Meet Tablo: Unleash Your HDTV from TabloTV on Vimeo.

Armed with their idea, Nuvyyo initially worked with two industrial design firms, but after multiple attempts, still did not end up with a product that reflected their vision. Looking for some fresh ideas, and committed to working with a local partner, they approached Design 1st. It was important to the Nuvyyo team that they could easily collaborate, review prototypes and have a design team with deep consumer-goods design experience. Design 1st certainly fit the bill.

In the early stages of the project, Design 1st was instrumental in developing product concept renderings for investment presentations and crowd funding campaigns, which in turn funded the development of real product concepts and the now-shipping successful Tablo.

Design 1st Delivers On Unique and Complex Design Challenges

From the outset, there were a number of key goals set for the design process. The first, and perhaps most notable, was to design a compact and elegant product that was different from that of the competition. The device had to blend in with other set-top devices, while maintaining a sleek, professional appearance, much like the Apple TV, Roku and other everyday use home electronic devices.

From the outset, there were a number of key goals set for the design process. The first, and perhaps most notable, was to design a compact and elegant product that was different from that of the competition. The device had to blend in with other set-top devices, while maintaining a sleek, professional appearance, much like the Apple TV, Roku and other everyday use home electronic devices.

The second was to address the complex thermal and cooling challenges of a product this size packed full of leading-edge electronics. “Hot to touch” enclosures cooled by loud, large fans tend to be the norm. It takes a creative, experienced team working closely together to address this challenge and succeed. Design 1st had the skills, FEA tools and combined in-house design and engineering team to find the workable solution. Tablo needed to be small, run quietly and remain cool for both the 2-Tuner and the more complex 4-Tuner product versions while also maintaining an elegant presentation. The objective was to avoid large vents, holes and hot-to-touch metal casings for both versions by using common components for both. The team worked with a variety of thermal heat-spreading ideas, and arrived at a creative airflow management technique that allowed the DVR to maintain cool internal electronics for reliability and a warm but comfortable user handling temperature.

In March 2014, Tablo began shipping to locations across the US and Canada. Early customer feedback has been extremely positive, with great reactions on social media, in mainstream media, and from customers directly. Here’s just a few tweets popping up showing stellar feedback on the TabloTV: