Locast Reviews

by Zumo21

This is one of the most frustrating apps to use because Locast restarts if anything takes it out of the foreground. This includes swiping up to change the brightness via the control center - Locast restarts. Accidentally partially swiping down - Locast restarts. It doesn’t restart the video feed or go back to the TV listings screen; Locast restarts completely, and I have to scroll back down to find the station I was watching. Or if I’m just looking at listings and want to check something in the control center - Locast restarts. I can’t even use my password app to log in because doing so takes Locast out of the foreground temporarily, and so Locast restarts when the password app screen recedes.

This is very lazy programming.

The service is also apparently not maintained. Using the in-app trouble reporting mechanism, for the last 3 days I’ve reported the same station having audio and video out of sync, and another station having audio but no video.

by I Throw 99

I WANT to like Locast, I really do, but it’s just too “buggy” right now. I live in an area where local OTA channels are unavailable with an antenna due to being surrounded by mountains, so Locast should have been the perfect solution and allow me to ditch cable/streaming/etc. When it works, it’s great, but it often doesn't work well. On my AppleTV, I can’t even exit Locast without escaping through the ‘TV” button, as the HOME button won’t let me exit. The streams themselves are often spotty/interrupted//breaking up/etc, making it unwatchable. And the guide itself needs to allow me to increase the font size, as I practically have to be in front of the TV before I can see what the grid actually says. I’m so eager for Locast to work right that I've actually subscribed to it, but until they work out all the bugs, I can’t recommend it to anyone else, especially if you can already get OTA channels with a simple antenna at your location.

by Mrfinance9

Was working fine at first however, shows were often interrupted at inappropriate times with a plead for donations.

Okay, so I paid for 4 months in advance, great - no more interruptions and for a few weeks Locast was fairly good however, for sometime now, we have been experiencing audio / video synchronization issues using the this app Application.

I emailed support after clearing cache, rebooting etc. they suggested uninstall, re-install.

Did that, even after their recent update still no improvement, all I see on many of the limited channels is “video unavailable.”

I say limited ‘cause even when it was working, there were no digital channels like 7-1 etc.

In addition to often finding Washington, DC channels that either say “video unavailable” or where the screen just stays black or perhaps fades to a pixelated test pattern, now when a good video can be seen, the audio is 37 - 40 seconds ahead of the video.

It started with a few channels but has gotten worse, they all seem to be affected one way or another now.

What’s going on? I cleared my cache, I restarted my iPad and I have deleted and reinstalled the application as suggested but still no good.

If this isn’t fixed soon, like by tomorrow. I’m requesting a prorated refund as I cannot watch anything now.

by Lucille4

Like others, the channel display breaks up terribly, and freezes up since last week. Seems to have gotten worse. I have sent 2 emails to this app Support with no response. They usually take a while.....As mentioned in other reviews, I have de-installed and re-install Locast . On my iPad - no improvement. This reminds me of similar reception problems we used to sometimes have with an old Direct TV dish years ago when it rained- the Phila. channel 10 -for NBC won’t even load; Channel 6 ABC loads and breaks up constantly; channel 3 CBS is a little better, but unwatchable. Some of the higher local channels kind of work. So it’s like a reception gradient. Same poor performance on PC and iPad as on the Roku stick. I am open to any suggestions to fix this. Things were all working OK, with an occasional blip, until about a week ago. What happened!?

by Driftless1

What a great idea-—free area broadcast TV. Once you launch it on an IOS device or on your Mac, you’ll be asked for a $5-per-month donation, not bad for the service and it’s nice to support this app’s effort. However, even after you do donate, you continue to get viewing interruptions with pleas for ongoing donations that you’re already making. After the break, they kick you back to the program grid. Then good luck getting back your stream. I have emailed them numerous times and received prompt responses. It took them forever to
fix the problem, and after about a month of uninterrupted watching, the old problem returned. Shame on them for letting this go on. They’ve got my money, but once again, I have no service. Don’t pay until you know the issue has been fixed permanently.

by Bk D-lites

Free is free +the broadcast airwaves belong to the public in this country, furthermore, it’s my prerogative to donate or not. There’s not even any trial period to test &see how you like Locast w/o getting bombarded by begging ads wanting a donation;& they don’t let you choose the amount, only take PayPal contrary to their ad,&expect you to sign up for a monthly debit, thus not even allowing you to try it for 1 month, this is too heavy handed! I donate to PBS monthly EVEN when I DONT have a TV! They create content that contributes to society,& lucky for me I decided to read reviews on Locast before donating since I see that they still interrupt what you’re watching no matter how much you,”donate,”& FYI to the developers- free is free that means no cost,none. If you’re going to insist that ppl must pay,don’t try to frame it as a donation. Donations are an individual’s prerogative! You would be likely to receive donations if you’re not shaking ppl down for money and you have to cut the b.s. interruptions every 7 minutes! You’re just as greedy as everyone else out there!

by Plainerock124

Locast was hella nice to use in the beginning, I used it because prices for cable in my area are way too high for only 2-3 channels I actually use. I found Locast and thought it was one of those scam apps where it makes you play 50$ to watch a handful of channels, oh boy was I wrong. It was nice to watch shows for free and I didn’t have to pay to watch. I loved it, no paying to watch channels, no paying for special perks (besides the no ads thing). Then it went downhill, I had been getting into Chicago PD and would watch any of the episodes when it was on this app, then it would skip around, glitch out, the sounds would be very glitchy, the skipping around just ruined the whole thing.

