Amazon Fire TV Recast is one of the best DVRs for the money
Media Streamers
Amazon's Fire TV Recast joins a crowded hardware DVR market.
But it does everything so well already that it's now the product I recommend to people looking to ditch cable.
Of course there's caveats involved.
The recast is tethered to Amazon ecosystem.
And so to get the most out of it you'll need at the very least, a Fire stick and at most an echo and a Prime membership.
The Recast is available in two versions.
Two tuners and 500 gigabytes of storage, or four tuners and a terrabyte.
Connections include wi-fi, ethernet, and USB, which will soon let you add your own storage.
Setup is easy.
Plug the device in, add an external antenna, open the Fire TV app, and follow the prompts.
As long as your Recast is connected to your home network, you don't need it near your TV.
Just near where you get your best TV reception.
The channels it picks up will now appear as part of your Fire TV's interface, both as a live TV tile at the top, and more comprehensive now playing a few rows down.
Navigate to DVR on the right, and you'll be able to access both live TV and recordings.
Pressing the menu button while in the relevant section also gives you access to a fourteen day guide for browsing and setting recordings.
In addition, the remote has an Alexa button for performing the same tasks with your voice.
Alexa, channel up.
But unless you know exactly what you want, the menu button is more straight forward.
Streaming both in the home and outside of it was easy.
And the current version of the FireTV app puts both live TV and reporting front and center.
I did encounter some minor hiccups in using the device but in all using the recast was a great experience.
If you're an Amazon fan looking to cut the cord the FireTV Recast is your number one option.
It's available now from two hundred and thirty dollars.
