Around eight years ago when we moved our little family from San Diego to Auckland we ‘splashed out’ and purchased our first flat screen TV. A massive (!) 32″ Sony Bravia that we paid way too much for by today’s standards. It was and still is a really great TV – perfect for our second lounge which runs the daily gauntlet of life with Ethan and Nixon.
Bucking the consumer trend of unnecessary obsolescence, we have held on to our seemingly prehistoric TV despite its lack of built in digital access. After the digital switchover in 2012/2013 we purchased a Freeview box so we could continue to use the old girl to enjoy regular programming. It was an inexpensive and easy option as we weren’t and still are not interested in a Sky subscription.
Fast forward to 2015 and Freeview’s had a wee makeover! 
FreeviewPlus is the newest service on offer, bringing On Demand to your TV and as the tagline states, it’s definitely ‘a better way to TV’. It comes built in to the latest TV’s on the market from all of the major players such as LG, Panasonic, Sony and Samsung. For those of us with slightly ‘older’ models a new aerialbox is available with loads of new features.
There are so many ways to use FreeviewPlus, I feel like I’m only scraping the surface at the moment – pretty sure this free service is going to become a fast favourite in the Jack house.
With two super active kids, my husband travelling a lot, a wonderful Nana who is an integral part of our household splitting her time between Auckland and sunny Northland and me trying to squeeze in blogging at all hours of the day and night ::yawn::, keeping up with the TV schedule is not too much of a priority. This is going to become more and more apparent as we head into summer and we all want to maximise our outdoor time rather than sit on the couch. As such, any service offering our family a flexible, smart way to keep up with our favourite shows adds a lot of value to what time we do allocate to relaxing with some TV.
I’ve had a great play with this service and have identified my 3 FreeviewPlus Favourite Features;
Enhanced FreeviewPlus TV Guide Despite our rather fast and loose model to watching TV, here are shows that we are quite ‘invested‘ in lol. Shorty, Peppa Pig, Robson Green, The Block, Masterchef, The Voice……..but we certainly don’t plan our lives around our TV schedule! The new enhanced FreeviewPlus TV Guide eliminates the possibility of a day without Peppa by letting me roll back up to 8 days to mitigate any toddler-withdrawal-tantrum situations. I like.
This is the TV Guide: using the side arrows on the remote you can move back and forth over the programming of the past 8 days, skipping ahead or going back 24 hours using the coloured button shortcuts (bottom right of the screen).
Favourites Menu
This is an easy way to navigate, record shows (just plug a USB storage device into the aerial box), set reminders or watch on demand episodes. Just add shows you love to your personal favourites menu for easy access.
Easy Browsing
Not sure what to watch? Check out the featured shows or browse by TV, Movies or On Demand Content. Within each category you can view all offerings within a particular genre. I selected TV > Kids and could immediately view all kids content currently available to view – TV is now super easy to filter! 
FreeviewPlus is available to purchase from leading electronics retailers nationwide (e.g. The Warehouse, Noel Leeming, JB Hifi, Harvey Norman, Dick Smiths, Smiths City etc.) To browse the 2015 range go to www.freeviewplus.co.nz.
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