If you could figure out why this is happening I would rate it 5 stars with a better review.

by PrestonNYC

I live in an area that while in the NYC media market, is beyond the range of any sort of over the air antenna. this app was a welcome addition, but there are many bugs. The good news: reception is clear and there is no latency, fuzziness, blinking or hanging. Great. What’s not great is that even though I pay the $5 a month they requested, I still loose reception every 15 minutes so that this app can dun me for a contribution. Hey guys, I already paid! This necessitates logging back on, and always occurs at inopportune moments. And forget about customer service. My emails on this subject are simply ignored. I’m a Sling Orange subscriber because I want ESPN, but for many people, subscribing to Sling Blue (which includes Fox and NBC) makes sense. Then take the $5 you give this app and use it for CBS all access.

by Joe Sylvia

I think it is good that you can watch local stations at a lower price. I do recommend donating $5 per month, because I did that, and I am not interrupted by that contribution every fifteen minutes anymore, which is nice. The main thing is the ABC affiliate in Manchester, NH, is not available on this app which is one thing I do not agree with since that station is part of the Boston media market. Yes, I do think that this app should be available in more media markets, and I think MeTV affiliates which in Boston are WCVB DT2 and WMUR DT2 should both be available on this app as well along with some other TV affiliates that are not yet available on this app, at least in the nine media markets this app is already available in. Other than those, I think that as long as you donate $5 a month to Sports Coalition, the parent company of this app, this should work out for you, at least in Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Washington DC, Baltimore, Denver, Houston, Dallas and Chicago.

by Jmarinez

First, I'm a huge supporter of Locast and have donated. Moreover, I believe in what they're doing and hope they win any legal prosecution they face. When they win, we all win.

So the issues... 2 mainly. One, on Apple TV, no matter what I've done, it just won't recognize the market I'm in and defaults to Washington, DC. iPhone version works as expected, much better than the AT&T Tv Now crap they've put out and I pay tons for.

Second, the site's support section has a "Sign In" button, which you would think would work with the same credentials you have for this app. But no. It somehow expects a different set of credentials. Fine, no problem, I'll create a new account just for support. But again, no. There's no way to create a new account for the knowledge base. Translation: New support tickets can't be created and hence here I am with my complaints. Could've easily been avoided and done privately via the support site.

Regardless, I hope you fix the issues, but don't want to discourage what you're doing. Keep up the good fight.

Thanks

by Ilikethekitty

Locast is interesting. If you live in one of the cities this app currently serves, you can get some local broadcast channels for streaming at no charge on your mobile device or compatible streaming box or stick.

However, as others have observed, the stations don't run for longer than 15-20 minutes at a time if you make a single donation (like I did). But $5 monthly to continue supporting this app's parent company is supposed to turn off interruptions, as one person has observed. They should also add more stations and expand to other markets in the future.

Other than that, this is an easy and affordable way to get local broadcast networks for on-the-go mobile viewing purposes.

by Anirban747

This initiative doesn’t deserve criticism the way few reviewers have done. Its true you have to donate a small sum of $5 to have uninterrupted viewing but thats justified to meet the costs by the people who are running this. No other service out there can give you these many important channels at this price. The airplay locking your device is true but can be lived with for now until they upgrade it. I truly appreciate their effort in bringing this to larger audience who do not get antenna signal and don’t wanna pay huge monthly subscriptions either. The $5 fee is an external payment system through paypal hence its not mentioned in here as in-app purchase. Please appreciate the good in the world rather than finger pointing at everything.

by Xanderbear

Being a cord cutter, in my area (Napa, California) most TV stations are difficult or impossible to receive via antenna. Even after hiring a company to install a powerful, yet ugly, antenna on top of my house, the reception is still horrible. Then in comes this app, providing a stream of local channels (PBS, NBC, ABC, etc) in my area (SF Bay) and for this I’m truly thankful.

The UI is simple and easy to navigate both on iPhone/iPad but also on AppleTV. The picture quality is great and extremely reliable. I couldn’t be happier with what this app is doing.

this app is a nonprofit serving communities as quickly as they can. They don’t have deep corporate pockets so rolling out will take time, but they’re getting there. But they can’t do any of this without your help, so please consider donating.

by Tal'sWife

Clearly people can’t understand the idea and painstaking hard work that went behind the idea of this app to leave a negative review. Locast was created by someone in the know that realized the disservice of the capitalistic minds in this field. If you can afford to give away your hard earned money again for a service you paid for with your tax dollars while billionaires continue to pad their pockets at your expense please go right ahead. On the other hand why demonize those who dare to speak for those without a voice.
Thank you Mr. G and your lovely wife for your time hard work and commitment to helping others with you expertise and experience. We the little people appreciate it greatly!

by KVM1748

This is a great service and worth donating to. It’s great in my area because I live in the woods on a mountain, so antenna service is not that great at times. The only problem that I have is when the this app ad comes on after you’ve been watching tv for a while. It’s not the ad , I don’t mind it at all. It’s the fact that it freezes up and you have to go completely back to get to the show you were watching. Maybe Just stick to the opening ad and don’t have one in the middle of the shows. Like I said this is a great service and I appreciate whoever created this . It’s been awesome in my area. I’ll spread the word ! Keep up the great work!