The Tivo Stream 4K saga continues. While some stores seem to be having a fire sale on Tivo’s Android TV dongle, other stores are received revamped devices. According to Zatz Not Funny!, the Tivo Stream 4K seen in the image above was purchased recently from Target, which just this week started selling Tivo Stream 4K units. What’s notable is the embossed “Tivo Guy” character on the dongle, which differs from the housing of older Tivo Stream 4K devices. Furthermore, Tivo is now using a new remote design in its marketing for its little streaming device.
The Tivo Stream 4K remote on the far left in the image above is the first remote included with the streamer and the only one that has been seen in the wild. At some point late last year, Tivo began using the other two remotes in marketing material and on revamped packaging for the Tivo Stream 4K. The center remote, which is by far the one that is currently most commonly being used by Tivo and is the one that appears on all the newest packaging, swaps out the “Tivo Guy” character on the large main button for the new one that is now embossed on the streamer itself.
The remote on the far right appears very sparsely in marketing material for the Tivo Stream 4K, but it is likely just a mistake by Tivo. That remote appears to be the new one destined for Tivo’s cable set-top boxes. It doesn’t have a Home button because those boxes only have a Tivo-centric interface, which is pulled up using the large Tivo button. That also explains the “VOD” button, which stands for Vidoe-On-Demand, a common menu item for cable set-top boxes.
These two newer, yet to be released, remotes are likely the ones that passed through FCC approval earlier this year. It seems like Tivo is in between a refresh of the Tivo Stream 4K where the streaming dongle has already been updated but the remote has not. Functionally, the streamer and remote seem to be identical to the old version, but the fact that Tivo is updating hardware, even if just cosmetically, is a good sign that Tivo is still backing its Android TV product.
That picture of the one just purchased from Target either isn’t different, or Walmart’s been selling the new version too. I bought one from Walmart a few weeks ago and it looks exactly the same.
https://bit.ly/3crs2jT
The Tivo character on your device (or at least the one in your link) does not have eyes. That’s the difference with the newer model.
Any hardware/software differences?
So what makes this any different then the Mecool KM2, The ONN box or the dynalink?