Roku

I've checked entertainment and see Roku mentioned. Does anyone use one? If yes, what do you use for Internet? I'm thinking I would like to watch TV during the 34 hour reset! I see several complaints about wifi being slow.

We have a Roku. It works great. We use my boyfriend's phone as a hotspot (unlimited data through T-Mobile). Data is usually pretty good, even in places you might not expect it to be. Of course, sometimes you're in an area with no or insufficient service. Then we make do with movies saved to a hard drive.

Unlimited sounds expensive! Do you know the download speed? Do you have a Roku stick? I'm a roku beta user with the roku 3. I would like to use the tablo to watch recordings on the roku in the truck from home.

Instead of spending money on internet for TV, buy an inexpensive TV tuner for your laptop. It will pick up all of the local over the air TV stations in HD wherever you happen to be. I bought one on Amazon for about $50.00. It is called a Kworld USB ATSC TV Tuner TV Tuners and Video Capture UB435-Q. Works great. I understand a lot of company trucks have an over the air tv antenna installed. If not it comes with a small magnetic mount antenna. FYI if you are not already aware, streaming video uses HUGE amounts of data. Just watch the free local stuff

Unlimited sounds expensive! Do you know the download speed? Do you have a Roku stick? I'm a roku beta user with the roku 3. I would like to use the tablo to watch recordings on the roku in the truck from home.

We have a Roku 2. Our download speeds through TMobile vary based on location, I've seen it as high as 5-6 MB/s and as low as 10 KB/s. We rarely download anything and just stream through Hulu, Amazon, or PBS. Data is usually more than sufficient for high def streaming depending on where you are.

The plan he's on is $90 a month. While it is pricey, we have almost no other bills so we splurge on the phone. We both follow certain shows, many of which are cable only and it's nice to be able to keep up.

Thanks tractor man, I like your suggestion but with a tablo at home and a roku in the truck, with Internet I can watch local, netflex, amazon, and a lot of direct Tv programming. Cs thank you for your impute. The 90 is a bit high but if unlimited just a phone runs at lest 50 so another 40 for unlimited might not be bad. Ive found 3 mgb will play 720 hd. Good enough on a 32 inch screen.

Here are some approximate data usage numbers.

FYI, 1000 MB = 1GB

Low Definition- 300to 600 MB per hour Standard Def.- 700 MB to 1.2 GB per hour HD - 3GB per hour

Those numbers add up fast!

2 hours per day x 20 days in low def = 12-18 GB per month

2 hours per day x 20 days in HD = 120GB per month.

It just is not cost effective to stream video over a cellular connection

It just is not cost effective to stream video over a cellular connection

If you're paying by the gigabyte (usually at a rate of $10/gig) I agree with you. If you're paying a set amount for the data as part of a phone plan, I disagree. Many people pay $100/month for cable and Internet (and maybe a landline) at home. We live out of the truck and need phone service and some amount of data anyway, so spending $40 extra in order to watch what we want is well worth it. Heck, most months I spend more than that on audiobooks.

Obviously it depends on your priorities and what you like to do with your free time. If you don't watch much TV or are more of a channel surfer, I can see local TV working well. We definitely get our money's worth out of the data, but for some it's probably not worth the extra money.

What cell phone provider do you use?. They offer unlimited tethering data? How much per month? I'll have to look into that. I didn't think any cell providers offered unlimited data anymore.

What cell phone provider do you use?. They offer unlimited tethering data? How much per month? I'll have to look into that. I didn't think any cell providers offered unlimited data anymore.

Tmobile. The plan is $90/month. Data is unlimited, although I'm sure it's written in somewhere that they can lower your speeds after a certain amount of data is consumed for the month (I think all unlimited plans do this now). I'm not sure what that limit is but we've apparently never hit it as we've never experienced any lowered speeds, and we stream quite a bit using the phone as a hotspot along with using data for YouTube, transflo, browsing, downloading audiobooks and various games and apps.

T-Mobile also has a feature called BingeOn that does not use your data allotment when streaming through most of the popular services. So you could potentially pay for a smaller plan with only a few gigs of data if the majority of your use will be through streaming. Don't take this as an ad for TMobile...we are very happy with their service but I've heard many people complain. Similarly, we used to have Sprint and I thought they were terrible, but a lot of folks apparently like their coverage better than TMobile. So, I think it mostly boils down to personal preference.