Humax Aura review

What Hi-Fi? Awards 2023 winner. A Freeview PVR and 4K Android streamer in one Tested at £249

Humax Aura smart PVR viewed at an angle on wooden unit in front of a TV
(Image: © Future)

What Hi-Fi? Verdict

As a Freeview PVR, the Humax Aura is solid, but its useability foibles and lack of Netflix give pause for thought

Pros

  • +

    Excellent recording and playback

  • +

    Full-bodied, exciting sound

  • +

    Useful Aura mobile app

Cons

  • -

    No Netflix app

  • -

    HDR picture could be better

  • -

    A bit sluggish in use

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Despite lacking an Oxbridge education, the Humax Aura PVR managed a double-first at launch by being not only Humax's first Freeview set-top box with Android TV, but also its first with 4K HDR support.

The Humax Aura can be a number of things to different people and it feels as though it has been priced to interest everyone. Its most obvious use is of course as a Freeview Play recorder, with enough internal storage options to capture hours of live Full HD and standard-definition television.

However, with its Android TV platform, you can also use it as a Chromecast with benefits – a way of adding over 5000 apps and streaming services to feed your television or projector with plenty of 4K fun. With its USB sockets, hi-res audio and 3D home cinema codec support, there’s an option to use it for local film file playback too – it’s quite the box of tricks.

Having first reviewed the Humax Aura back in 2021, our expert testers are now taking another look at it, primarily because its predecessor, the excellent FVP-5000T, has finally been discontinued.

Pricing

The Humax Aura costs £249 for the 1TB model, which can store up to 250 hours of HD (or 500 of SD) programming, and £279 for the 2TB model, which can store up to 500 hours of Full HD (1000 of SD) programming.

If you’re serious enough about live TV to want to record it on a regular basis, then the extra £30 for double the amount of space feels like a no-brainer.

Despite having now been available for roughly three years, the price hasn't permanently dropped, though slight, short-term discounts aren't unheard of.

Features

Humax Aura smart PVR remote being held

(Image credit: Future)

Humax has had great success with its What Hi-Fi? Award-winning FVP-5000T set-top box and, four years into its life, a replacement was long overdue when the Aura launched in 2020. For both specs and looks, the Aura was the upgrade we had been waiting for.

Stand the two next to one another and the sculpted lines of the low-slung Aura more easily fit into the category of contemporary industrial design, and while it's large by the standards of streaming boxes such as the Sky Stream Puck, it still looks fairly smart today. 

The Aura is a tidy 26cm by 20cm box that takes up about the same space as your wi-fi router. Its gloss black body is accented by an LED strip on the underside, which changes from red to blue to violet to orange depending on whether it’s off, on, recording or recording in standby. It’s a useful indicator and reminiscent of K.I.T.T from Knight Rider in standby mode.

But if it’s a party at the front of the Aura, then around the back is the serious business. Here you’ll find the single HDMI 2.1-out along with USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 (Type A) sockets for local media. There’s also an optical audio-out and a LAN connection if you’d rather leave the 2.4/5GHz wi-fi alone.

The Aura remote feels a bit cheap, particularly in the spongey buttons, but it's fully featured, with dedicated buttons for just about everything you could need, including shortcuts to streaming services, recordings, the guide, the Freeview Play platform and the Android TV homepage. You’ll need to pair the remote with the Aura box using Bluetooth for the Google Assistant voice system to work.

Humax Aura tech specs

Humax Aura

(Image credit: Humax)

Tuners x3

Ports HDMI 2.1, USB 3.0, USB 2.0, optical-out

OS Android TV 9

Freeview Play Yes

Storage 1TB/2TB

Dimensions (hwd) 4.3 x 26 x 20cm

Weight 764g

The Humax Aura’s three Freeview Play tuners bring access to over 70 non-subscription live TV channels and over 20,000 hours of on-demand entertainment through the catch-up services, with BBC iPlayer, ITV Hub, All 4 and My5 all present. Those tuners allow you to pause and rewind TV, as well as record up to four channels while watching a fifth one live.

The Aura mobile app is a handy tool in its own right. It brings a full view of the electronic programme guide (EPG) to your small screen and allows users to schedule recordings, watch recordings and even enjoy live TV on mobile – just the ticket for keeping track of Countdown while you put the kettle on.

The Aura’s big-screen offering is also bolstered by Android TV, and that means another 5000 or so apps from Google Play are at your disposal, with apps for big-hitters such as Disney+, Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV (including the excellent pay-as-you-go movie service), alongside some more niche but useful apps, such as Discovery+ (the new home of TNT Sports, previously known as BT Sport).

Humax Aura smart PVR viewed straight-on in front of a TV

(Image credit: Future)

There are significant gaps, though, most notably Now and the Netflix app. Somewhat ironically, Netflix is actually one of the few non-catch-up apps available on the older FVP-5000T. Fortunately, the Aura’s built-in Chromecast functionality allows users to cast these missing apps from mobile, tablet or browser instead, but that solution is far from ideal.

