Have you ever gone on vacation, and wanted to watch your local news back home? I have started traveling quite a bit, and always run into situations where I wish I could watch the channels I know back home. I’ve become quite addicted to our local public television and a few of the shows I like are only broadcast to our local area, so when I miss them, I really miss them.
Not anymore. I recently found out about the product Slingbox from a friend of mine, and plan on investing in one before my next big trip. The Slingbox is a box that you connect to your home television. Once connected, you can control your home television from your computer, or from a cell phone or PDA that is connected to the internet.
I have to admit when I first heard about this I thought it was a hoax, or at least wouldn’t do all of the things it said it did. I chatted with a friend today who recently went to Taiwan. He connected his Slingbox before traveling abroad, and was able to watch all of our hometown football games on his laptop.
There are a variety of different Slingbox’s available depending on your personal needs. I would just need a Slingbox tuner which is used for basic programming, Slingbox AV will take your ability to control things a step further and allow you to control your digital cable and satellite TV, Slingbox Pro is the highest quality Slingbox you can purchase and will allow you to control your entire home theater (up to 4 devices) from your laptop.
This excites me. I used to be a TV junkie, but now that I am away from home so much I tend to miss a lot of programming I would like to see. I can picture people sitting in coffee shops with laptops and a small window in the corner watching their morning programming. The basic Slingbox is also reasonably affordable at around $130.
Slingbox can be purchased at most electronics stores as well as online at Amazon.com