I wanted to review this product's feature set and its ease of setup or its compatibility or some other attributes. However, I could not: mine failed after only 100 days of ownership. And I couldn't initially get it fixed by Sling because they told me they only support it for 90 days. I guess I'm old-fashioned in that I expect products to last more than three months before they fail. I also expect companies of those failed products to stand behind them.
UPDATE ONE MONTH LATER: Sling was now willing to honor the warranty on my Slingbox....but only if I paid them $50 more for an extended warranty. Yes, even though my product was well within the one year warranty. Only if I paid them more money would they answer my calls or e-mails asking them to replace my unit.
Anyone considering this product should add $50 to the purchase price when evaluating its worth to you. The product essentially comes with a mere 90 day warranty--you must pay extra after that. Sling should be upfront, adding that $50 to the list price and providing good support. But I guess that's not how they do business.
UPDATE ONE YEAR LATER: After stewing over the extra $50 for months, I opted to pay it so I could move forward and actually have a working SlingBox. I will give Sling credit: Once you pay them their extra $50, they do support you. They stayed on the phone with me at length, connected in remotely, and didn't hesitate to send a replacement unit for my failed one.
I did require support after receiving the new unit because no installation instructions were included and their software is not all that smart. It should have recognized there was a new SlingBox on my LAN and proffered "Do you want to configure the unconfigured SlingBox?" instead of making me hunt through the menus to force it to do so. There are still bugs in the latest configuration utility too, leaving me stuck in the procedure at one point with no "Continue" button and necessitating another chat with Sling support.
OVERALL: I cannot recommend a SlingBox for a non-technical user. With work, an average Joe can connect the cables to one but the software setup is for those who understand video hardware and computer software rather well. This is in no way whatsoever a "plug & play" product. Better software engineering (and hardware quality) could vastly widen the potential user audience. Maybe we will see this in future revisions, but until then it remains a hobbyist extravagance. Make sure you know what you're getting into before buying. Sling Media Slingbox PRO-HD SB300-100
Overall, I have been pretty happy with the functionality of this product over the last 9 months. Other reviews have covered the features well, so I'd like to focus on the customer support/warranty side of things, which is an important consideration.
In order to use access the video from your Slingbox remotely (when away from your home), Sling has created the concept of an online "sling account" which stores your Slingbox access information on the internet.
As far as I can tell, once you leave your home network, there is no way to access your slingbox signal, without logging into your sling account. This is basically a website, that you log into with email/password, and designate which slingbox you want to watch.
I recently ran into a problem where my email address changed (they require you to login into your slingaccount with your email address rather than a userid), and I needed to update it on my slingaccount. After MUCH searching, all I could find was a way to change my password, but no way to change my email address.
So, I found the "contact us" email link, and fired off a quick request to "please let me know how to change the email address on my sling account".
What I received back was really shocking. Honestly, I have been buying electronics, web services, etc for a long time, and have never received as outrageous of a reply as this.
The response was basically:
- We checked your account, and you purchased your slingbox over 90 days ago, which makes it outside our warranty.
- Therefore, in order for us to resolve you issue, you will need to pay us $29.99 per incident.
- OR you can pay us $49.99 for 2 more years of support.
Are you kidding me! It took them LONGER to write that reply than it would have to copy/paste in the answer for how to change my email.
So just beware, that you will very likely need to pay an extra $50 (or $30 per incident) in order to have access to ongoing functionality of your SlingAccount.
Also, at least in the email I received, they indicated that the $49.99 2 year support coverage was only available PRIOR TO MONTH 12 of your ownership of Slingbox. So if you want to avoid the $30/pop charge, you need to pay the $50 before the 1 year mark.
I was a happy users for about 11 months. Oh - it was a pain to setup some times. They tricked me into buying the HD version when they still don't support HD on the Mac OS/X. (They had an upgrade program and claimed my older Slingbox wouldn't be supported anymore which turned out not to be true.)
But today, about a week before the 1 year hardware warranty is set to expire the box just quit. No power light, no network lights - the box doesn't do anything. Clearly a hardware issue or a bad power supply.
However when I follow the directions on the SlingMedia website to get an RMA to return the defective hardware, I was told I need to pay $29.99. I said it is still under warranty - you cannot charge me. The person said it was $29.99 to talk to them. I asked if it turns out to be a hardware issue - which it clearly is, would I get refunded? No was the reply. There is no escalation path.
Consumers should not have to pay to have warranties honored. SlingMedia is no longer a company I respect or can recommend. I highly recommend everyone avoid this company.'
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