Stick/Box for Elderly Relative?

[pjpjpjpj]

Because I'm happy with my Sage and PlayOn setup, I admittedly have not kept up with all the sticks and boxes available for TV content viewing.

I am looking for something for my mother-in-law, who is in a retirement home. She has basic cable available in the home but no DVR. She would like to have shows available at any time, but does not want monthly fees (i.e., no netflix/hulu plus/Amazon, etc.). As a fan of PlayOn, I know it has lots of free shows available (through basic hulu and all the various network archived stuff), so I think it would be good for her. Alternatively, if I can't get her on PlayOn, I could just have her access the various archived shows (free) through the individual apps.

I am looking for a stick or box device that can run on her retirement home's wifi, and allows apps to be downloaded onto the main menu (basically I think I'm looking for a device with access to the Google Play store). I don't think she can cast or fling stuff, as typically that requires your own wifi network rather than a public one (like how you can't *easily* cast to a Chromecast in a hotel). She doesn't have a PC (to be a server and run the desktop version of PlayOn), so if I were to go the PlayOn route, I'd need a device where the PlayOn Cloud android app mounts in the device and shows up on the menu.

Any thoughts or comments are appreciated.

P.S. My tech skills - especially with networking - are minimal, so don't ask me to "hack" a way into her retirement home's wifi or anything... and my mother-in-law's tech skills are literally below zero; she tends to kill electronic devices. So I'd prefer a solution that is not terribly expensive, lest it die a very premature death at her hands.

[wayner]

The MiBox is available for $69 at Wal-Mart. It runs AndroidTV. The remote is simple, maybe too simple for most of us, and uses BT so you don't have to point it at the TV. It can run SageTV and the apps from the Google Play store. She could also use the apps from the TV networks to watch the shows - just like PlayOn but directly from the TV network's site.

You might even be able to give her access to content on your SageTV server using the SageTV client or the Plex client.

Even though you don't need it - it does act as a Chromecast receiver.

[texneus]

Playon on a stick device might be difficult...doesn't it rely on being able to vidcap a virtual display? Does it run on anything other than windows?

Mibox is sound if "stick" isn't absolute and reliable Netflix and lack of Amazon Prime are not of concern. Amazon fire stick might also be good, but you'll be locked into Amazon's (not Google's) ecosystem and whims. You might also consider a Roku stick if SageTV is not a target app...it's not android but the apps ("channels") are quite extensive and IMO a superior UI. The newest Apple TV has been getting very good reviews too. I know nothing else about it but believe it operates more or less the same as the others.

[KryptoNyte]

I'll add that one of the biggest challenges for my elderly relatives is just being able to switch between sources, for example, SageTV or Cable Box, and a device like MiBox. I've even purchased Logitech remotes to simplify, but they don't like the Logitech remote for the Sage extenders.

[pjpjpjpj]

Originally Posted by KryptoNyte

I'll add that one of the biggest challenges for my elderly relatives is just being able to switch between sources, for example, SageTV or Cable Box, and a device like MiBox. I've even purchased Logitech remotes to simplify, but they don't like the Logitech remote for the Sage extenders.

Oh, I know, that's concern number one. But she is fairly familiar with pulling out the TV remote because she uses it to set her TV on sleep timer (she falls asleep with the TV on, so it shuts off automatically).

Thanks to all for the info. I'll check out the MI. I'm not concerned about getting her on our Sage system so the client app isn't anything I'm worried about.

[wayner]

If you did want to let her access your content maybe the easiest way is Plex - the client on her side connecting over the internet to the Plex server running on your SageTV server.

The other place for good content for the elderly is some of the OTA subchannels. I get one or two from Buffalo that play old shows like Matlock, etc.

[pjpjpjpj]

No interest in getting her access to our server. We generally don't record stuff she'd want anyway and I wouldn't want her hogging my bandwidth anyway.

She's knows well about the OTA subchannels (our cable actually carries a lot of them), but that doesn't resolve the problem she has with not having a DVR and thus not having what she wants when she wants it. She really just needs a "free" (no monthly fee) on-demand option. MiBox will probably do.

[wayner]

There are boxes coming out soon that combine OTA DVR and streaming. There is a thread here on one of them.

[pjpjpjpj]

She has free basic cable and free wifi as part of her home rent (so the OTA aspect doesn't matter... Not to mention, she is a long way from the city and her building is old and built like a tank so likely wouldn't have very good reception).

There are plenty of shows she enjoys, I'm not looking to get her more content, it's just that the shows she likes don't air when it's convenient for her. I'm really just looking for an on-demand solution.

[pjpjpjpj]

Mi Box question: can you cast from an Amazon Fire tablet to it? My mother in law has a Fire tablet. She uses some apps with free videos (Hoopla, etc.) and watches on her tablet, but can that cast to a Mi?