*** April 15th, 2018 ***
The first unit failed during its initial outing. I tried multiple resets and it wouldn’t connect to anything. The blue light just flashed for hours, and the orange light would glow steady after a reset but wouldn’t broadcast its SSID to connect for setup. Too late to return it. Working with customer support right now to have a replacement unit sent out. Will update review pending resolution.
*** UPDATE #1 - April 20th, 2018 ***
First of all, I want to extend my utmost gratitude and respect to Sling's PHENOMENAL customer service team! WOW! The woman who received my initial call was very polite, knowledgeable, and within a few short minutes had initiated the process to ship me a new unit! Shortly thereafter I received an email personally from Rich Edgley, Sling's Director of Customer Experience, with a UPS Overnight Express tracking number, and barely 18 hours later I had the brand new replacement unit in my possession! Customer service simply doesn't get any better than that! I spent several hours that evening testing out my new SlingStudio using various camera and audio configurations and everything worked tip-top as it was meant to without any hiccups. I'm providing a two day livestream for a client at the end of the month at which point I will update this review with some more detailed analysis of the SlingStudio's implementation and performance, along with some photos and video. My only real gripe is with the SlingStudio Console app. I wish it had a feature that would automatically switch between the different connected cameras at a user-defined interval; an auto-pilot if you will. That would be SUCH an awesome feature to have for the one-man-band, or allow the operator of the console to walk away from it for a minute or two without it being stuck on one camera angle. As of now, connected cameras can only be switched between manually.
I'm really quite surprised none of the developers thought of initially building that feature into the app. I would deduct one star from this review for that oversight but that wouldn't be fair because this isn't an app review and the SlingStudio device itself is really quite a remarkably well designed piece of gear in solid build quality, aesthetic detail, and versatility in features and connectivity. As of right now I'm boosting my rating of this device to 5 stars as the design, concept, and functionality of the SlingStudiuo is fantastic, and because there simply isn't any other device on the market right now in this price range that offers wireless multi-cam 1080p HD livestreaming with such simplicity. I look forward to really putting this replacement unit to the test and will provide further feedback as that happens. Please stay tuned for updates.
*** Update #2 - April 29th, 2018 ***
First outing with the new replacement SlingStudio was a resounding success! It performed FLAWLESSLY over the course of a two night event I streamed for a small music venue where a wildly popular band performed. The SSID broadcast never dropped, the WiFi signal on all the cameras and my iPad stayed strong and never lost connectivity, and the SlingStudio Console app didn't lag or hiccup AT ALL! I am absolutely thrilled now that I have a fully working SlingStudio system, I absolutely love it and can't say enough about how it's perfect marriage of flexibility, ease of use, and stunning results have really opened up a lot of possibilities for streaming on so many levels, and I really want to thank the customer support team at Sling once again for genuinely caring about their customers and their products!
Here are some photos of my setup for the event I just streamed, along with a terrible video taken from my phone of the SlingStudio Console app in action: