Now TV white boxes unsupported

[Chris Locke]

Got an email saying the white Now TV boxes will be bricked from 6 Oct. Not just 'not supported', but turned off. Can't watch Now TV or 'any other apps' on them.
But thats OK, as you can send the units to them and they'll recycle them.
I know the units are quite cheap, but seems a bad way to operate. Glad smart TVs don't do that!
Wasn't much we watched on it, to be fair, and the box wasn't the fastest going ... think I mainly watched 'Last Week Tonight' on it... saves another couple of quid a month.

[jockosjungle]

Are they not offering a replacement or anything? How old is a white one? Have to admit I have chucked loads away and given them as they did stupid deals with vouchers in the boxes, but they were too tied to NowTV to make them useful. I use Rokus

[Chris Locke]

They did have other apps too (iPlayer, etc) but it was a bit slower to use than the smart TV. Only used it to access Now TV mainly.
No, no replacement or even a 'here's £5 off a replacement'. Simply 'we're turning it off'. I can understand no more updates, but to just turn it off seems a bit harsh.

[cliff homewood]

Indeed. I have a white box in my bedroom as tv backup if the frontroom is being used.

[Lee Brown]

Originally Posted by cliff homewood

Indeed. I have a white box in my bedroom as tv backup if the frontroom is being used.

My mum has a white box upstairs as her TV is so old it doesn't have HDMI. Only the white boxes have composite/AV out.

[GalaxyBlue]

Originally Posted by Lee Brown

My mum has a white box upstairs as her TV is so old it doesn't have HDMI. Only the white boxes have composite/AV out.

Apparently you can get them to give you a replacement Now TV USB stick if you use the white box as your main device to stream Now TV.

https://community.nowtv.com/t5/NOW-T...ox/td-p/539483

[cliff homewood]

Shame mine is a secondary device then as have black box downstairs and I am assuming they can tell. HArdly ever use the upstairs one, but the point though is it is there if have a schedulnig conflict in main living room

[GalaxyBlue]

I had a quick look on Ebay to see if there are any cheap Roku boxes to replace these.

I've come across the below for £19.99 which sounds like a great price to me :

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Roku-Expr...p/174258692670

[jockosjungle]

Yeh I use Roku boxes, replace them when it takes my fancy, they have all the apps and are great.

Yeh they can no doubt tell, my account tells me what the box is and when it was last accessed.

[cliff homewood]

Wondering if someone will come up with a hack to override and get into designer mode to get it working again to be used for other things. I messaged them yesterday and said its not very green of them, creating more detritus for landfill.

[w_n_s]

Originally Posted by cliff homewood

Wondering if someone will come up with a hack to override and get into designer mode to get it working again to be used for other things. I messaged them yesterday and said its not very green of them, creating more detritus for landfill.

I remember someone on stack overflow was reverse engineering them years ago, but Roku ( who made the boxes for Sky ) had them solidly locked down to the hardware level so that they could not be made into Roku boxes via a firmware upgrade. I think someone managed to get one working, but it involved desoldering and re-soldering a chip from a Roku box - this was more an exercise in seeing if it worked, rather than being worth doing.

EDIT

it was actually xda developers, think this is the thread :

https://forum.xda-developers.com/sho...2384435&page=2

[jockosjungle]

Yeh I gave loads away back in the day, basically they were a voucher and two aaa batteries and a hdmi cable

[cliff homewood]

Yeah soldering is beyond my knowledgebase, don't mind pressing key combinations to get into designer mode. SHame they shoudl release a firmware update to unlock it again when bricking so they can be recycled and not add to the world landfill problem.