Netgem TV Drops UK Price of PLEIO Freely Streaming Box Back to £99
Digital entertainment platform Netgem TV appears to have responded to British company Manhattan TV’s recent launch of Aero (here), which is a budget friendly (£69.99) 4K set-top-box that supports the new broadband-based live TV streaming service – Freely, by dropping the price of their own rival PLEIO box back from £ to its original launch price of £99.
Until a few short months ago there weren’t any streaming set-top-boxes with support for Freely, but over the past few months we’ve seen a bunch of new kit enter the market, including at the premium end with the Humax FHR-6000T (Aura EZ 4K Freely Recorder) for £249.
By comparison, neither Netgem TV’s PLEIO (retail via Amazon – affiliate link) nor Manhattan TV’s Aero are designed to fully record TV shows. Both are fairly standard but capable set-top-boxes with Freely support, while the PLEIO also ships with the added bonus of 12 months subscription to their premium content service (you don’t have to keep the subscription after it ends); this normally costs £9.99 per month. The PLEIO subscription includes access to 250+ Cloud Games and 150+ extra channels.
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Netgem TV previously had to raise the price of PLEIO due, we understand, to issues with the rising cost of RAM (system memory) and other components. At the time of writing, RAM costs remain high and yet the company has now been able to drop their price back down to £99 and while still retaining the inclusive subscription offer. This is said to be part of a special “Valentine’s offer“, but it could also be seen a response to competition.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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Is there an official reason not to just make Freely available as an app on existing devices?
I can speculate sure, but I’m curious about any officially stated reason.
I was thinking the same. If they want people moved over to Freely by the early 2030s, surely getting out to an Android, iOS & webOS would be a good way to gain quicker adoption.
There has usually been a vague reference to the need for specific hardware in order to support Freely’s modern features, although they’ve rarely been specific. Some issues of exclusivity may also be at work.
Old school thinking involving device whitelisting, manufacturers paying licensing fees, and the content owners not paying for their own development. It’s why there are still TVs coming on the market that lack a random app like Channel 4 or, occasionally, iPlayer.
@Alastair
That would be my guess along with copy protection concerns, but I was curious if there is anything officially stated, especially if there is actual technical reasons I may not know of like Mark talks about.
Current business model, the next step will be either an app or administration.
Might also be some clumsy attempt at geofencing too.
Freely is not available on mass-market streaming devices like Fire TV or Roku, and that’s completely by design. The PSBs (BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5) spent years distributing their services as apps inside other peoples’ ecosystems, where they were just more apps competing for attention and subject to platform rules. That meant limited control over prominence, user experience, advertising and future strategy.
Freely changes that. Free from platform restrictions, it gives the PSBs a unified EPG, a broadcaster-controlled environment for dynamic FAST channel line-up changes and ad-supported monetisation and — crucially — a guaranteed prominence layer. In effect, it’s the IP successor to Freeview rather than just another streaming app.
That also explains why some TV manufacturers — mainly at the budget end — were quick to collaborate with Freely. Unlike Samsung, LG or Sony, they don’t run their own TV platforms and instead rely on third-party systems such as Android TV or TiVo, with all the limitations that brings. Freely gives them a ready-made, PSB-approved live TV platform that aligns with Ofcom expectations, avoids app-store negotiations entirely and clearly differentiates their TVs from the sea of generic Android TV devices.
why is the PLEIO Puck not available for sale on Currys?
One of the official reasons is the hardware’s screening against streaming and game piracy.
The availability of a dedicated box from a recognised brand for £69 surely kills off the idea of paying £30 more to play cloud games. It didn’t work for Ouya in 2013 (I bought one of those to have an Android box connected to my bedroom TV back in the day), didn’t work for Google’s Stadia, and won’t work for the Pleio.
I will be waiting for the Manhattan, Currys lists it as out of stock & and it is yet to appear at Amazon or John Lewis. Unless you want the games it seems the far better option.
@Alastair: I have to disagree. For starters Netgem is a well-established and reputable box maker, and is most certainly recognised by those who matter – its customers like ISPs and Everyone TV.
There isn’t a comparison between Ouya and Pleio as Pleio isn’t a games platform – it’s a cloud-gaming endpoint. Ouya failed because it needed developers to build games, users to buy them and a store to succeed. Pleio needs none of that as the games already exist in the cloud and its gamepad is ready to work immedaitely as it auto-pairs with the puck. So, no downloads, no installs, no patches and no console updates.
There also isn’t a comparison between Stadia and Pleio as Stadia was targeted high-end gaming needing ultra-low latency, high bandwidth whilst Pleio is for casual gaming needing normal latency.
In other words Pleio is a TV platform with optional gaming and with a £30 price difference between Pleio and Aero, it’s reasonable to assume that much of the premium is for Pleio’s bundled wireless game controller – which looks pretty good value to me.