Away from the video side, the hi-res audio support is a welcome addition. It means those connecting the Aura to a decent external speaker system can get a strong performance from locally stored or streamed audio files, even if connecting through the HDMI, which can handle up to 24-bit/192 kHz levels.

You’ll need to download a third-party app such as VLC to play local media and Plex if you want to connect a NAS drive or similar from your home network. The Aura’s support for 4K HDR (HDR10 and HLG) and 3D audio codecs offers the potential to do justice to any high-quality movie files you own.

In our original review, we stated that the quad-core 1.8GHz CPU and 3GB RAM combo resulted in a snappy user experience, but in our recent re-test it feels a bit sluggish. You might assume that this is down to newer features and updates slowing the system down, but Humax itself hasn't issued a firmware update since 2021 – itself something of a concern.

The twinning of Freeview Play and Android TV doesn’t make for the easiest of combinations, either. Each offers its own home page experience, leaving the user unsure as to which one to use. You’ll find some apps on both, but others just on one, and both home pages have their own settings menus. Fortunately, the shortcuts on the remote mean that you can sometimes go straight to whatever it is that you’re looking for, but that doesn't really excuse the poor integration of the two interfaces.

Each interface is good in its own right, at least. We particularly like Freeview Play's Kids' Zone – a brightly coloured area with TV programmes specially selected for younger viewers. Content can be searched according to duration and timeslot, and parents can use this to block certain apps and channels from appearing.

Picture

Close up of Humax Aura smart PVR on wooden unit

(Image credit: Future)

The picture quality through the Freeview Play tuners in both SD and Full HD is every bit as good as that of the FVP-5000T. Watching Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is on BBC2, we get some inviting shots of a French antiques market on a cloudless summer’s day. The cobbled streets and stalls are bright and colourful, but with a realistic sense of tonality and texture.

The Aura trades a touch of detail for this better blending and, while some might prefer harder edges to stone walls, it feels like a well-judged decision from Humax. There’s a proper sense of complexity to the bright blue TV shelf as one of the bargain hunters haggles over a few Euros. It makes for a more natural aesthetic to the picture and feels believable when upscaled to 4K.

That arrangement is justified even further when switching to SD on the BBC News channel. Low-res content can seem particularly harsh and blocky when upscaled, but the Aura’s slightly softer approach smooths out a few more of those unwanted edges than its predecessor and adds some much-needed subtlety to clothing colours and skin tones.

However, the app platform is not quite as adept. Compared with a budget streaming stick, the Aura’s skill with a 4K HDR app is a little less assured than it might be. We watch The Boys on Prime Video and while the picture is punchy and dynamic, some of the finer detail is lost, particularly at the brightest and darkest extremes of the contrast spectrum. Viewing a scene set in the White House, the backlit silk curtains are missing folds in the material and the Aura doesn’t reveal the number of freckles on ex-CIA Deputy Director Grace Mallory’s skin that we might expect.

One aspect of the Aura's performance that has been improved since launch is the addition of comparatively straightforward dynamic range and refresh rate matching options. There are lots of specific settings here that you can dig into if you like, but there are also broader, catch-all options that should mean that even the uninitiated should get a consistent and smooth performance across different content types.

Sound

Humax Aura smart PVR viewed from above on wooden unit

(Image credit: Future)

The Aura’s hi-res music support offers an excellent opportunity to get good quality sound from this box through both locally stored files and streamed music services. Plugging it into our reference system, we fire up the Tidal Masters version of Fortunate Son by Creedence Clearwater Revival and, by the standards of PVRs and video streamers, we’re struck by how well it captures the recording.

There’s a spacious sound to the vocals and guitars that gives a fabulous feel to the acoustics of the room where the recording was made. Compared with other, similarly priced streaming products, there is an added dimension to the track. There’s a good dose of dynamics that brings excitement and character to all of the instruments. We can visualise the drums at the start of the track and every time the first snare of each bar is hit with an accent.

The back and forth between the guitar and the vocals is like listening to a conversation. It’s a cohesive sound from top to bottom and we feel confident that there’s little we’re missing in the music. Some streamers at this level might offer a touch more crispness to the rhythm, but not without some loss of the excitement we get with the Aura.

All of that translates to an enjoyably emotional feel for home cinema as we switch to AV with the Live Aid scene at the end of Bohemian Rhapsody on Prime Video. The thuds of the kick drum are wonderfully solid and offer a genuine sense of timbre and resonance as the pedal first hits the skin at the beginning of the set.

When Brian May plays his solo at the end of the piece, it’s like he’s making his guitar sing. Again, the sense of place is captured brilliantly in a credible rendition of the sound of the old Wembley Stadium full of 72,000 people clapping in time and singing along to Radio Ga Ga.

Sound such as this is a huge leg up for any home cinema device. Whether capturing the atmosphere of a rock concert or the special effects of an action scene, the Aura really delivers on this front.

