a simple, no frills OTA streaming tuner.

CONs: instructions, documentation to update (it needed one) non existent. What hard drives can be used, no list. How to install, format hard drive and open account for DVR, none really. They seriously need a tech writer to write up instruction, directions. I'm a techy person, been using computers since late 70's, used to do some phone support for dial up modems. I had to write an email to tech support to get information and instructions.

Hard drive: and flash drive, hard drive, solid state drive over 500 mb should work.

Update and hard drive format: this device works with phone, tablet, FireTV, Roku and other devices. The setup install though, should be done from a PC or laptop! After hooking device up to your router, use a PC on same network and go-to: http://hdhomerun/local ( you may need to clear browser data). That should pop up a menu for setup, update and later hard drive format. After formatting go to hdhomerun store and open account. There's a link to link your device to your account, but that didn't work for me! Write down the 1st 8 digits of the key for the account, go to settings and then account in your hdhomerun application and input the email for the account and use the 8 digits to key it.

That information I couldn't find anywhere on their site or anywhere on the internet.

I would have gave this baby a 5 star rating, if it had these simple instructions on the setup guide! I'm giving it 4 because it works well!

One other note: seems they intended this for PC (mouse, graphical user input) which works well on touch screens. But I watch mostly on my TV using a firestick. No mouse, no touch screen. So, navigation is a tad clumsy, a little slow compared to PC and phone. Takes a little getting used to.

The DVR menu is basic, but works well enough, no frills. No commercial skip, no preview when fast forwarding or rewinding. Appears to be no way to set up recording series of program. Just find what you want to record, and select it. Recording will start 30 sec before and end 30 sec after.

Gets the job done! All in all, very happy with it so far. Hopefully features will be added down the line.

Value for the money, excellent, support good.

I purchased both the Tablo Dual, and the SiliconDust HDHomeRun Flex Duo.
I like them both for different reasons and will use both.
The Tablo is a bit more expensive, but the setup was easy, it can be used with wifi. On Windows you can access it see the Channel Guide and watch/record shows via a web browser. The layout is great, and easy to use. You have more options using the Tablo. The app for Roku works well, and also has a great layout and many options. While it can be used for free you will probably want to pay the $50 a year for the advanced Guide and recording. You will need a local USB drive plugged into the device to record.

The HDHomeRun is cheaper, the setup is even easier than the Tablo, so would be great for non-tech users. However, on Windows you must go to the Microsoft store and install an app. The layout for the Channel Guide is more modern but not as easy to see what is on. The Roku app works but is also clunky. The device does not have Wi-Fi, so it must be plugged in directly to your router/switch, which may not be the location where your antenna connection is. You will probably want to pay the $35 a year for the advanced guide and DVR recording.
*Here is the kicker for HDHomeRun. If you have a Plex server, you can easily connect it to the HDHomeRun device. Then you get a great channel guide, DVR recording, and the ability to watch your shows inside of Plex without needing to pay the $35. Also in Plex, you will have everything organized by season and episode number.

I didn't check phone or Firestick apps, as I don't use them very often for watching shows.

Conclusion, if you want simple and cheap get HDHomeRun, it works well if you want to just watch local TV. If you want to be more complex but have a great setup using Plex also get HDHomeRun.

If you want easy to setup, great interface in both Windows and Roku, add in your own USB drive for recording, then get the Tablo. Quite frankly they both work well.

This HDhomerun (Flex Duo 2) was definitely the right one to get, at least for me. The nice thing about it is that you can either use it without a drive attached and it works as a tuner, either for live TV using their apps or as a part of a home-built DVR solution (I have a TVheadend server), but that's complex and only for people willing to get their hands dirty.

