A review of Lightbox

Late last year we decided that Sky really wasn’t worth the monthly payments we were making.  The majority of what was available to watch were repeats.  The next thing to decide was what to replace it with as there is certainly not a lot to watch on free to air unless you like so called ‘reality’ programmes which we aren’t into.

Lightbox comes in the form of an App which is available on some smart TV’s or can be downloaded from either Play Store for Android or the App Store using Apple devices.

Lightbox comes free with Spark monthly mobile, or broadband plans, you just need a code from Spark to unlock the App.  Or you can try it for 30 days free by going direct to the Lightbox  website.  For $12.99 per month you can view entire seasons, ad free.

Categories include, drama, comedy, crime, Sci Fi,  American shows, UK shows, NZ content, documentaries,  plus series designed specifically for children.  So whether you prefer the original UK shows such as ‘House of Cards’ or the American version the choice is yours.  There are also shows that aren’t available in NZ yet or have just started such as the American show ‘Suits’ with seasons 1-6 available to view.

With autumn upon us and winter fast approaching what better way to fill a cold dark night or wet weekend then watching episodes of your favourite show back to back.  Just be careful as you can spend a lot of hours doing this without realising just how long you have been watching, especially as the next episode starts automatically.

As mentioned in a previous post we stream to our TV via our tablets using Google Chrome.  Five devices can be connected from one account with the ability to watch two different shows at any one time.  The ability to stream to a TV is not necessary if you don’t mind viewing using a smaller screen such as a tablet or smart phone.  Living in a small town means the fibre network is not available in our area but we have no trouble with streaming using standard broadband.

The only downside of Lightbox is it only streams TV shows and does not include movies, so if movies are your thing then perhaps Netflix could be an alternative option.  I will review this in my next article.

by Carol Bron, Age Hacker