My Brother has been a Long Time Tivo user. Last year he got us a Bolt Vox, and a Mini to replace 2 cable boxes.
it was a bit hit or miss getting things up and Running, Spectrum sent us out a self install kit, but getting ahold of the right person on their end that knows how to provision the Cable Card and Tuning adapter was... time consuming.
we'd never had a DVR before, but I quickly got the hang of it...my elderly parents on the other hand, don't have a clue how to do anything other than watch live TV. they don't know how to get into the recordings to watch them, even after a year of ownership...
the Bolt has 4 Tuners, (watch one show/ record 3 others, etc) and the Mini Connects over your home (wired) network to your main Tivo, not requiring it's own cable Feed/ tuning adapter/etc, it just slaves off the main unit, using one of it's tuners.
when i got my tax refund this spring, I bought myself a Mini for my Bedroom, b/c using the spectrum app on my Xbox was too much of a Faff...
when they want to connect, everything is golden. however, in the morning I often find the Mini's not able to find the main box on the network, the only solution i've found being Rebooting the main box. there is not a way to remotely Reboot the Box. you have to go to the unit and do it "manually"
after it comes back up, everything is Golden.
now, the company itself.... has gone through several mergers/acquisitions/CEO Changes over the past few years, and it seems that they can't make up their mind about what they want to be.
for years, the big draw of Tivo, was that you could skip Commercials.... you Still can, but they started adding commercials to the beginnings of you r recordings earlier this year. you can still skip them with one button push, but...annoying.
they unveiled the own slate of free streaming Channels, under the TiVo+ banner, and push it HARD. including ads in the channel guide, that look like a Channel in your line up if your not paying attention.
no way to get rid of it.
and in their Channel guide, you can't trust the "new" Flag on shows. to an almost Comical Level.
also, Spectrum(my lovely cable provider/ISP) has their own Regional news Channel, Spectrum news 1, with "Local" affilates across the country ( mine is based out of Columbus, 100 mi away...) but no matter where you are as a spectrum customer in the US, the Tivo Guide refers to that Channel as "Spectrum news SF Valley" as in San Fernando Valley, AKA "Silicon Valley", where TiVo is based.....