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Smart TV Platform TiVo has secured certification to deploy support for broadband-based live TV streaming service Freely across a new category of streaming-only devices, which could help spread the service’s availability to a whole host of new hardware in the near future (similar to Netgem TV’s new PLEIO box – here, or Humax’s box – here).
The TiVo operating software (OS) should be quite familiar by now and it’s already powering some dedicated internet-connected TV integrations of Freely. But the new certification, granted by Everyone TV, will extend this so that TiVo OS with Freely support can also be used on external streaming devices.
“It expands consumer choice, gives retailers and [broadband] ISPs new ways to delight customers with a frictionless live TV experience, and extends the reach of UK broadcasters via IP,” said Gabriel Cosgrave, TiVo’s EMEA General Manager. Freely has been slowly improving their device support since the service first went live in April 2024 (here) and so today’s news looks set to continue that trend.
At the time of writing there’s no indication of precisely when or which TiVo OS equipped streaming devices will be the first to add Freely support, but we’ll no doubt see a few crop up sometime during 2026. “Introducing Freely to these devices means more UK households can easily access and navigate free TV in the streaming age,” said the CEO of Everyone TV, Jonathan Thompson.
One interesting question mark over this is whether some existing TiVo equipped devices may also soon be able to get this via a simple firmware upgrade, although so far Freely has tended to stress the importance of only deploying on new rather than existing hardware.