Well, I've wanted to blog about my DVR / digital hub setup for quite some time now. And now I finally have, so I can use it to provide some context for this post.
One of the key elements of my "digital hub," the Elgato EyeHome died this weekend. I was watching a very old recorded episode of Saturday Night Live, on (by coincidence) Saturday night. Part way through the episode, some random interference lines showed up going across the screen horizontally. Eventually, the picture froze and the EyeHome went unresponsive to anything I did on the remote control (stop, power-off, etc). After unplugging it and plugging it back in, I can tell it's getting power because the red light for the optical-audio port lights up, but the light to indicate the EyeHome is connected to the network doesn't turn light up and it doesn't respond to the power-on button via the remove control.
Having searched the Interweb, this apparently isn't an unusual occurence.
Having a "digital spoke" breaks really does interrupt one's "digital life". And now it's on to figure out how to replace this particular "spoke". Stay tuned, I plan to blog my research on alternatives with the thought such information may be useful to someone else down the road.
Finally, a bit of a rant. It's always very disappointing to me when electronics break. I can understand hard drives, fans, etc. -- things with moving parts. Wear and tear. OK. I get it. Things wear out. But non-moving-part electronics should be designed to last for a very long time. My EyeHome wasn't even three years old and it has zero moving parts... (nothing to wear out). Shoddy quality like this really does not speak very well for Elgato. I'm not bothering to contact them because I'm sure the warranty has been up for some time, and they don't actually even make or sell EyeHomes anymore (not a bad choice considering the new competition). However, if my EyeTV 500 breaks anytime soon, I'm really not going to be a happy camper...
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2 comments:
Your Power Supply is dead, classic death for the EyeHome, the wall wart power supply is barely adequate.
This is what I used when my four EyeHomes went south.:
http://www.allelectronics.com/make-a-store/item/PS-537/5VDC-3.7A-SWITCHING-POWER-SUPPLY/-/1.html
With this adapter.:
http://www.allelectronics.com/make-a-store/item/DCA-1/DC-POWER-PLUG-CONVERTER-CONVERTS-2.5MM-TO-2.1MM/-/1.html
BD
Ben - thanks for the tip. I've fully moved on to using my AppleTV, but if there are other EyeHome users still out there, I hope they find this helpful.
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