Sick Days & Snow Days Look Sweet With Sony

(Last Updated On: August 29, 2012)

A couple of weekends ago my entire family hit the wall.

The hectic pace of life, the projects and parties and assignments and auditions. The travel for business and deadlines. The preschool slide wars and paste bullies. You name it, from toddler to teen to the CEO of Casa de Chaos (that’d be me), we’d all had it. It was time for a massive snow/sick/mental health day.

Except we weren’t sick and the sun was shining and we live in So Cali. Darned perky sunshine!

None of which stopped us from drawing the shades and spending an entire weekend in pajamas, eating frozen waffles and snuggling under comforters. We don’t do this often, I promise.

Despite the fact that my husband (read: IT guy) was out of town, I thought it was the perfect time to set up and try out the brand new Sony Streaming player that I had been sent to review.

The Sony Streaming Player was sure to save us from our stressed out and overworked funk. From the Sony website:

Enjoy instant access to thousands of hit movies, TV shows, music choices, and online videos¹. Featuring built-in Wi-Fi®, you can stream your favorite movies, TV shows, music and more, even in Full HD² and 3D³. Plus, new apps are automatically delivered so your selection is never outdated and you are always connected to the best entertainment. Control it all with a simple smartphone app for iPhone® and Androidâ„¢⁴. There’s also a USB input that makes it a snap to share your videos or photos on the big screen or listen to your favorite music.

Normally setting these things up scares me a little but in this case I got to be the hero. The hardest part was entering out 40 digit/character WEP password without screwing up the digits.

Other than that it was a matter of plugging the compact box into the wall, choosing an HDMI port to plug into on the tv and choosing what to watch first. And who was in control. We all promptly downloaded the app to turn our iPhones into remotes.

Oh Sony! Where were you when I was on bedrest twice, and forced to endure the worst of daytime tv? Where were you when I had pneumonia and when my kids were up half the night with croup and nothing was on for them to watch and I had to watch that stupid Calliou video sixteen times in a row?

With Netflix, HuluPlus, Vudu, Youtube, Sony Entertainment Network, Amazon and more all at your fingertips I could become a couch potato with roots, if I only had the time at my disposal.

Maybe it’s a good thing that I don’t.

But you know what I really don’t have time for? Watching crap I don’t want to watch. That never has to happen again.

I can’t imagine why we didn’t get one of these sooner. My resistant husband now would like to buy a second unit so we can stop schlepping the one we have between the upstairs and downstairs tvs. Though I have to say, it’s pretty easy to move it around and plug it into any video source.

Honestly, my life hasn’t been this changed since we first got cable, back in the dark ages.

I seem to remember feeling a cold coming on back then too.

Disclosure: Sony sent me their Streaming Player to test out for the purpose of this review. All opinions, as well as bragging rights for setting it up unassisted in under ten minutes, are my own.