Theorizing theoretical

Don't mind the title post... I couldn't think of anything to put there... even though it sounds like a band name. If you name your band this, let me know (and give me credit)! 

Wanted to give an update about Hotwire since someone (ok, Tay) asked me the other day what the status on all the crazy has been.

There is still a lot of issues within the entire community. The NextDoor app and "Friends of [community]" page on Facebook have had some varying degrees of disgust for the services we are provided and a la carte purchase. 

I've seen remarks about buffering a lot. We had that with Comcast, but now that Hotwire is a wireless system, I keep saying it's like Dish - any way the wind blows, your service will get cut for a second. Some people are having static, which is the same thought about wireless. 

The whole system is connected crazy. Hotwire is supposed to be fiber optics with no wires, but they are connected into the Comcast coax cabling. From there, we have a Nokia gateway thing (I'm not sure if it's a modem or a router) that is so undetectable for a proper search, only sketchy looking websites seem to have this specific model listed. I can't find it on big box retailer sites, including Amazon. What's connected to that (which again, is connected to our Comcast stuff) is a single eero. The other eero is at the other end of the house. These things are Wi-Fi extenders because the community said every house apparently needs them. I don't know how well they are extending our service, though. Everything seems like it never changed.

It's funny that part of the eero description reads "Our TrueMesh technology intelligently routes traffic to reduce drop-offs so you can confidently stream 4K video, game, and video conference" and people are having buffering issues. One of the community members, who allegedly has all this technical experience .. including working for the government, can't figure out why his shows fail to load or buffers, and he gets the "LOADING" circle. He's ripe for the picking, mad. He wrote a long thing on one of the social network sites talking about the problems he's having. He ended up having to unplug the TiVo device and plug it back in... which, based on comments, a lot of people are having to do.

You shouldn't have to unplug your devices one or more times a day to get it to work. That's a sign of a shit system. 

And yes, the other part of this connection system is that the cable boxes we are using to watch TV are Android based TiVo boxes. 

TiVo.

Something that hasn't been in fashion since conception in 1997 (which by the way, if you believe everything you read on the internet, went bye bye in 2016. Was bought by a totally different company, although the company uses the predecessor's content and branding still).

So the TiVo boxes are slim and white. There's the alien remote that you can talk in to. The whole interface for watching TV isn't completely user friendly, but apparently you get used to it. 

From what I've seen on the guide, the channels you don't subscribe to are greyed out, so you know you can't watch that station. 

The gripe with the channels from a lot of people? It's got the Netflix complex - if you don't do anything for two or more hours, the screen asks you if you're still watching. 

Which means, if you're watching a 3 hour movie on HBO (like The Batman - 2h 56m, any of the Lord of the Rings - 2h 58m or Harry Potter - 2h 32m movies), you're going to get asked if you're still watching the movie if you haven't used the remote in a while. 

People have to move the remote every so often or face the box being shut off. No binge watching for you! 

The other day a woman commented online that her being an upstairs unit, Hotwire said that the wiring was so bad, the company can't do anything for the person. This, was after Comcast got shut off, Hotwire unplugged all the Xfinity boxes and started hooking up their own. The resident was told that everything that was just done is now invalid because the wiring is junk. Which doesn't make sense since most of the upstairs people are not being told that. I don't know the end result with this woman, but last I heard, she still didn't have service of any kind. 

With our install, something fobbed up my printer. I went to print something on an envelope the other day, and it wouldn't print. I've been using the same printer with the same settings for 4 years (it's [now an old model, selling for way too much money online] Canon Pixma iP7220). I know there are updated printers, but I use it because it works. There's CD printing, envelope printing, picture printing... it doesn't scan or fax, but that's okay. 

Anyway, I went to print on an envelope and it switched to another setting without me realizing it. I think it automatically connected to something on the Wi-Fi to do that, because it had been working good since I had to adjust the sprays on the XFi box a couple years ago. So this new spray made problems. 

Long story short, I ended up having to do some updates, and although I haven't tried to print on an envelope yet, I'm hopeful it worked.

Much like how I had to fix the Chrome banner saying the browser will stop getting service updates soon since Windows 8 will be no longer patched / fixed / etc from Microsoft. Way to force an upgrade. Not doing it yet... and may end up getting technical help from higher ranking IT friends if I do decide to go that route. It's just nerve wracking for the software I use... I'm afraid it won't work on the newer models. 

What else with Hotwire? Same stuff, really, as you can tell from this long post. Nothing changes and it's all pretty much stagnant information. It's a learning curve and I'm still at the starting point. 

Until the next round because I think I'm beating a dead wire here...

Cheers