Verdict

The Humax Aura does its main job well. It’s a good Freeview recorder for both Full HD and standard definition with an easy-to-use TV guide, plenty of space and handy remote recording features. The problem is that Humax has offered – and is charging – more this time around and this box doesn’t deliver these extras quite so well.

If you’re going to promise more apps, then the omission of the most popular one of all is an issue. You also need to make sure your handling of streamed TV and film content is up to the same high standards as the competition, and that isn’t quite the case with the Aura. Tacking on the Android TV platform also means that the overall user interface loses a little focus.

While the Aura is spot on for sound, we still recommend that you buy the cheaper but still brilliant Humax FVP-5000T while you still can, and add a Google Chromecast with Google TV if you also want streaming. The experience won’t feel much more split than the Aura already does but, more importantly, the smart offering will be more complete and a little better for picture quality too.

That said, if you have your heart set on a single-box solution for your TV recording and video streaming, the Aura is a solid choice.

SCORES

  • Picture 4
  • Sound 5
  • Features 4

MORE:

Read our guide to the best set-top boxes

Read our Humax FVP-5000T review

What Hi-Fi?

What Hi-Fi?, founded in 1976, is the world's leading independent guide to buying and owning hi-fi and home entertainment products. Our comprehensive tests help you buy the very best for your money, with our advice sections giving you step-by-step information on how to get even more from your music and movies. Everything is tested by our dedicated team of in-house reviewers in our custom-built test rooms in London, Reading and Bath. Our coveted five-star rating and Awards are recognised all over the world as the ultimate seal of approval, so you can buy with absolute confidence.


Read more about how we test

  • abacus
    Seems like most things these days, in that you buy something but have to wait for firmware updates before you get what you payed for.

    Bill
    Reply
  • The_Burg
    I do wonder if you actually lived with this box for a while.?
    Major issues with lip sync, constantly need to reboot to solve it.
    Unable to play from usb or network without apps. Picture and sound well below the FVP5000. You can't back up recordings to USB nor transfer to the hard disk.
    Lots of potential, sadly very poor implementation.
    The app only talks when on the same network too, so of little real use. Streaming on a tablet whilst someone else is watching on the device creates even more synch issues.
    I bought it back in November, wish I'd sent it back. Persevered as I expected the issues to be sorted quickly with updates.
    Humax peaked with the Fox HDR which was brilliant and worked really well. The 5000 was ok, but could forgive for the extra features.
    The Aura.....
    Reply
  • daneel
    As an FVP-5000 owner, I wouldn't touch Humax products with a barge pole, if folk are saying that the Aura isn't as good as the 5000, then it must be even more dreadful than the dreadful FVP-5000
    Reply
  • schree
    After living with an Aura for a year. I do not recommend it.

    There are too many glitches - reboots during watching TV or catchup too much. The chromecast builtin youtube casting stops working.

    Support are not helpful. Just factory resets are offered. There has not been any firmware update for a long time. Feels like its unsupported and out of date.

    I think you need to update your review with this sort of input.
    Reply
  • Mike Shippers
    The Aura isn't up to Humax's normal high standards. I have loved Humax's FreeSat and then the previous via-ariel Freeview versions of this set-top box for the last 14 years and upgraded last year. This has been nothing but buggy and irritating.

    The ultimate test of any piece of tech kit is would you buy it again or recommend it to someone you care for? Nope. Even the way the remote control is layed out is rushed and not intuitive. The button to find your recordings is hidden away and too small. I'm constantly miskeying and once you press the wrong button you lose what you were trying to do and clear the cached program you were trying to watch.

    When rewinding, unlike previous versions, you could see the clock time making it easy, say to find the BBC's One O'Clock News, they've changed to cached total time and it's now a pain in the Botticelli. Everything about it is clunky and awkward. It lacks the ability to control it with your voice assistant, and for the first time in 14 years, I regret buying a Humax bit of kit.

    There are so many rushed decisions that don't work (but did perfectly on previous incarnations) or are clunky. When watching cached programmes, it intermittently blacks-out every 3 or 4 minutes and misses bits, and they still haven't dealt with the glaring deficiencies in the EPG or sorting of recorded items. Spoke to supplier John Lewis' tech team and did a reset, but this hasn't resolved this particular issue. This box has so many niggles, it compounds them and makes it an issue.

    There are brief reviews that return great results - on the face of it - and there's owning and living with a piece of tech that constantly irritates, lets you down and fails to deliver. The Aura is not a good piece of kit.
    Reply
  • RichSM
    Same manufacturer as the BT TV set top boxes, which offer pretty much the same functionality - they are old and slow now, but it does the job.
    Reply
  • Chris Owen
    Thinking about getting the Aura as a Freeview replacement for my aging Humax Foxsat (freest).
    But I can't get to grips with how it handles advert deletion on playback. The fox sat has a dedicated button to fast forward by a programmable amount (mine is 2 mins) but the Aura doesn't have this, although it does have a fast forward button. How does everyone do this ?
    Reply