Mohu - Leaf Supreme Pro Indoor Amplified HDTV Antenna 65-Mile Range - Black/White

As with any TV antenna, they give you the best scenario of some mile range and you will see the chart on the display showing your local area and location of transmitters and think “Wow, I’m only 45 miles away, I should get 45+ channels.” Well, what they don’t really tell you is that there are a lot of things between you and them that will easily interfere with those “perfect numbers.” So, no matter what antenna you decide to go with, it will always depend on many factors that you can’t control. What it really comes down to is what lengths are you willing to go through to get more channels. Sure, a powered outdoor antenna can get you all those channels, provided you get 10 feet above the average roof. But, like myself, I’m renting and not climbing out there. So, I need something that is easy and not permanent. The Mohu Supreme Pro is as simple as hanging a poster and conveniently has an integrated signal indicator to help you figure out what is the best wall to stick it to, once connected to USB.. Even though it claims to be multi-directional, there are still other factors that help increase your chances of a stronger signal. For me, the north side of my house is in the general direction of the major city and in the window I could get 2-3 lights, while the west wall never saw more than one. Like I mentioned, I’m renting, so the included Velcro stickers make it easy to install and easy to remove from the window. It also came with a couple pins for minimal impact on drywall. It also has a black side and a white site and with the white side facing out in my window, you can barely notice it against the blinds. However, it does still have the LEDs when powered on. Once connected I was able to get 20 channels in my location and everyone of them maintain crystal clear reception. According to an antenna site, I am getting channels 44 miles away in my rural home.For me there was a mix of HD and standard stations and 4 were duplicates from another tower, so I get 16 unique channels. Now it is just hard to believe we used to watch those old TV shows at such low resolution. Every location will be unique and in a month or so I will be using it in a different city in which I hope I get similar results. Considering it only took me a few minutes to install, I didn’t have to do anything crazy to get it set up and I’m getting the local channels I was looking for, this is well worth it to me.

Since we’ve “cut the cable cord”, we’ve been trying a variety of indoor air FB antennas- and this one has been by far the best. Our location is about 20 miles SE of Philadelphia, and unfortunately our family room is at the back of the house so it’s not the best location for capturing air waves. We generally get 35+ channels - but never ABC and its affiliates- but that’s OK, as we can stream it on our Samsung TV Plus stations. NBC, CBS, and Fox are solid. Really like the green light signal status on the antenna. Pleased with this indoor air tv antenna that we’ve been using for about a month.

Exceeds all expectations. This falls in stations I didn’t think it would be possible to pull in. Super easy to install, and because of the signal strength meter installs quickly as well. I have owned other leaf antennas before but none has come up to the quality and power of this model. I now own three of them.

