SiliconDust HDHomeRun Flex 4K ATSC 3.0 NextGen TV: 2/4 Tuners HDFX-4K

This is a quality product for tuning in & recording OTA TV. Paired with a Winegard Elite 7550 Outdoor HDTV Antenna & 2TB external hard drive I purchased separately, I was able to pull in 78 clear channels 37 miles from my local antenna farm. Five ATSC 3.0 channels scanned in, but only 3 ATSC 3.0 actually displayed pictures and sounds; none were broadcasting in 4K so far. I purchased the $35 channel guide & DVR recording capabilities (the whole point of buying this product) separately from SiliconDust online. Here is a rough cost breakdown for my setup: SiliconDust HDHomeRun Flex 4K $200, Winegard Elite 7550 Outdoor HDTV Antenna $150, 2 TB external hard drive; $70, SiliconDust DVR/Channel Guide 1-year service $35, two Onn TV Android boxes $40, 30-foot telescope mounting pole/hardware/coaxial cable/professional installation $460 equals $955 total, a lot of money, but a professional clean weatherproof performance ensemble. Cable TV with DVR (w/o internet) in my area is about $145 a month with NO premium channels, so ostensibly my breakeven is at 7.5 months. I did not want to further complicate my life with a Plex server and/or Channels guide, nor the associated extra costs and complexity, which is not necessary since the SiliconDust UI is top-notch/excellent. ONE CAVEAT: If your TV or streaming device is running Roku software (like mine & millions of others)—my SiliconDust HDHomeRun app was prone to crashing frequently, and the FF/rewind did NOT work AT ALL. I solved this problem by buying/installing two $20 Onn TV Android boxes from Walmart and using the free SiliconDust HDHomeRun Android app from the Google Play Store. Now FF/Rewind works as it should, and the HDHomeRun Android app does not crash. Some internet searching will reveal this is a common SiliconDust HDHomeRun/Roku problem/issue that SiliconDust has been unsuccessfully working on debugging for a long time. It should have been resolved by SiliconDust and/or Roku long ago, and I should NOT have had to figure out this workaround on my own. Still, this is a solid OTA tuner w/DVR capabilities with superb channel tuning and UI that I will give it 5 stars despite my Roku caveat. 6 MONTH UPDATE: SiliconDust HDHomeRun Flex 4K is still a solid choice. I have really warmed up to the excellent UI. The FF/rewind is still working on my Onn TV Android box. I must report the SiliconDust HDHomeRun Onn TV Android app does not load easily, or as it should, like all my other apps. Restarting the Onn TV box is typically necessary, usually 2 times, to bring up the SiliconDust HDHomeRun UI. I am not sure if this is a SiliconDust HDHomeRun Android app issue, a Google bloatware issue, or both. I have yet to try an alternate launcher, which I have some reservations about. SiliconDust has still not fixed the aforementioned Roku app problem. A SiliconDust sad state of affairs. Customers should not have to figure out a Roku workaround. I have given serious thought to trying the newest Tablo (despite having so many problems with an old Tablo Quad, Tablo’s poor customer support, & no hardware repairs offered), or "rounding up" 2 older used model TiVo’s that work with an antenna. Why the latter? I have owned a Tablo Quad, a Silicon Dust HDHomeRun, and 2 TiVo (very old) Premiers—all fed by antennas. TiVo (the most expensive option that works best with a box for each TV) has the best UI, works flawlessly, responds the best by far instantly, and has a one-button auto commercial skip that actually works. 12 MONTH UPDATE: I have now surpassed my breakeven point. I’m in the black with my SiliconDust HDHomeRun/antenna setup vs. cable TV cost by a wide margin. Admittedly, there is some loss with OTA programming vs. cable, but not by $0 vs. $145 a month margin. Not to mention, if I really want to see a program, I can easily find it and stream it. With the last SiliconDust firmware/app update, I have found that the previously discussed SiliconDust HDHomeRun app loading issues do not occur if the app is returned to the Live TV mode before exiting and not left in DVR mode. I have given up on the idea of “rounding up” a used older TiVo since my SiliconDust HDHomeRun is performing better after the latest firmware/app update. You’d also need a TiVo for each TV, and TiVo has really abandoned the OTA DVR business altogether. I recommend SiliconDust HDHomeRun and hold out hope that SiliconDust fixes the Roku app soon to accommodate the FF/Rewind function.

