TechProfound

Ummm… YES!

Yesterday, I picked up a Slingbox.  I got a good deal from  my local Best Buy.  It’s available all over.  There happened to be an open box that brought the cost down to $208 from it’s scheduled $250.  Then I added a $10 gift card I had received over the holidays, brining my price down to $198.  That put the price under th $200 mark that I thought I’d be willing to pay for this cool gadget.

Yeah, I just put an arbitrary lower price that I’d be willing to pay – like I usually do on most gadgets I get – just because I figure I can usually find it for less – somehow.  Just gotta hunt and work it sometimes, but I always want a deal.

So, what is it?  It lets me watch all of my home cable TV, from whatever computer I want, as long as that computer can access the network that the Slingbox is plugged into.  I put the included SlingPlayer on my Tablet PC.  What does that get me?  Well, a lot!

Because I can use my Cingular 2125 mobile phone to tether with Toshiba M200 Tablet PC (also works with any other laptop) and bring Internet to it, I can watch my home cable TV from anywhere I get a signal on my mobile phone!  That’s cool.  Because I have WiFi access all over – at home, at work, at coffee shops, at friends and family homes - and all sorts of other places, I can get an even faster Internet connection using WiFi.  The connection via my mobile phone allows streaming at about 115 Kbps, depending on signal strength.  My bottleneck is my home Internet connections upload, which is currently at 768 Kbps, which is more than enough to enjoy this new gadget very well.  Slingbox recommends about 384 Kbps uploading to have a good experience.  I’ve found it ok with a small window, even at the slower speeds via my mobile phone.  And, there is talk about making a mobile version of the SlingPlayer to directly allow viewing right on any small screen mobile device.  I’m excited about that too!

Nice.  Very nice.  That’s my take.  But, there’s more…

I’d also like to comment about how much Slingbox has done to make this work for me.  They added all of the cables needed, right in the box!  They have excellent documentation and help files, which all get updated during the clean and simple wizards that I went through during setup.  I have a very simple setup, but many more detailed setups are available.  The documentation goes through all sorts of issues that may arise.  There are screen shots of how to adjust many popular home network modems/routers and also many popular anti-virus programs.  They put a lot of work into making sure this works.

It’s still a geeky thing to want right now – but I think that’s only because people haven’t thought of doing this as much as they will in the near future when more devices allow this sort of thing on mobile phones and PDA’s and when via things like Media Center PC become even more popular in the home.  I’m betting that Slingbox was just the first with this and that any sort of home media PC will eventually offer this “place-shifting” which allows viewing home TV and home entertainment via other mobile devices.  I first saw Slingbox in a demo at CES in January of 2005.  It worked then, but they have really improved the user experience and ease of setup since then.

As I said earlier – Nice.  Very nice.  That’s my take. 

What do you think?  Is it still too much geek for you?  Are you an early adopter?  Well, I’ve been watching CNN from my tablet during this whole blog post.  I’ve been searching and finding reviews online, checking email, doing IM, sipping coffee, and just chillin’ on a Sunday morning – all from my LazyBoy in my living room.  That’s what I like.

UPDATE:  fixed a few typos