HUMAX Aura Android TV 4K Freeview Play Recorder with Google Assistant and Chromecast - 2TB

It was a slightly risky purchase having read previous reviews, but I gambled on the known issues being fixed with firmware updates. I haven't encountered any show-stopping issues thus far. My initial set-up was frustrated initially by the remote repeatedly failing to pair over bluetooth, but after a full reset and a couple of further attempts it worked out.I use the box mainly to record from Freeview channels – I make no use of the Chromecast or apps as I have all this functionality built-in to my TV – but it all seems to work from my limited testing. I have managed to connect the box to the associated Humax Aura app, but connecting the app to the box is a trainwreck. It frequently needs me to reconnect to the box using a code found within the box's menus. If I'm trying to use the app then I'm not near my box to get the code, it's frustrating as hell. When the app works, it works reasonably well but doesn't feel like a finished product.The remote is fine, it does the job. The UI on the box itself is a little confusing at first – having been built on top of Android TV it treats live TV like an app – but it's not terribly difficult to get my head around and while in Live TV mode I tend to forget that it's got the whole Android TV underneath it.I'm mollified by the fact that there have been quite a few firmware updates since most of the major bugswere reported in these reviews and I'm hoping that they continue to refine the experience as this has the potential to be a great box. At the moment it's good with the potential to be excellent. For what I bought it for, it's working just fine and earns 5 stars.

My old You View box that I bought refurbished keeps resetting and I’ve lost my recordings several times. I originally replaced with a Manhattan Box. That was a mistake and I returned it. The Manhattan box felt inferior and dates and functionality is nowhere near as good as the /YouView. For example, you can’t download apps for streaming so keep having to switch back to tv and the menu was clunky. The new Humax feels like an old friend in new clothes and whilst it can’t quite match a subscription TiVo Box, it does a very good impression! I’m am happy with 2tb of recording space too. Menu layout on TV is a bit different but not too much to get used to. You can download apps via the Play store and get all the usual streaming apps, with the exception of Netflix. That’s a shame but I can deal with one tv switch. Voice control is a nice touch. It was easy to set up and so I’d recommend paying a bit more and buying the Humax. As an aside, when I bought the Manhattan, I found it was missing some essential wires (like an Ethernet and aerial cable) that I then had to buy. Whereas, the Humax came with them all. It really is the best hard drive tv recorder out there that doesn’t come with a hefty monthly subscription to pay. With this, you can choose to pay for extra if you want it but with 177 free channels plus on demand, I can only see sports fans and movie buffs maybe wanting the extra

We purchased Hugo the Humax box (as he is now named in our house) as a replacement for Sky Q. We had been considering ditching Sky as we were using it as a tool to access apps that we also paid for - Disney+, Netflix, Amazon Prime etc. All are excellent services and we found that we weren't actually watching the sky channels so why pay for them? The Humax box was reviewed as being the best alternative to allow us to pause and play live TV using freeview+. It does this well, but there can be some glitches where the android software is struggling to keep up with what is asked of it. It sometimes glitches a little between channels and can take 40 seconds or so to boot up when turned on afresh. Is it as good as a SkyQ box? Nowhere near. Sky is fluid and sharp, the remote is far better laid out and the navigation of the system is far easier. That being said - it costs a lot and that cost is repeated every month. Sky has also mastered the "you can't use the box without the subscription", so there was no way we were able to keep it. Overall Hugo has proven to be an acceptable alternative. Ultimately, 4 months into Hugo we will be watching free TV (the cost of the box divided by our old sky subscription), so that is a win that in times of economic challenge is well worth it. Would I recomend? Yes with caution.

It looks nice, but as the remote is bluetooth, you don't need to see it. After all is connected and set up, it becomes easier to navigate as time goes on. It's not as intuitive, and simple to use as the Panasonic, but the panasonic lost signal a lot, so it's an allowable irk. There is still an occasional second of black screen if the signal is lost, which is still annoying as the 15yr plus-Panasonic-plasma never glitches or loses signal... The recording process is simple, as is the listing of recorded channels. The guide is very good, and user-friendly. Sadly, as ever, the settings list is a bit confusing, and there is a full PDF of the instructions and guide online, which should be far simpler than it is. Hey ho. So - largely really good.