Update: January 7, 2026 I will upgrade my original 3-star review and criticism to 5 stars now, because several updates to the HDHomeRun's firmware have resulted in a stable system that can now provide very good connections to all of my devices, including Roku TVs. All good now, and I'm very pleased with it. Like many new devices, the firmware often lags the release of the hardware. The newest firmware (and hopefully that's what ships with newly-purchased models) has closed the loop, and I'm a very happy customer. I can also report that it works consistently and well with my Linux server that hosts Jellyfin in my home. Happy, happy! --------------------------------------------------------------------- This is my first day with this device, and it's been a long day because I just can't leave an unresolved issue alone! The picture quality is excellent! It easily found all my local channels, and there were a lot of them in the Salt Lake City area where I live (Utah County). Even though mountains get in the way, it still worked well. I have a 4-bay UHF antenna with built-in amplifier in my attic to reduce the effect of a 75-foot coax cable. OK, so that's the good part. Now the not-so-good part: The apps are quite (ahem) variable. It took me two hours of trying over and over again to get either of my two iPhones (X Pro Max, and 13 Pro Max) to connect. The app kept reporting over and over that it couldn't find the tuner. I had exactly the same problem with my two iPads (a 9th gen, and a 3/2025 version). All using the latest OS updates, and all gave the same report--no tuner found. I accidentally discovered the key: Reboot the phone or iPad! It worked fine on all 4 devices after a reboot of each. My new M4 Mac Mini also stumbled but finally connected. Roku support is really terrible. One TV works great with the HD HomeRun (channel) app, but after I exit the channel, it totally disappears from the home screen. Each time I want to use it, I have to re-load it by searching for it in the channel store. That's just awful. I also have a 2-month-old Roku Ultra, but it refuses to find the tuner. The weird part is that it says it is trying to locate an MDU (from Silicon Dust's website, this stands for Multi Dwelling Units--a commercial product). Roku is the most popular TV OS in the USA, and this company is going to sink themselves if they can't get a decent Roku app fixed right. Roku has tens of thousands of other channels and apps, and these guys stand alone in somehow not being compatible! I also had trouble following their incredibly skimpy instruction sheet provided in the box. It assumes too much, and doesn't provide any remediation if something doesn't follow the ideal scenario they describe. I downloaded and installed the Windows 11 app from the Microsoft Store per SD's instructions, and it too could not find the tuner until I went to the command line and pinged the tuner's IP address I was able to determine with Advanced IP Scanner (a free piece of software that allows you to scan your own home wired and wireless networks). After I was successful is getting pings back from the tuner, suddenly the Windows app discovered it. Maybe pinging it helped the weak network discovery process in the app. Dunno for sure. The Google TV app works fine BTW. No issues there. So anyway, I hooked up a USB drive and tested the recording and DVR capabilities, which worked just fine. It worked well enough that I decided to buy the extended DVR recording capabilities. That went well. You buy the $35/year license, get a code from an email they sent within just a few minutes, enter the code, and it just works. Hey, some of the software works! So...do I plan to keep it? Yes, but mainly because I'm going to connect it to my Jellyfin server, which will help me avoid the use of the horrible apps these guys are putting out right now. All my TVs and players will interface with the tuner through Jellyfin. Their user interface (UI) reminds me of the much-hated BMW i-Drive from the mid 2000's: Wonky and built to one person's view on how a UI should be built. Not at all intuitive, but I guess I can get used to it. Some of the keyboard or remote control key commands either don't make sense, or don't work at all. This is the case for all devices I tested, whether on Windows, Mac, iOS devices or TVs. A rookie mistake I see on all of these interfaces is that they sometimes highlight two different unrelated menu actions at the same time, causing you to press "OK" or "Enter" and something unexpected happens. For example, "Live" has a shaded focus, indicating that you just moved the cursor to it, but "Recordings" shows as brightly bolded. Which do you think will take effect when you press OK? I still don't know, but I think it's "Live". As a user, I shouldn't need to guess. I included a photo of this very thing, taken from an Android TV screenshot. In another example, pressing some of the buttons on the Roku remote results in a black screen with no sound. Just sits there doing nothing until I press something else to recover. A good UI designer would map all possible keystrokes and trap them for at least a default screen like, "Sorry, try again" or similar. Rookies. In summary: Great hardware (5 stars), and I hope the software (apps and UI = 1 star or less) can catch up. This also includes the underlying software used for device discovery that needs serious help. It seems to me that network discovery of the tuner should be the first priority, because that's what everyone first has to face. I can't see their code, but in my opinion, they have some timing issues. The software does a network scan in less than a second, then gives up, asking the user to hit the retry button. The "retry" should be happening automatically for some timeout period. Each time several of my devices failed to initially "find" the tuner, another device was nearby, either pinging the tuner successfully, or playing video from one of the 4 channels. And yes, I also tried this with no clients connected, just to make sure it wasn't a congestion issue, although it's all connected over 2.5Gbps Ethernet and/or Wi-Fi 6. I respect all the effort put into this system by SiliconDust, and I don't want to see these guys go under because they couldn't get decent programming help.