What IS this left-over from a rental house? Cable, modem, router, alarm system, what?

[Isaac]

What would you say this is, I found it in a rental home. I lived in this house myself and had the primary local Internet provider, and I never had any such box. I'm wondering if it looks like something you all specifically know, or might guess. I hesitate to get rid of it if it's useful in some way but I am woefully ignorant about hardware and to me all the routers/modems/alarm hubs look confusingly similar.

 

[Steve R.]

Unfortunately, the resolution of the image did not allow for reading the label (or the light labels) on the device. The cord looks to be an Ethernet cord. It should also have, printed on it, something like "cat 6". Check the outside of the house and see if there is a wire entering the house at the location of the box.

 

[Isaac]

One of those labels/markings said the word "Alarm", I forgot to mention

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Some home alarm systems are rigged with a cable connection to relay any alarm to a monitoring station. We had an AT&T version of that in our home alarm system, but it is now wireless.

 

[moke123]

Google lens brings up a lot of similar looking units which are part of Fiber internet modems.

 

[moke123]

 

[The_Doc_Man]

I caught one hacking into my PS4 via bluetooth.

Which is why I turn off Bluetooth support on my PC. If I want to move files between PC and Android, I have a direct USB connection. And while I don't have Bluetooth enabled on my cell either, in my case it wouldn't matter because I do my banking from my PC has has a robust 3rd-party anti virus/network security package that I've tuned.

 

[Isaac]

View attachment 121776

thanks, Moke. I'd tried google lens for this issue but came up short - this definitely looks like it.
So I guess he had some different internet provider than I am used to. I sometimes forget that in most parts of Phoenix we now have a choice between Cox, Quantum and another one I think.

Thanks

 

[moke123]

I sometimes forget that in most parts of Phoenix we now have a choice between Cox, Quantum and another one I think.

Nice to have a choice. In our area we have one, spectrum. We still have areas without service. Years ago a friend wanted to get cable and they wanted something like $6,000 to run a cable to his house. I think he wound up with satellite but didn't like it.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

In certain points of south Louisiana, satellite doesn't work as well as one might like because a good rainstorm will provide too much interference. I was in my local barber shop one day when a rainstorm passed overhead. They had on a sports event via satellite feed and it didn't take long for the signal to become all static and no content.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

A few years ago we paid a small fee to upgrade from copper to fiber, so at the moment I have fiber-based ethernet connectivity to my house. My digital TVs and the phone company's signal convertors handle access to local and national TV. At some point we might have to go streaming, but with high-speed fiber, that shouldn't be an impossible task.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

We are anticipating a notice sometime next year that our service will be terminated at the source and we will have to find appropriate alternate sources. We DEFINITELY want to avoid certain cable services because we have heard horror stories about them from friends, but if we can find the streaming service that has my wife's favorite channels and at least a few that I like, we should be OK.

 

[pbaldy]

The hackers are at it again, there's a car camping out in front of our house and i can see them tapping away at tablets, meaning they acquired a connection!

Go outside and take pictures of them and their license plate, send to @moke123

 

[moke123]

Go outside and take pictures of them and their license plate, send to @moke123

Please do. It'll only cost @ $250 with the forum discount.

 

[Isaac]

I've been streaming for couple years. YouTubeTV provides all the local networks I need and I have not experienced any interruptions or lagging.

I tried YTTV for about 6 mo. and just recently turned it off. Overall I would say it was pretty good, the only thing is I think the interface / GUI could use some improvements - but then again, I feel this way about ALL streaming services that claim to provide a TV-like experience:
If you want to provide a true TV-like experience, then allow the user to get to a screen where a simple Up or Down on the remote will INSTANTLY change the channel, so we can channel-surf, as we did in days past.
The only streaming service who gets this right is the Roku channel's Live Tv, which does exactly that

 

[Isaac]

Nice to have a choice. In our area we have one, spectrum. We still have areas without service. Years ago a friend wanted to get cable and they wanted something like $6,000 to run a cable to his house. I think he wound up with satellite but didn't like it.

I bet you're not running out of hot degrees and water, tho - Phx has its pro's (limitless expansion and annexing, cheap land, limitless possibilities for incoming businesses like TSMC), and its cons (water shortage, saudi arabian farmers, heat and too little rain).

last I heard tsmc is becoming so huge they are building basically a small town around the 6th facility, it will become like a google-town for employees. i don't know how the $ factors work out with cooling requirements, but somehow it must

 

[pbaldy]

I tried YTTV for about 6 mo. and just recently turned it off. Overall I would say it was pretty good, the only thing is I think the interface / GUI could use some improvements - but then again, I feel this way about ALL streaming services that claim to provide a TV-like experience:
If you want to provide a true TV-like experience, then allow the user to get to a screen where a simple Up or Down on the remote will INSTANTLY change the channel, so we can channel-surf, as we did in days past.
The only streaming service who gets this right is the Roku channel's Live Tv, which does exactly that

We have YTTV and can use the up/down buttons on the TV's remote to change channels. There's also a last channel feature, though it's a bit hidden.

 

[Isaac]

yes, someone here actually notified me about long pressing the OK button to go last. funny, on one tv it works dreadfully poor, on another tv it works almost instantly. the former is actually a roku tv (you'd think it would be the better one); the latter is a roku box

so you're saying you're watching a given channel, right - just watching it along, and suddenly you press DOWN on the remote and it instantly switches channels? not so for me, down just goes literally down to the cc, options, etc. for me to change channels I have to go Back and then Select a new channel...nothing like the experience of channel surfing

 

[Isaac]

YTTV allows me quickly toggle through channels while watching the current channel. I can also use MultiView mode to simultaneously view 4 channels and toggle through them quickly.

To get the same YTTV channel line up I have with regular Cable TV it costs over $140/month, and they keep repeating the same old crappy movies. Not worth it anymore.
View attachment 121782

I'm lucky, I have almost zero interest in tv sports, hence I can skip the costly stuff. But still, at 90+ per month it just wasn't quite functional enough for me and all I could find to watch on a given night was big bang theory and that charlie sheen men show

 

[pbaldy]

yes, someone here actually notified me about long pressing the OK button to go last. funny, on one tv it works dreadfully poor, on another tv it works almost instantly. the former is actually a roku tv (you'd think it would be the better one); the latter is a roku box

so you're saying you're watching a given channel, right - just watching it along, and suddenly you press DOWN on the remote and it instantly switches channels? not so for me, down just goes literally down to the cc, options, etc. for me to change channels I have to go Back and then Select a new channel...nothing like the experience of channel surfing

Keep in mind I mentioned we use the TV's remote. In addition to the up/down/left/right buttons around the OK button, it also has channel and volume up/down buttons. Those are the ones that work to change channels.