Child Going Off to College? ...Maybe You Should Consider a Slingbox
Posted by Eileen Komanecky on Fri, Aug 12, 2011 @ 04:15 PM
If you have a child going off to college in September, you are probably in the midst of signing some really big checks this month. Your biggest concern, most likely, is not how your child will watch TV while they are away at school. Believe me, as a parent of a college senior and freshman, I understand. However, I wanted to share our experience with this issue because it might be helpful to others going through this right now.
Last semester, our daughter studied in Wales. She is not a big TV or movie watcher to start with, but we thought it would be nice if she had the ability to tune in to our home TV system while she was away. We set her up with a Slingbox, which allowed her to watch TV on her laptop computer just as if she were sitting in our Boston area home's dedicated home theater. When we told her about it, she wasn't overly impressed. She was of the mindset, rightly so, that the last thing she would be doing in Europe was sitting around watching American TV.
I'm happy to report that our daughter travelled to many different countries, tried many new foods, made good friends, and had an experience she will always treasure. However, there were times along the way that she got a little homesick. She admitted to us that she really liked having the ability to tune in to the local news back home, watch some mindless sitcom, and just hear people speaking with American accents.
So now we have two children going to college in September. Our plan for their TV needs is pretty simple and inexpensive. They will not be bringing TVs to the dorms with them, but they can access the home TV via the Slingbox if they choose. It is easy -- they can access their TV shows from a PC or Mac and even from a smart phone or iPad! Our son can record his favorite ESPN shows and watch them before nodding off if he wants. Hopefully, TV will be a minor part of his college life, but having some of the comforts of home may be a nice thing as he transitions to living independently.