Speaking as a former Homezone user, it's a great concept with poor implementation, imo.
The 'basics' were bad - the UI around the DVR and user guide were just really, really poor. Ex: on the 'my recordings' list, you couldn't sort or search at all. So, you had 130 hours of programming recorded and could only browse through it by date recorded. On the Guide, you could search, but the only option was to search by both Title and Description - so common words like 'House' brought back tons of episodes, none of which were the 'House' program you were looking for. You could only record things currently in the guide - no concept of 'Dishpass' or 'Wishlists'. Web connectivity was iffy for me - the required 2Wire router was dumbed down so much that you could make it work as needed and the Webremote functionality failed more often than it worked (and my dsl internet connection was very reliable and I'm very experienced at setting up networks). And twice, the box decided to just reformat itself and wipe out all of my recordings, mp3s, photos, etc. This was after using the product for 3 months.
The connectivity idea was good. The Yahoo Lauchcast integration was great - better than Sirrus or XM any day. The remote was awesome. The Akimbo content was entertaining. The Tech support guys were great. The ability to stream MP3s and photos was cool - but the basic usability around being a receiver/DVR just wasn't there. Those other features just don't matter a whole lot when the basics don't work.
I also don't think they are offering HD yet - at least they weren't a month ago when I cancelled, and I haven't seen anything released to indicate that's changed. If they are, that's a great step in the right direction.
In short, they are close to having a great product, but it's just not there yet. Hopefully they'll get there, but I got tired of waiting.
