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How to Watch TiVo on Your Nexus 5X and 6P Android Phones

Wi-Fi Alliance
Product Review
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The TiVo Bolt is a great way to automatically find and download shows that you like so you can watch it anytime on a 4K TV.  With the TiVo Mini, you can stream shows from your Bolt to any other TV in your home.  However, the TiVo Mini needs to be on the same Ethernet or MoCA network as the Bolt.  

One nice feature of the Bolt is that you can also stream your TiVo shows to your mobile device and watch them anywhere in your home that has Wi-FI coverage. What's even cooler is that if one family member has an Android phone like the LG Google Nexus 5X and another family member has another phone like the Huawei Google Nexus 6P, they can all watch their shows in their own rooms even while the TiVo Mini is also streaming from the Bolt.  They can even simultaneously watch different parts of the same recorded show.

To watch TiVo on the LG Google Nexus 5X, first go to the Google Play Store and download the TiVo App.  

  

  

You'll need to sign into the TiVo App with the same TiVo account you use on your Bolt.  Then select the TiVo DVR that you want to control or watch shows from.

  

The Bolt will then be detected by the App as a streaming device.  Select Start setup in the 'Set up streaming device?' pop-up window.  

 

In the Streaming screen, agree to the TiVo User Agreement and select Start setup.  Select Done to complete the Streaming Setup.

  

To find your saved shows on the Bolt, select the horizontal lines representing the menu on the top left corner.  In the menu select What to Watch.

  

I selected Super Bowl 50 as the show to watch.  Select Watch on the bottom and then select Watch on Phone.  

  

Note the TiVo Android App doesn't allow you to take screenshots while any shows are streaming although this restriction doesn't exist on the iPhone App.

Being able to rewatch the Half Time Show performance with Cold Play, Beyoncé, Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars was awesome.

While the TiVo Bolt was streaming Super Bowl 50 to the Mini, I played two simultaneous streams of the same show at different times to the Nexus 5X and 6P.  One person interested in the game can just watch the plays while another person interested in watching Cold Play can just stream the Half Time Show.  

I first had to set up TiVo App on the Nexus 6P uses the same identical process as above with the 5X.

  

  

  

  

  

  

I could then play different parts of the same Super Bowl show on the Nexus 5X and 6P.

The Bolt was able to support streaming to the TiVo Mini, Nexus 5X, and Nexus 6P smoothly.  There is a limit to how many devices you can stream to though- I tried adding streaming to fourth device at the same time and got an error.  If you want to watch TiVo on more mobile devices, you'll need to download the shows to that device rather than using streaming.  Still, being able to stream to multiple devices in the home was almost like having a personalized mini Hulu or Netflix server, right in your own home.

The video quality coming from streaming content from the Bolt over WI-FI to the LG Google Nexus 5X and Huawei Google Nexus 6P was amazing with no lag or visual artifacts compared to what you would typically see using other streaming technologies from DLNA.  It was as if suddenly I had two more mini TV's sets through my mobile phones that I could watch anywhere in the house.  The sound was also loud enough such that I could hear the Super Bowl from around the house just as if the phones were another TV set.

There is also a remote control feature that you can find in the main menu of the TiVo App.  Unlike the remote control found on the iPhone which tries to mimic an actual TiVo remote, the Android remote show just the remote buttons in more of a grid like format.  

  

You can also use the phone's keyboard to more easily perform searches.

 

With the TiVo App for Android, it's so much easier to find shows to watch and record with your TiVo Bolt.  You can use the App to watch the shows on your phone or just play them on any TiVo device in the house.  Given that TiVo finds content from both online and Cable TV sources, you can just use the TiVo App to find and automatically record your shows without having to worry about where they come from.  For busy people that don't have time to hunt for shows or use different Apps, TiVo is for you.

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