# Is the extended warranty worth it for lifetime's Mini's?



## eboydog (Mar 24, 2006)

Considering they have no hard drives and have external power supplies, would be worth it to get the extended warranty if you bought lifetime service for them? Other than the cooling fan, they have no moving parts so their shouldn't be much that fails short of a power surge causing a problem but given they are so new, who knows how reliable they will be?? 

Also, what is the cost? Per the website, it quotes as low as $29.95 but shouldn't they be cheaper than that since that's the regular price for a full blown Tivo?


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## eric102 (Oct 31, 2012)

Best buys 4 year warranty was $20 when I bought mine there, seemed like a fair price to protect the mini and the lifetime subscription.


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## dave13077 (Jan 11, 2009)

eric102 said:


> Best buys 4 year warranty was $20 when I bought mine there, seemed like a fair price to protect the mini and the lifetime subscription.


My concern is what if Best Buy doesn't last 4 years. I know they are not doing great financially so that is a concern for me.


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## takeshi (Jul 22, 2010)

Worth is always a highly subjective matter. We can't tell you if anything is worth it to you or not. You have to determine that for yourself. If it was universally worth it then we'd all have extended warranties. If it was universally not worth it then no one would. It's more a matter of your preferences. If you want the peace of mind from an extended warranty then get it.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

I just bought two and decided not to get the warranty. The Mini is solid state, so no moving parts, and has an external power supply so the chance of it dying is pretty slim. Plus overall it's relatively inexpensive. Paying $20-$30 to insure a $250 investment makes a lot less sense then paying the same to insure an $1,1000 Roamio Pro.


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## aristoBrat (Dec 30, 2002)

eboydog said:


> Also, what is the cost? Per the website, it quotes as low as $29.95 but shouldn't they be cheaper than that since that's the regular price for a full blown Tivo?


I'm not a fan of TiVo's warranties, period -- neither the included "90 Days Free Labor | One Year Parts Exchange" warranties that every TiVo comes with, or the additional extended warranties available for purchase.

When I bought my first Mini, I also bought the $39 TiVo 3-year extended warranty.

Four months later, that Mini stopped outputting video.

I figured that since that Mini was still under the "One Year Parts Exchange" warranty that every TiVo comes with, I'd give Customer Service a call, pay $10-$20 for shipping, and have a new Mini in a few days.

Not so much. Because this Mini failed after the "90 Days Free Labor" warranty that every TiVo gets, there would be a "labor fee" added to the shipping fee. TiVo wanted $49 to have this Mini replaced under the "One Year Parts Exchange" warranty.

As I was grumbling about that cost, I told the rep to hang on while I found a credit card. He told me he didn't need a credit card ... because I had a 3-year extended warranty for this TiVo, that would automatically be used for this incident, and there'd be no additional cost. "But, that consumes your extended warranty entirely".

So yay, my $39 "extended warranty" covered the $49 cost of having a 4-month old Mini replaced under the included "One Year Parts Exchange" warranty.

Grrrr.


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## eric102 (Oct 31, 2012)

So mini's do fail, makes me feel better about spending the $20 on a BB warranty.


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## SOCATivo (Jan 2, 2002)

Would the subscription be covered as a part of the warranty? I would doubt it.


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## eric102 (Oct 31, 2012)

SOCATivo said:


> Would the subscription be covered as a part of the warranty? I would doubt it.


Subscription is covered whenever a Tivo product is covered by a warranty whether its Tivo's or another like Best Buy or Square Trade.


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## eboydog (Mar 24, 2006)

My concern is with the Mini being so new, how reliable will they be. 

The stuff made today isn't nearly as reliable as electronics made ten years ago, stuff like video out failing 4 months later isn't good to hear at all. I would like to think TiVo's hardware is good but I had my Premiere replaced once under warranty and even the refurbished one they sent me was defective and I went though another refurbished one before getting one that worked. Now after 6 months I'm having problems with it yet again and Tivo is telling me I must either pay them to "fix" it or buy a used one to replace it. 

As a separate issue, if you have a service commitment with Tivo, they should give you a warranty at least for the term of the contract without buying an extended warranty. I'm stuck right now with a bad Tivo premiere that has 10 more months of service commitment and I'm faced with paying yet more to replace it. Given how the poor quality of the Premiere is, I have no desire to buy another only to take a chance that in 10 months it might or might not continue to work correctly. 

If Tivo was confident of their hardware quality, then they would make it easier to transfer lifetime service to replaced hardware but of course their policy is that "lifetime" is the lifetime of the equipment with no assurances that a particular device won't die in six months.