PROs: - Well-appointed package will probably meet most modest cable-cutting requirements straight out of the box--antenna (not overlarge, about the size of an opened coffee table book--that's it below sitting near the base of our 58" plasma), soft-coated coax cable (white, flexible, long--but not overlong), and USB-powered amp are all provided as separate units to allow flexibility of placement (for example, if you need to swap out for a much longer or even shorter coax cable run); included mounting pins and Velcro patches mean no trips to the hardware store once you finally settle on placement - Dual-sided antenna is white on one side, black on the other; with two sets of included white and black-colored mounting pins (if you don't want to use the adhesive Velcro patches), you have at least some small degree of ability to color-coordinate with your home theater or TV setup - Integrated LED signal meter allows real-time assessment of placement options prior to installation...actually a useful feature for product setup without having to constantly run and refer to the TV's own signal meter (especially problematic if you decide to mount it up high in a window or on a wall that's not necessarily facing the TV - Flat profile and [mostly] unassuming appearance should allow you a great deal of flexibility for placement out in the open without too much worry about clashing with the decor - Once dialed in for maximum picture quality (3-4 dots on the signal meter), well-powered DTV signals mirrored the cable-box quality picture we got from our DVR CONs: - We live in a relatively well-developed suburban bedroom community about 13 miles from the city's downtown area--DTV reception was, sadly, not what I was hoping for--of the 9 channels the FCC's DTV reception map indicated as "strong" signals for our location (towers between 8 to 28 miles away), I could snag only three channels (PBS, Fox, and one public access channel) no matter where I pointed the antenna or how high (or low) I mounted it on the wall or in nearby windows facing a different direction - The included instructions tell you to use a USB input on your TV (let's hope you have one!) or a USB charger you likely already have lying around the house (because there is not one in the box) to power the amplifier--after multiple failed attempts to power my antenna (9 different chargers!!!), and even replacing the first unit because we figured it was likely defective, the ONLY power source that would operate the amplifier was the USB port on our TV which, from a purely aesthetic standpoint, was not an ideal solution in our case - Once you finally "hang" your antenna in place, the LED signal indicator is bright enough to become a bit intrusive unless the antenna is hidden behind the TV or a picture or covered with tape or paint (see attached image of the signal meter at full strength as it pulls in a signal from the nearby Fox affiliate) - Despite being billed as having an omni-directional design, the built-in signal meter confirmed that "pointing" the antenna did increase signal strength--in the case of the public access station near us, turning the antenna a bit during setup actually meant the difference between a jittery signal with some dropouts and a beautiful, rock-solid picture Summary review: The design/concept of this antenna is great--perfectly flat and unobtrusive, easy to mount and/or paint, with a modular design between the antenna, coax, and inline amplifier, that allows for greater placement flexibility if the included coax cable is either too long for your comfort, or too short for your needs. The integrated signal meter is also pretty handy for getting things dialed in just right by giving you real-time visualization on just how strong a signal you've got. For the signals we did receive via this antenna, one channel was clearly highly compressed with blocky MPEG compression artifacts that made it look like an old-school Internet video from the late 90s...but you can't hold source quality against the Mohu. For those channels broadcast with high quality HD streams, the picture was actually quite striking with that same sort of high-def "pop" you would expect from a good HDTV channel displayed from a cable box or HD Netflix/Amazon stream. Soooo...if you CAN pull in a channel from a network affiliate you're after, I think you'll like the results. That said, my underwhelming results at pulling in available DTV signals suggests you head into a product like this with your eyes open, and maybe do a little research beforehand with the FCC's digital TV reception website to get a sense of what you MIGHT be able to expect if your installation is successful. In truth, I don't know if I can actually fault the Mohu for my results because I have no idea how much of our home's construction and the surrounding geography truly affected DTV signal reception in my house. Maybe we need an attic or even outdoor antenna despite how close we are to so many broadcast towers (I couldn't even pull in the NBC station broadcast from only 11 miles out, but the PBS station from 28 miles away came in beautifully); but there's no denying that at least given our unique combination of terrain/surrounding geography and housing/nearby construction, indoor signal reception was spotty to poor at best. There were a few issues I experienced in both use and installation that bear mentioning. First, there doesn't appear to be any way to turn off the integrated green LED signal meter. Don't get me wrong, it's a GREAT little tool for getting the antenna optimally positioned and set for mounting--but once it's up, glued, taped, pinned, or painted in place, what's the point of keeping them shining in your face unless you're constantly pulling the antenna down from the wall and repositioning it? Now, they do look a tad brighter in the photo I've attached to this review than they actually are in practice--but not by much; in a dark room, they're still bright enough to cast a green glow that's difficult to miss unless the entire unit is hidden away--a small switch that allows you to turn off the LEDs would have been greatly appreciated, especially if you don't use your TV's USB port to power down the antenna when the TV isn't turned on. Second, the first time we plugged the antenna's USB power amp into our TV's USB port, we got a warning message on the screen that the port's power capacity was exceeded. Fine, I thought--I have lots of AC-to-USB power adapters lying around. Out they came, one-by-one...a USB adapter for an old set of earbuds, an Amazon-branded charger for our Kindle, an OEM Apple iPhone charger, a larger OEM Apple iPad charger, a spare switching AC charger that came with one of our USB-powered sleep sensors, a Sumsung cell phone charger, an Aukey 2-port USB charger, a 60W 6-port Anker USB charging hub...and on and on. In the end, I had nine different AC adapters strewn about the living room, but nothing worked. I exchanged the entire setup for a new one to give the Mohu a fair shake...but again, I couldn't get a single USB charger/power adapter to light up the antenna's LEDs and power the amp on the new unit. Then, for grins, I plugged the new amp back into our TV's USB port (the one that the original power amp's current draw was supposedly too high for)--boom, the antenna's LEDs lit up and a DTV channel jumped onto the screen. Unfortunately, our living room TV has side-access USB ports, presumably to make for quick and easy removal of an attached thumb drive...but if I wanted to keep the antenna powered up via the TV's USB port, I'd have to contend with a white USB connector sticking straight out the side with no way to hide it or the USB cable before it runs up the wall to the antenna. Now, I can't rightly say if you'll have the same experience I did, but the fact that two separate Mohu units were so picky about their USB power requirements suggest to me a somewhat hit-or-miss affair when it comes to those needing the power amp to improve signal reception (FWIW, the unit CAN be used un-powered as a passive DTV antenna). It's unfortunate that Mohu simply didn't include its own AC adapter in the box, one rated specifically to supply the power the amp was designed to draw. Any maybe I was just unlucky because for the few channels I COULD bring in, the picture quality was indeed as a cord-cutter might hope--cable-quality good! But the overall experience was just so troublesome that I can't rightly ignore my limited success, either--I would have trouble unequivocally recommending this setup.

