For nearly a year and a half, Comcast and Charter have been discussing their joint venture built around the Xumo streaming platform. On Wednesday, the companies announced that they would be launching the Xumo Stream Box to Spectrum cable subscribers, with plans to bring it to Xfinity customers in the near future. Charter and Comcast own Spectrum and Xfinity respectively, the two largest cable TV providers in the country.
The new Xumo Stream Box is powered by Comcast’s Entertainment Operating System (OS), which is designed to help viewers find the shows and movies that they are looking for regardless of what streaming service it might be on.
“Watching TV was designed to be a relaxing, lean-back experience, but today’s fractured entertainment landscape has added a level of complexity that makes finding something to watch more burdensome for consumers,” Xumo president Marcien Jenckes said. “When we started Xumo, we set out with the ambition to take the decades of entertainment experience and technical innovation from Comcast and Charter and build a complete entertainment experience that breaks down the streaming silos and makes TV easy again.”
Xumo Stream Box is designed to make it easy for customers to move between their favorite live, on-demand, and streaming content. The platform also allows for seamless title discovery through an integrated interface and voice remote that puts the shows and movies that you are looking for front and center.
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“Xumo is streaming simplified, bringing a live TV experience together with all the top apps,” Charter president of product and technology Rich DiGeronimo said. “With Xumo Stream Box, customers have endless entertainment options simplified, with aggregated search across apps and curated content offerings based on the customer’s interests and subscriptions, which will be even more powerful as direct-to-consumer apps are included with Spectrum service.”
For Spectrum customers, Xumo Stream Box uses the Spectrum TV App. New Spectrum video customers receive one device for no cost for the first year and additional Xumo Stream Boxes are available directly from Spectrum to purchase or for a service fee. Comcast will soon offer Xumo Stream Box to new Xfinity Internet customers as well.
What Features Are Included on the Xumo Stream Box?
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Leading with Live: Upon startup, customers will see live video playing from the device’s primary video service app such as Spectrum TV, Xfinity Stream, or Xumo Play. Additionally, a built-in channel guide makes browsing through subscribed channels a seamless part of the Entertainment OS experience.
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Hundreds of Built-In Apps: Xumo Stream Box comes with the ability to access hundreds of subscription-based and ad-supported streaming apps, including Apple TV+, Disney+, Hulu, Max, Netflix, Peacock, Pluto, Prime Video, Tubi, Xumo Play, and more.
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Seamless Browsing: A curated, content-forward viewing experience that blends AI-driven personalization and human-led editorial recommendations to help customers find something to watch without having to jump in and out of apps.
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Universal Voice Search: Emmy-award-winning voice technology allows customers to discover content quickly from available apps and services with a simple voice command into the remote.
Favorite lists for every member of the household: With My List, customers can create multiple lists of their favorite shows and movies – regardless of where that content lives or how it’s delivered (live or on-demand) – giving every member of the family a personalized destination to quickly jump into what they want to watch next.
Xumo Play
Xumo Play is a free video streaming service that includes on-demand access to several movies and TV shows. Xumo Play offers 290 free virtual channels, including those focused on reality TV, vintage TV, and game shows.