It's not acceptable in the last couple of years that the cost of owning a Tivo has increased and the quality has decreased. We used to think nothing of buying lifetime service for our Tivos but now it seems to be a higher stakes gamble with the consumer on the losing side.


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## sangs (Jan 1, 2003)

eboydog said:


> It's not acceptable in the last couple of years that the cost of owning a Tivo has increased and the quality has decreased.


From my experience with the Roamio - and from most reviews I've seen or read about it, both professional and user-based - I'm not sure your "quality has decreased" claim is accurate at all.


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## aristoBrat (Dec 30, 2002)

eboydog said:


> It's not acceptable in the last couple of years that the cost of owning a Tivo has increased.


I went from a 3-TiVo household to a 4-TiVo household because the cost of adding addition TiVos in a house has significantly decreased, compared to a few years ago.

Before the Mini, an additional TiVo cost me ~$550 up-front (box + Lifetime), plus the monthly recurring costs of leasing a cable card, and any "additional outlet" fee you may be subject to.

With the Mini, it's $250 up-front (box + Lifetime), with no monthly recurring costs.


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## eboydog (Mar 24, 2006)

sangs said:


> From my experience with the Roamio - and from most reviews I've seen or read about it, both professional and user-based - I'm not sure your "quality has decreased" claim is accurate at all.


The Roamio is a major improvement in the speed and general software aspect of the user experience. The Mini " networking has shown to less than capable esp with lower quality coax MoCA connections. The wireless capabilities of the Roamio appears to have issues, the Tivo Stream requires regular rebooting (even the IOS app has a option for performing such).

Yes, you tell tell me, has the quality really improved compared to when the series 2 Tivo arrived? They apparently over engineered the hardware of the series 2 back when they had a lot to prove when they really had little or no competition. The quality issue is the hardware aspect I speak of and that is one reason they offer an extended warranty. (the other reason is of course to make money on the units that don't fail).

I have had two Tivo representives tell me I should have purchased the extended warranty after I have complained about the hardware failures of my Tivo Premiere and in hardware failures, I speaking of losing audio, hdmi ports stop working; not things that I can replace such as hard drives or power supplies. What boat would I be in had I purchased lifetime service for the Premiere I had when the hdmi went out in it? Why is Tivo best response to me is in a sense, "you should have paid us more"?

Yes, given what I have seen of new Tivo hardware in the last three years, I have little trust in the hardware unlike my lifetime series 2 boxes which refused to die. The hardware quality has changed and it has not improved. Now that Tivo is getting out of the hardware business, I fear this is only going to get yet worse.

I asked about extended warranties just to get an idea of what others think, yes the general aspect of buying a extended warranty usually isn't a good idea but the exception is Tivo when purchasing lifetime service as opposed to paying monthly service. Other than cell phones, there are very few products that require a monthly service plan, had my cellular company offered lifetime service in advance for service, I wouldn't think twice about buying a extended service plan for my cell phones had I payed a premium fee for a cell phone lifetime service plan.

What good is lifetime service on any Tivo device when it break in two years with a internal component that can't be repaired or replaced? (don't even get me started why they even have a service fee requirement as they have no funtionality without a subscribed Tivo host).


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## CrispyCritter (Feb 28, 2001)

eboydog said:


> Yes, you tell tell me, has the quality really improved compared to when the series 2 Tivo arrived? They apparently over engineered the hardware of the series 2 back when they had a lot to prove when they really had little or no competition.


I was here active in the forums throughout the entire history of the Series 2, and I saw no sign of "over-engineering" or that they were any more solid than any recent TiVo. The ATT Series 2 was poor, the "nightlight" series 2 was poor, wireless networking was a major mess, USB wired networking was a mess, and people complained about the hardware just as much, or more than they do now.

I'm sorry you had problems with your Premieres, but that's going to happen to some folks; it was just unlucky it was you. You're arguing from anecdotes and not the statistics of what people have reported here as problems in the forums.

Your major complaint about the Minis is that they can't fix people's bad coaxial networks for them and for some reason that makes the Minis bad???

The Mini has no moving parts and fewer heat sensitive parts than other TiVos. There have been very few reported exchanges of Minis. I personally wouldn't think the decision is close for me - no extended warranty for the Mini.


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## mcf57 (Oct 19, 2012)

dave13077 said:


> My concern is what if Best Buy doesn't last 4 years. I know they are not doing great financially so that is a concern for me.


