I have been using Channels for about a year and a half on mostly Shield's and Fire TV Sticks. I generally use remote viewing at original quality away from the house as I have 100 mbps up and bandwidth is not an issue. I stream OTA broadcast, tve and Hauppauge tuner streams. The Shield is of course reliable. The HD Fire Sticks have always stuttered and I just make a habit of pausing a channel for about 5 seconds after starting it. The 4k Sticks were a bit better but not perfect and the most recent generation of 4k stick might be a slight improvement but still is slow to load and stutters far to much to be a reliable full time tv service provider. I usually use software mode but toggle sometimes back to hardware.
Today on a whim I purchased the new Chromecast with Google TV. This thing is lightning fast to load apps, including channels, has a great picture and has not stuttered or paused once. I have it in hybrid mode. Honestly, it has outperformed the Shield so far in being smooth and responsive. Has anyone else made the switch to these devices and found them to be reliable and had bad luck with the Fire Sticks. Does the Google device have better specs or is it just running a more polished and/or stripped down version of Android TV? I am really liking this device so far but only have one and would like to hear other users input before I swap out 10 or so Fire Sticks. Still need the Shield for its 4k HDR and vast surround support.