Update 2024Nothing has improved, and now you cannot cast to this box from any app, just get a trust error saying outdated firmware is preventing casting. Tried to cast from various different apps, none of them work any more.The remote constantly throws a hissy and stops passing input to the box for close to a minute, then when it does start passing input again it repeatedly sends a signal for whatever the last button you pressed, usually one of the scroll options, so it ends up scrolling all the way to the end of the list.Box freezes and crashes more now than when I bought it.100% I should not have made this purchase and wholly regret itOriginal reviewPerformanceThe device is sluggish to navigate. I own the original CCWGTV and that tiny thing outperforms this quite noticibly. Lag when navigating the menu, momentary freezes when changing apps ect.BugsDevice has quite a few bugs. It will often (20-40% of the time) crash and reboot when you go to turn it on from standby leaving you waiting for its lengthy boot up process to complete. This of course interrupts any recordings happening at the time.The live TV timeshifting feature is almost unusable as most of the time something will happen with part of the recording and when you get to that bit it jumps forward to current time. You can rewind to get back to where you were but need to be careful to rewind to just past the part where it jumped or it will just jump forward to current time again. Obviously this means later parts of whatever you're watching will be spoiled when this bug occurs.The video player in general seems to have a freezing bug. On YouTube, if you pause a video then when you resume it often the video will stay frozen but audio will continue. Skipping back or forward will sort it. And in Disney Plus, if you're watching a series and you get to the end of an episode and either let the "next episode" box timeout and autoplay the next ep or manually click to play the next ep, the video will freeze on the first frame of the next ep but audio again continues. You need to back out of the video back to the menu and then replay it to fix that one. I don't experience this on any other devices I use so doesn't seem to be app problems.RecordingsWhile the recording feature seems to work pretty flawlessly (when the box doesn't crash on startup), the sorting options are pretty limiting; "recently first", "oldest first" and "smart ordering". If you're watching something that's broadcast in order then no problem, you can use the first two sort options, but if it's reruns that aren't always broadcast in order then none of these options sort by series/episode. Smart Ordering almost seems like it does but won't start at season 1 or whatevers earliest, but just picks a season at random to start on then sprinkles in random episodes from other seasons in here and there.NetflixThis box cannot watch Netflix in any standard way. Apparently you can "sideload" the app, I haven't tried this, but there is no app available for it in the Playstore and if you try to cast Netflix to it it will not show up as an available device, but will show up as an available device in any other app that has a cast option. I could cast to it when I first got the box but after a few weeks it stopped showing up. So maybe sideloading will work but otherwise no Netflix here.Those issues aside, the rest of the box is fine at least as far as I have used it. The remote's quite nice and feels good to use, nice additional of IR functions so can have just one remote for this box and TV. Regular TV watching is fine, picture quality decent. No Picture In Picture feature but can switch between two channels using the back button which is nice. As I mentioned, recording works just fine and generally apps work alright aside from the previously mentioned video and performance issues. Casting to it works fine as well, with exception of Netflix as mentioned, but yeah even NowTV which doesn't have an app will cast just fine so no problems there. If they could sort these issues it'd be 5/5 for sure.

The DTV reciever is weak lots of break up even with a new aerial. Re-boots randomly and locks up quite often. Does support lots of steaming apps and has the ability to record so you can skip those annoying adds. The lack of Netflix is strange. AFAIK probably the most complete PVR on the market but let down by too many bugs.takes too long to boot up especially as this happens a lot.

This has been purchased to replace my older model which was so far out of date that it did not work well anymore. Delighted with this although there is a slight learning curve because of increased functionality and slightly different menu presentation. The ability to record four channels at once is fantastic and because the box is wi-fi we've been able to get rid of another cable. Really fantastic 4K reception and am well pleased with it so far. Easy to set up with more channels than my old one found with so many apps and great speech recognition as well. Having fun with it as well as watching TV and catch up.

After an extension search for an alternative to sky and virgin, I found the Humax aura android and it had good reviews. I've used this Freeview player and recorded since February 2025 and I quite confidently say: this is a terrible product.The set up was simple and hooked it up to the my existing TV aerial. That's when the problems started. The picture was on every channel was stuttering and pixelalted - if it work at all. After further research, I established that my signal for the box was too strong?! I had to buy a cheap signal adapter that reduced the signal strength.When that arrived, it reduced the pixelation and moat channels then worked. However, even the slightest of bumps the box or Tele (I have a dog and kids) the picture disappeared and the adapter would need adjusting as the box was extremely sensitive.The general day to day use of the TV function is passable, however the UI is very clunky and unresponsive. Each press of a button on the Bluetooth remote requires a second or so waiting for the UI to react. In an age if instant reaction to input from every other device I own, it is extremely frustrating to wait 3-4 seconds everytime I want to view the TV guide. Pressing the home button to view apps and recordings is an arduous task for the aura. Sometimes, it is necessary to wait for around 10 seconds for the home menu to appear. When launching apps such as YouTube or Disney, it will often crash or open but fail to play any videos.Pausing live TV is extremely frustrating, anything longer than 2 minutes causes the love feed to jump back and forth making playback impossible. Bearing in mind I purchased the 1TB model, it cannot handle simple pausing and rewinding of love TV - this is sold as one of the main functions of this device.Watching records is a chore, there are long delays to open and play them, large sections are often missing (possibly due to scheduling issues on the TV guide) and the aura really struggles with closing a recording and watching the rest later. You have to restart watching the recording and then fast forward to where you last left off.I did further research... Sigh... And established that you need to do frequent hard resets and delete the cache of most apps. Even after doing this, there does not appear to improve performance.I brought the aura to avoid paying extortionate prices for sky, BT or virgin. This was an expensive up front coat but promised to save money in the long wrong. The majority of the cost for sky seems to be renting their equipment which is far superior the aura.With hindsight, I would avoid buying this product and look into building a custom PC to stream and record live TV. It is obvious now that android based devices like the aura cannot handle the demands of recording and pausing live TV.