- I have cut cable TV out of my life
and out of my family's life.
Be gone.
No longer are we paying too much money to the cable company
for something that we really weren't watching
to its full potential anyway.
So I'm gonna tell you the three things we've had to do
to get all of this done.
That is hardware.
Second thing is services.
These things are very closely related.
Finally, I'm gonna tell you
if we actually saved any money doing this
and has it been worth it.
So hang on, strap in.
Here we go, I'm gonna tell you
all about cutting out cable from my life.
(upbeat music)
So there are a million different ways
to cut cable TV out of your life with hardware, right?
You've got set-top boxes.
Out here in the living room,
I'm actually using a LeEco X65 TV
that they sent me to try out
and it has Android TV baked into it and I love it.
It's so good.
And it's even better when it's actually baked into the TV
because now I don't really have to worry
about changing boxes and what's where.
I just go down through the menu
and I can go to the over-the-air antenna channels.
I can go back to any of the services I'm using,
YouTube, whatever and it's all just there in one interface
and that also means I have one fewer set-top box plugged in
out here amongst all my other junk in the living room
so it's super super simple.
Change things up a little bit
and I'm using an Apple TV in the bedroom.
My wife uses Apple stuff mostly.
I use Android stuff mostly
so we both get to use what we want to here.
Apple TV is really good.
I really like their user interface a lot.
I love the screensavers.
They're beautiful.
Just these aerial shots are stunning
but the one thing I can't stand about Apple TV though
is the remote and this is not a new phenomenon.
It's been pretty bad for a long while now.
Get rid of it, I'm using a Logitech Harmony remote system
that also controls Philips Hue lights so it's really cool.
It kinda kills two birds with one stone there.
So Apple TV in the bedroom.
Android TV built-in to the X65 out here in the living room.
So if you want something that's just really good
for most people and you don't care about it being Android
or Apple or whatever, get a Roku Ultra.
Roku is really the best box for most people
and it does almost everything.
It'll do Google content.
It'll do Amazon content.
One thing it won't do is Apple content
but it pretty much covers all your other bases.
Hulu, Netflix, YouTube.
You can cast to it through Chromecast if you want,
PlayStation, Sling, all sorts of things
even a whole bunch I haven't even gotten to use yet
all baked into the Roku.
So if you want your best bang for your buck,
that's absolutely the way I would go.
One final piece of hardware that's worth spending 30, $40 on
is an over-the-air antennas.
I went with The Wirecutter's recommendation.
I've got a nice little one up in my window there
so you can get 'em for the interior.
You can get 'em that go out on your roof which is better.
Higher and outside is always better
but this one's worked pretty well for me indoors
and it was really simple.
It just sticks to the window
and that will pretty much cover the gamut
when it comes to hardware.
So I've got my streaming hardware.
I've got my over-the-air hardware.
Now, let's go talk services.
Whole bunch of new stuff out there.
Sling, PlayStation Vue, the new YouTube Live
which is gonna be really interesting.
I'm definitely gonna check that you when it comes out.
But ultimately we settled on PlayStation Vue.
It had the right bundles of channels that we wanted.
I think I'm paying $65 a month for it
and yes, you still have to deal with bundles.
That hasn't changed.
So PlayStation Vue.
It's got a menu.
It's got guides and you can see what's on.
This is live TV.
You don't miss out on that
and just kinda flip through like I always did.
That hasn't really changed.
Streaming quality is generally pretty good.
Even on different kinds of hardware,
I occasionally have things lag on me a little bit.
That's not necessarily the hardware, right?
It's not even necessarily my internet speed.
It can just be the stream itself.
There are a lot of variables there.
It also has recording, sort of a DVR service
so you can favorite a show and then record at your leisure
and watch whenever you want to
but generally speaking, it's almost as good as cable TV
and certainly for the amount of money I'm saving.
So has any of this been worth it?
Yes, we went into this exercise
knowing that we were doing it to try to save money
so we did our homework and we've been keeping track
and said, alright, here's how much
we were paying for cable before.
Here's how much we're paying now.
My cable TV bill was about $152 a month.
That's not including internet where I am
and now we're paying an extra 65 for PlayStation Vue
for about a $91 total of all our streaming services
so we're absolutely saving money
and when you remember that
we're no longer paying fees and rental costs on cable boxes
which was just horrible,
it's really brought everything down a bit
and we're saving about 800 or $900 a year.
Now, to me, that's worth it.
Is it as easy as cable TV?
No, it's not.
Instead of just one box, you have to remember
where everything is.
The remotes aren't as good but I'm saving a lot of money
and I'm not really watching any less.
That's the cool part.
I figured it would be such a pain
that I just wouldn't wanna do it anymore
but it really hasn't been that bad
and it hasn't been that bad for my wife and kids too.
It's one thing for me to deal with this stuff.
My brain works that way.
Is it as easy as cable TV?
No, it's pretty easy though and mostly as good
and especially when you consider
that I'm saving $900 a year now,
that really started to add up
and for us, it made total sense.
So to recap, in the living room,
I have an Android TV that's built-in to this LeEco TV
but what you're probably gonna wanna do is get a Shield TV.
That's the only Android TV box you need to consider
but I've also got an Xbox One S out there, a Sonos Play 5.
I'm using Logitech Harmony Pro for my remote.
I've got an Nintendo Switch out there just because,
Philips Hue and I've got a VIZIO sound bar
that everything is running into.
So in the bedroom, I'm using an Apple TV
just on an older Samsung TV that I've got.
A Sonos Play 3 is back there.
I'm using a Logitech Harmony Companion remote
and we've got Philips Hue.
That's how we're cutting the cord.
There are a million different ways to do it.
If you've got something I need to try out,
let me know down in the comments.
Be sure to subscribe.
That's it.
Thank you for coming to Modern Dad.
We'll see you later.
(upbeat music)