Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Audio / Video
  3. News

Comcast clarifies its free Xfinity Flex offer for internet-only customers

By
Image used with permission by copyright holder

In September, Comcast announced that it would be making its Xfinity Flex TV streaming box free for all of its internet-only customers. However, it turns out that not all internet-only customers will be getting the free offer — at least not right away.

If you rent your cable modem/router from Comcast, you get the Xfinity Flex for free, instead of needing to pay the usual $5 per month rental, and that offer was effective when the deal was announced. But Comcast failed to mention that the offer wasn’t quite ready for all of its customers, which led to a somewhat scathing report by The Verge claiming that the offer had disguised a hidden $13 per month fee (the amount of the modem/router rental).

Recommended Videos

Digital Trends contacted Comcast to get to the bottom of the issue. Here’s the company’s official comment:

When available later this year, Internet-only customers will not need to lease a gateway from Comcast to get Flex. Internet-only customers will be able to get Flex with the Xfinity-compatible gateway of their choosing. (More information on compatible equipment can be found here: https://mydeviceinfo.xfinity.com). And Xfinity Internet-only customers who currently lease our gateway can get Flex added to their account today at no additional cost.

So, bottom line? You do not need to rent your equipment from Comcast to get in on the free Xfinity Flex deal, but you can’t get it right away. Comcast declined to tell us exactly when “later this year” would be, but when pushed on the subject, we were told it would be “really soon.”

Launched in March 2019, Xfinity Flex was previously a $5 per month additional fee for internet-only Comcast subscribers.

Xfinity Flex is an IPTV product that packages up popular streaming apps like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, HBO, etc., along with free sources of streaming content such as YouTube, Pluto TV, Tubi TV, and Xumo in one easy-to-navigate experience. A new “Free to me” section within the Flex guide lets you see the more than 10,000 free shows and movies that are available via the free streaming options, according to Comcast. NBCUniversal’s Peacock service will be a future add-on option, as will Hulu. Flex users can buy or rent movies and shows via the built-in digital store, and if you’re a Movies Anywhere customer you can access your locker from the Flex interface too.

It’s all done on the Xfinity Flex set-top box, a small footprint 4K UHD device that comes with a voice-capable remote. Internet-only customers get the Flex box, the remote, and the option to lease additional Flex boxes for their other TVs at $5 per month.

Xfinity Flex provides cord-cutters with a well-designed tool that aggregates all of their streaming options in one place and in so doing, effectively creates a new competitor for Apple’s TV App, which aims to do the same thing. Xfinity Flex can also act as an internet and smart home control center, with options like seeing your Wi-Fi passwords, turning on and off Wi-Fi access to various devices in the home, viewing video feeds from their cameras and arming or disarming their home security systems.

Even more importantly from Comcast’s perspective, later this year, Flex subscribers can upgrade to the full range of Xfinity X1 cable channels — including a DVR function — should they decide that cutting the cord has proven too much of a sacrifice from a TV perspective.

If you’re an existing Flex subscriber, you should see your $5 per month fee automatically disappear from your bill, but if it doesn’t, contact Comcast to get it removed. If you’re an internet-only customer who wants to get on board with the free offer, you need to call or drop by a Comcast Xfinity retail store to pick up the free set-top box.

We’ll update this article once Comcast announces that the free offer has been made available to its non-rental-based internet-only customers.

Updated October 23, 2019: Added new details affecting Comcast internet-only customers who don’t rent their modem/router from the company.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Simon Cohen
Simon Cohen
Contributing Editor, A/V
Simon Cohen covers a variety of consumer technologies, but has a special interest in audio and video products, like spatial…
You have until June 9 to save $500 off an 85-inch Samsung The Frame TV
A painting being displayed on a Samsung The Frame QLED.

Looking for great TV deals? You still have time to save $500 on the Samsung 85-inch The Frame QLED TV when you head over to Samsung. It usually costs $4,300, but right now the popular and stylish TV is down to $3,800, making it more affordable than before. If you’re keen to invest in a large TV but love to save money too, this is a good opportunity. Here’s what you need to know about the TV before you decide to buy.

Why you should buy the Samsung 85-inch The Frame QLED TV
One of the best QLED TVs around, the Samsung 85-inch The Frame QLED TV is a delight in so many ways. At its core, it’s a fantastic QLED TV with 100% Color Volume with Quantum Dot technology saturating the screen with a billion colors. QLED adds a layer of quantum dots to a TV’s LED backlight with these dots, once exposed to light, emitting their own light with a high level of efficiency to provide great picture quality.

Read more
It’s your last chance to get up to $1,900 off a Samsung OLED TV
The Samsung S90C in a living room environment.

There’s still a little time left to snap up one of the best TV deals available today, with Samsung still selling the 83-inch S90C OLED TV for $3,500 instead of $5,400. The $1,900 discount is a pretty vast one and one that you certainly don’t want to skip. If you’re looking for a great new TV for your large living space, you’re going to love this deal. Let’s take a look at how great the Samsung S90C OLED TV is.

Why you should buy the Samsung 83-inch S90C OLED TV
Samsung makes some of the best TVs around and we’re huge fans of the Samsung 83-inch S90C OLED TV. It has an OLED panel so you get self-lit pixels which can light up independently of each other. That means that you can enjoy the deepest blacks and the brightest colors all on the same scene, ensuring you never miss a detail. The Samsung 83-inch S90C OLED TV uses a Neural Quantum Processor with 4K upscaling so its AI-powered processor can transform whatever you’re watching. There’s also HDR OLED which uses AI deep learning to analyze each scene, detecting areas that need to brighter, darker, or simply richer in color.

Read more
This Sonos Bluetooth speaker has a discount in time for beach weather
Sonos Roam SL in black on a rainy rock outdoors.

A day out at the beach. Cooking outside using a discounted grill or smoker. Pool party madness. What do they all three have in common? A lot of fun, but also a great chance to get any sound equipment ruined by a sudden downpour or a splash of inevitable water. That's why there are models of waterproof Bluetooth speakers, of which the Sonos Roam SL is one. And the good news is that you can get yours at a discounted rate before summer officially gets here. Right now, the Sonos Roam SL is just $127, which is $33 down from its typical price of $160. To get yours, all you need to do is tap the button below. Consider also reading below, as we examine the speaker and see why it is considered an easy pick up.

Why you should buy the Sonos Roam SL
The Sonos Roam SL is an easy-to-use, compact speaker for wherever you roam. Connect to it easily over Wi-Fi at home or Bluetooth on the go, giving you easy options to control the sound in a way that makes sense for you and your location. If you're at home and connected to your Wi-Fi system and have other Sonos speakers, you can even get the Sonos multi-room experience, which syncs everything in a nice way. So, you can keep the Sonos Roam SL out on the patio (where it might get rained upon) and keep the best Sonos speakers indoors and have a really cool, worry-free party experience that not many others will be able to replicate.

Read more