I have my locals connected to my SlingTV thru the AirTV add on (you can plug in a hard drive and have dvr too).I prefer the smartTV route while the TVs are new. As they age, I just add a current gen Roku.
My dads smartTV had the slingTV app. He likes watching CU and UW when theyre not on where he lives. I logged in for him and it would not show my locals or my AirTV dvr. That limitation of the app ticked me off.