From the way some people talk around here, not sure TiVO will be around in 4 yrs either so its a gamble no matter how you look at it. 

I personally got an extended warranty for a Mini from Squaretrade. Again, who know if they will be around in 4yrs either.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

mcf57 said:


> From the way some people talk around here, not sure TiVO will be around in 4 yrs either so its a gamble no matter how you look at it.


People have been talking about the death of TiVo around here for the last decade so I wouldn't put too much stock in what you read here.


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## buscuitboy (Aug 8, 2005)

I think in order for TiVo to survive, they are gonna have to come up with some sort of cloud based DVR. I would like to see this. Maybe even a hybrid model of some kind; has a hard drive for local storage like a standard TiVo, but if you have the bandwidth to handle it, the option of also having a cloud based DVR system. Only time will tell.


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## CrispyCritter (Feb 28, 2001)

Yes, TiVo agrees with this TiVo Moves Storage Of TV Shows Into The Cloud With New Network DVR Service.

They also have a pure IPTV (broadband delivery of the TV channels) box with local storage that is now being deployed in Sweden (Com Hem is the Swedish company). So they are putting together the pieces.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

The whole landscape of pay TV going forward is a bit murky. As a consumer I'm really hoping the FCC steps up and implements AllVid, but as a realist I'm not holding my breath.

The reason I don't want a cloud based DVR is because it gives the content providers too much control. Once we relinquish our recordings to the cloud what's to stop them from disabling FF, limiting the duration shows are allowed to be kept, etc... This is already how VOD works.


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## eboydog (Mar 24, 2006)

Dan203 said:


> The whole landscape of pay TV going forward is a bit murky. As a consumer I'm really hoping the FCC steps up and implements AllVid, but as a realist I'm not holding my breath.
> 
> The reason I don't want a cloud based DVR is because it gives the content providers too much control. Once we relinquish our recordings to the cloud what's to stop them from disabling FF, limiting the duration shows are allowed to be kept, etc... This is already how VOD works.


I agree 100% Once the DVR contents are "on the cloud", there will be no freedom such as uploading my content to my dvr including anything the provider feels is improper. Unfortunately since Tivo is one of the few that allow you to upload content to their dvr, the majority of consumers who haven't had anything better will just go along with the cloud concept.

As ISP's are limiting bandwidth, another issue I see is the addtional revenue avenue cloud content opens to them, go over you bandwidth limit and pay dearly. So not only must I pay for the DVR service, I will pay more to get that content to me.

Back on topic, I was interested to hear those you bought the extended warranty but I guess that's not going to happen.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

eboydog said:


> I agree 100% Once the DVR contents are "on the cloud", there will be no freedom such as uploading my content to my dvr including anything the provider feels is improper. Unfortunately since Tivo is one of the few that allow you to upload content to their dvr, the majority of consumers who haven't had anything better will just go along with the cloud concept.
> 
> As ISP's are limiting bandwidth, another issue I see is the addtional revenue avenue cloud content opens to them, go over you bandwidth limit and pay dearly. So not only must I pay for the DVR service, I will pay more to get that content to me.
> .


If you have more than one home the cloud may have some advantages as does the cloud does for people with more than one computer, that why Windows 8.1 has the cloud built in, but if you don't need the cloud than there are many disadvantages in using it. The smart phone is another good reason for the cloud if you travel.


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## eboydog (Mar 24, 2006)

lessd said:


> If you have more than one home the cloud may have some advantages as does the cloud does for people with more than one computer, that why Windows 8.1 has the cloud built in, but if you don't need the cloud than there are many disadvantages in using it. The smart phone is another good reason for the cloud if you travel.


That's the point, with all the stuff in the cloud, you have no exceptations of privacy. Those that run the cloud have access to your data, government can access it and there is the distinct possiblity that it can and will be hacked by malicious people.

Like the new IOS iPhone with the latest IOS, if synced to the Apple cloud, that device is permanently assigned to the orginal owner unless you use third party hacks to jailbreak it which then you can't easily run apps like the Tivo app.

Cloud bad, No cloud for me Thank you!


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## truman861 (Jul 14, 2012)

I bought my Roamio Plus, then 2 minis a day apart from each other at Best Buy. I have the 20.00 warranty from Best Buy on one of the receipts but they dont have the TSN or any type of serial number on it. Who's to say which Mini has the warranty and which doesnt, truth be told I dont know which is which  

tivo roamio plus
3 tivo premiers
tivo series 3 HD 
Tivo Series 2 with Lifetime
2 Tivo Mini's


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