The rise of online movie and TV show streaming has made cord-cutting an attractive proposition for those who would get minimal use out of an expensive cable subscription. While these fill most of TV’s void a la carte, local sports and news remain very much broadcast affairs, leaving online streamers with a hole in their ideal programming lineup. Mohu gained an early lead in the digital antenna market with attractive designs and competitive pricing over their basic rivals, becoming synonymous with the cord-cutting movement. The Mohu Leaf Supreme Pro Indoor HDTV Antenna is the company’s flagship indoor model, advertising up to 60 miles broadcast range when used in conjunction with the powered inline signal amplifier. In a distant suburb from a major city, the Leaf Supreme Pro brings in signal from the furthest distance I’ve seen yet in an indoor HDTV antenna, making this the best alternative to cable I’ve yet seen. - Unboxing and Setup Mohu includes everything you need to get started, including a generous 16 foot coaxial cable, a USB power amplifier, basic instructions (not that setting up an antenna is a very complicated affair), and an assortment of mounting hardware that includes both color-matching push pins to hang the antenna on drywall and a set of adhesive velcro tabs for a less damaging approach. The only issue I had here was unrolling the antenna itself which creased some in shipping but I was able to smooth out before mounting in my window. Connecting to the TV was as straightforward as can be, and the inline signal amplifier receives enough power from a standard USB service port on most TVs to operate normally. The Leaf Supreme Pro has a signal quality indicator that goes from 1 to 4 bars while the antenna is plugged in and the TV is on, which makes for quick positioning without the need to test signal quality for a few minutes with each move. I ended up placing mine behind a window shade that rarely gets rolled up, keeping it completely out of sight and out of mind with minimal signal interference from other walls and furniture. - Reception Your broadcast TV experience will vary based on your proximity to the broadcast tower, terrain, elevation, and signal interference from nearby sources. In any case, the signal needs to be mostly complete and un-distorted when it reaches your antenna if you want clear TV. In my case, I’m located among some hills with no direct line-of-sight to any broadcast tower, and as a result I’m usually only able to pull down a handful of nearby stations with a standard antenna. The amplifier will do just that - amplify, not correct or fill in any gaps - so in the end the signal still needs to be accurate for the amplifier to do its job. With just four channels coming in on an unamplified antenna that also claimed 60 miles range, my expectations were low. Turns out most of the distant city’s stations are indeed reaching me, albeit with weak signals, and using the Leaf Supreme Pro’s amplifier jumped me from four channels to a whopping 22. The 18 new stations I picked up are broadcasting from a metro center about 50 miles from my house, nearing the edge of the Mohu’s range, and for the most part were coming through perfectly clear. This is still short of the 26 stations that the Mohu website claims I will receive for my zip code, but I’m still impressed by how many I’m able to pull down without too much trouble. Of course, since signal quality is dependent on many external factors, there were times (notably, when weather was involved) that the most distant stations would fade in and out. This was to be expected, and no amount of re-positioning the antenna was able to overcome these. In my entire time testing across multiple positions on the top floor of my house, I was unable to achieve more than one “bar” on the Mohu’s quality indicator, which is no fault of Mohu in this regard. The four stations I received on the unamplified antenna still came in perfectly clear at all times. - Value This is pretty much my only major sticking point. The Mohu Leaf Supreme Pro is an excellent HDTV antenna that pulls in over-the-air television well beyond its un-amplified brethren, but at a suggested retail price of $89.99, it’s going up against some serious cost-conscious competition. It’s entirely possible that Mohu’s amplification circuits and antenna patterns are better optimized from their lead in the HDTV antenna space, but it’s still quite the pricey option for an antenna. That being said there is value to be had in getting “the best of the best” from the get-go, and Mohu’s devices fit that bill. - Bottom Line For any cord cutter living reasonably close to a metropolitan center, an HDTV antenna is a must, and no company does them better than Mohu. Though pricier than rivals, the Mohu Leaf Supreme Pro Indoor HDTV Antenna is a great buy that pulls in more channels than I thought would be possible in my location, which is an achievement in itself. It’s an elegant solution to mount to your wall or in a window, and barring using a gigantic rooftop antenna that I’m sure most landlord would disapprove of installing, this is the best that you can get. Check your TV channel availability at gomohu.com, compensate for range, elevation, and interference, and if you’re still on board then make this your one-and-done purchase for over-the-air HDTV. Recommended!