Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Audio / Video
  3. News

Dish’s new Evolve box aims to bring the streaming good life to your hotel room

By

dish evolve streaming box hotels hopper 3 dvr asset 1
We’ve all had the experience of trying to find something to watch while staying at a hotel, and it’s never easy. Movies are overpriced, and rarely do rooms feature the kind of setup even the most casual of entertainment fans would have back home — Netflix, anyone? Enter Dish Network’s new Evolve streaming box.

Dish wants to make finding good entertainment better — and cheaper– for everyone involved, and the Evolve is the company’s new solution. The Evolve is an Android TV-powered streaming system to be featured in hotel rooms soon, which consolidates streaming apps, live TV, and Chromecast’s “casting” technology all into a single, 4K device. Dish calls its new creation a “set-back” box as opposed to a set-top box like Roku or Apple TV streaming devices, as the Evolve is designed to sit behind a hotel room’s TV.

Recommended Videos

Perhaps the most notable feature of the Evolve is the built-in Chromecast technology, which allows you to sit back and stream your favorite content to the TV right from your phone or tablet. To be fair, Chromecast tech has appeared in hotels before. However, the pairing of Chromecast with a Dish box is something entirely new, and provides some impressive features beyond what you get with a regular Chromecast, including access to Android TV apps via Google Play, an “advanced” programming guide with features like genre filtering, and channel preview.

In addition, the system allows for 4K streaming (if your hotel happens to boast a 4K Ultra HD TV), while the inclusion of Bluetooth LE (which stands for “low energy”) allows you to pair up wireless headphones for private listening. Plus, the remote hosts dedicated buttons for the Google Play Store, YouTube, and Dish’s SlingTV live TV streaming service for quick access.

Hotels will be able to tailor the Evolve’s UI to their own needs, which can include hotel branding, pre-loaded apps, or curated welcome channels. A private messaging service also allows the guest and hotel staff to communicate. Dish is hoping to partner with hotels to not only create a more convenient and user-friendly watching experience for hotel guests, but also to save space and streamline hotel entertainment by funneling streaming, casting, and live TV into a single system.

The Evolve box is powered by Dish’s Smartbox technology, which is a video distribution technology for commercial businesses — such as hotels — that eliminates the need for multiple antennas over every room. Between the two devices, an entire hotel can be outfitted to accommodate the entertainment needs of all its guests with a simple setup.

Dish will be showcasing the new Evolve streaming system at the HITEC show in Toronto from Tuesday June 27 to Thursday June 29.

Topics
Brendan Hesse
Brendan Hesse
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Brendan has written about a wide swath of topics, including music, fitness and nutrition, and pop culture, but tech was…
There’s a rare deal on the Sony WH-1000XM5 headphones today
Sony WH-1000XM5 headphones seen in black.

The massively popular Sony WH-1000XM5 wireless headphones rarely appear in headphone deals, so if you've had your eye on them for quite a while, you're in luck because they're currently $51 off on Walmart. From their original price of $400, you'll only have to pay $349, but only if you hurry because we don't expect stocks to last long. You're going to miss out on the offer if you take too long, so don't hesitate -- add the wireless headphones to your cart and check out as fast as you can.

Why you should buy the Sony WH-1000XM5
The best headphones that you can buy right now are the Sony WH-1000XM5 wireless headphones, and it's not even close. At the heart is their outstanding wireless sound, supported by top-quality active noise cancellation that uses two processors and eight microphones to block all unwanted sound, as well as crystal-clear hands-free calling using four beamforming microphones and advanced audio signal processing. The wireless headphones also offer Bluetooth multipoint connection so that you can quickly switch between different devices, touch controls for functions like adjusting volume and calling your digital assistant, and Speak-to-Chat and Quick Attention features to stop your music and let ambient sound in without having to take them off.

Read more
Sony’s premium soundbars will finally get support for VRR, ALLM
Sony HT-A7000 Dolby Atmos soundbar close-up of top panel.

It's been a long time coming, but the wait is almost over. Sony's premium home theater soundbars are set to receive a software update that will add support for variable refresh rate (VRR) and auto low-latency mode (ALLM), two HDMI 2.1 gaming features that have been absent since these products launched.

The soundbars in question are the Sony HT-A5000, HT-A7000, and the multi-wireless speaker HT-A9 system. All three are scheduled to receive the update this fall, but Sony has declined to share specific timing, saying only that there will be more information closer to the rollout date.

Read more
What is Roku? The streaming platform explained
A roku powered TV hanging on a wall running Roku OS 12.

How do you get your Netflix, Disney+, Hulu, or Prime Video fix? Chances are it's through a streaming device or smart TV, and there's a good chance that it's through a Roku device or one running its pioneering streaming operating system. At this point, cord-cutting is old news, and Roku was one of the earliest companies to drive the adoption of web-based streaming with its self-contained, app-driven devices.

Today, watching something "on Roku" is standard parlance and the company's popular platform can be found baked into some of the biggest TV brands in the world as well as in its own lineup of streaming devices sticks, and set-top boxes. Even so, that doesn't mean you totally get what a Roku actually is. What is Roku? How does Roku work? Do you need a subscription to use it? Is it just a device you buy, or is it software?

Read more