Haven’t seen many (any?) posts on the lonely old Amazon FireTV Recast on Troypoint insider. I’ve used one for over 3 years and am extremely pleased with it. It provides broadcast TV throughout my home in an effortless and reliable way. I have 6 rooms with 6 TVs, each of which has it’s own firestick interface. Free 1TB DVR service (some folks have had issues with this, I haven’t). Free OTA electronic program guide. My only three gripes are:
I has the most painful setup imaginable - inexcusable dithering between your home network and it’s own internal network that are an abominable pain to get talking to each other!
It has 4 tuners but can only stream 2 of them at once (so it’s really only a 2 tuner device).
Amazon discontinued it a year ago!
Notwithstanding all that, I don’t know what I’m going to do when Amazon finally turn it off (Tablo and HDhomerun don’t have the same functionality).
Anyone else running the Recast throughout their home?
The new tabloTV box works very good but only for ota(antenna) and the fast channels they provide for free. You can record both ota and fast ch. with epg free for both. Storage is only about 128gb but it has a usb for expanded storage. The selling point here is one time purchase and no yearly fees.
Interesting. I hadn’t seen the new Tablo TV box but it looks like it may be a good substitute. I only use the Recast for OTA TV channels so that may work out.
Yes, I too was reading those reviews. The TabloTV website also isn’t very helpful - couldn’t find out if the two tuners are ATSC1 or ATSC3. TXRon: How sensitive is the tuner for your local channels and are you in an “urban” reception area or a “rural” (fringe) reception area?
I have been using the Recast for several years. Overall works pretty well but temperamental at times. The biggest problem I have had of late is that it did not work with my new 4k Max, Have spent hours on the phone with Amazon support with promised follow up calls from the non-existent. This has gone on since November but the last rep I spoke to promised to follow up with Amazon technicians. Happy to report that the 2nd generation 4K Max just started working with the Recast this past weekend. Don’t know why other than their technicians must have finally found the fix!
I have used a recast as well for a number of years now, occasionally I have to repair or restart it but for the most part it’s fine.
I also have a AirTV device I got for subscribing to Sling a long time ago, I like it because I can use it on my Onn boxes.
The 4th gen Tablo looks interesting but not ATSC 3. I’ll probably have to replace the Recast someday so I try to look at the new OTA DVRs as they pop up. The whole DRM thing with ATSC 3 is a load of… Well you know.
Interesting. I’ve had several bizarre glitches with my second gen 4K max. I think it might have been released a little prematurely but hopefully they’re getting it fixed with firmware updates.
im about 40 miles from an antenna farm…straight line. The tabloTV also has a antenna booster for what its worth. I get around 100 channels ota with about 80 in english.
I love my Recast for the same reasons you mentioned. It makes no sense for Amazon to have discontinued it with no replacement. I’ve only had to re-start it a few times in 2 years I’ve been using it.
After month of problems … it started working last week! Tech support had promised to forward the problem to engineering for a solution and get back to me. Never heard back but it started working. I guess they fixed it!
I was surprised to not find additional comments to this thread after the latest update/bug fix? on the fire TV recast. We returned home from vacation last Friday - 2/21/2025, and found that none of the programs that we have regularly recorded (and there are many) recorded since 2/12/2025. None of the upcoming shows are showing as scheduled either. A preliminary internet search of this showed one thread on the Amazon community boards. Since the product is discontinued about half the answer said they were told by Amazon they would look into it and the other half said because it’s a discontinued product nothing will be done. I haven’t done anything myself but have been a fan of My fire TV recast since I purchased it several years ago I like others in this thread have multiple fire TVs and fire TV sticks cubes etc and have been a fan even though minor glitches have occurred in the past. It has almost flawlessly recorded everything I have asked of it and I’m trying to figure out which way to go with my future over the air recording needs. I hope they are fixing whatever they did with the most recent update although I will not hold my breath. I will continue to look for a replacement product. Hoping someone will have suggested a product that is very similar and will work with whole house TV like this product without costing as much as it did for me to set this up originally. Thanks!!
Now let me just say this isn’t cheap…that said, this is bar none the best ota tuner, dvr on the market. They are constantly making improvements to it. I love my zapperbox.
