Yesterday, I wondered what drove Sling to withdraw from Channel Master’s over-the-air receivers. There’s no official reason yet, but Jeff Baumgartner pointed to a new device from Sling’s AirTV. Unlike the device Sling launched at CES 2017, the AirTV Player, this new one is called just, uh, AirTV.

The Player accepts an optional (though recommended) OTA adapter for local channels and streams Sling TV, Netflix, YouTube, and everything else that works on an Android TV. The new AirTV doesn’t have any streaming; instead it works a lot like SiliconDust’s HDHomeRun, taking an OTA antenna input and making it available throughout the house via WiFi. The differences are that the AirTV integrates with the SlingTV viewer app (and its own AirTV app) and makes those locals available from anywhere.

Another way to look at the AirTV is that it’s like a Tablo with no DVR, which is the most conspicuous omission for the AirTV Player as well. In a marketplace where a sub-$40 digital converter box can pause and record OTA, it seems like a no-brainer for AirTV to add it. Maybe I’ll learn more about it at CES next month.