It sounds great on paper: An inexpensive, unobtrusive indoor TV antenna that can easily pick up over 100 channels, "Engineered by a NASA professional utilizing military technology." all in beautiful 4K Ultra HD resolution (For reasons that should become obvious, we're not linking the official website for this product.) That's the main selling point of the TVBoost, also known as the EcoTV HD on the storefront that its website links to — which sells for $39.
99 each or less if you buy at least three of them. If we're to believe the TVBoost home page, it's "the most dependable and advanced antenna on the market today." That sounds great, right? Not enough consumers take advantage of over-the-air TV these days, so maybe the people behind the TVBoost — or EcoTV HD — are onto something.
It's not like the pictures of it on the official website look much different from antennas that you might have caught out of the corner of your eye while browsing in an electronics store like Best Buy. However, though it's absolutely true that the average TV watcher can get a lot more out of an over the air antenna than they might expect, TVBoost/EcoTV HD is not exactly the answer. As someone who's spent lots of time trying to find the best indoor antenna since trying to get the most out of a hand-me-down TV as a child, let's take a look at what exactly is going on here and why other antennas are better choices.
A few things about TVBoost/EcoTV HD are pretty trivial to prove false. The official.