It ALSO can have a drive attached (USB) and become a fully functional DVR with no need to mess with your own software. The downside of using it directly as a DVR is that you need to subscribe to Silicon Dust's service ($35/yr), which both enables on-device recording and provides full TV listings. In the end, I bought their subscription, but I love that I can go either way. (You can actually do both simultaneously, but you have to watch for collisions for each individual tuner between the built-in DVR and your external DVR server)

I have been trying to get a working OTA (over-the-air) solution working for 1.5 years, to finish out my cord-cutting. I went through 3-4 different tuners (USB tuners, old/original HDhomerun, etc.), several antennas (thin paper ones, directional ones, boosted ones), and a bunch of antenna placements, and I couldn't get solid, reliable reception. It made no sense, because I am as close as you can reasonably be to the main antennas (any closer and you'd have problems with too _strong_ a signal). I was super pleased that the moment I plugged this thing in to my cheapest antenna, I had 40+ super-clear stations and reasonable listing information. (I live in Seattle.)

The few problems that I really see with this product are (and not everyone will see these):

1. The Silicon Dust information is really confusing about models and their respective functionality. For example, in some places it listed the specific models that would support their DVR service, and this wasn't listed, even though it _is_ supported. It seems like they are not good at updating documentation and they come out with too many variants.

2. The USB drive needs to be XFS formatted -- a format used by Linux computer (NOT by Windows computers). ...and if you have the wrong format, you cannot reformat it using the HDhomerun itself, even though the documentation and support says you can. If you attach a totally unformatted (not just empty) drive, you _can_ "format and restart" the HDhomerun, but you need to do that through a separate Web GUI that can be challenging to reach (another place the documentation doesn't really work). One big issue is the Windows 10 cannot format a drive as XFS, so if you need to use Windows to ready a drive, the right method is to delete all the volumes (don't format!), and then plug it into the HDhomerun and use their Web GUI to reformat.

3. The HDhomerun seems to have DHCP problems. DHCP allows devices to come online and receive IP addresses from (usually) your router. I use this device on the other side of a wireless bridge (converts wifi to wired networking -- important because the HDhomerun is a WIRED device -- no wifi). It ended up setting it's own IP as the same IP as the Bridge. My router clearly only assigned that address to the bridge (I won't get into the technical details). It gets difficult to reach the Web GUI if it is behind a bridge with the same IP address. (This does not affect the HDhomerun app from reaching it to watch TV, because it presumably uses broadcast to locate the HDhomerun -- again, I won't get into the technical details). This is the only device that has this DHCP problem, and there is no way to make the HDhomerun change it's IP address (the app is only for watching, not configuring, and the web GUI is super limited). HOWEVER, if you use a computer on the wired side of the bridge it is not a problem, and sooner or later on the wireless side, you get the right ARP for the HDhomerun for the Web GUI.

4. The HDhomerun app is pretty nice, but it's not 100% consistent across devices (you can search for shows on my iPad or PC, but not on the AppleTV version), and it doesn't allow you to do any real *configuration*, so you sometimes have to deal with the web GUI (which is also pretty limited).

It sounds like I'm dishing out a lot of negatives, but the thing is actually really simple and cool, once you get past a few things, and some of those things are particular to me. It really is the first truly viable solution I've got working to complete cutting the cord from cable and still reliably be able to watch football (or other shows, I suppose).

I catch all my local football live broadcasts with a cheap over-the-air antenna, the picture has always been good but one thing I always hated was that if I missed a play, I could not rewind or pause the broadcast. Did some research and found this little device. Bonus is that it ties into my existing plex server so I have a familiar interface that I already use for all my media. I'm hoping it holds up and performs well.

Biggest gripe is that the ethernet port is 100Mbps, which should be 1Gbps this day in age. There could be an argument to be had that making your own hardware device with 1 Gbps and more tuners could be beneficial.

I had a Tablo and it worked well but the Hdhomerun was literally plug n play. The app is easy to understand and refects a more intuitive guide and layout. The unit is small and doesnt run hot. Tuning-wise it did a great job pulling in 88 channels. Plus if you want to introduce recording there is a simple option from Hdhomerun to hookup a usb drive and update their software (for a fee). I chose to use the "channels dvr" software for recording and its working flawlessly.