Teething Problems for Early UK Sky Glass Internet TV Adopters
The first of Sky’s customers recently began to receive the operator’s new Sky Glass TV product. But quite a few of the early adopters appear to be running into a variety of problems and bugs with the operator’s attempt at a Sky branded TV, which streams their content via your broadband ISP instead of a satellite dish.
Sky Glass is essentially a modern “Quantum Dot” QLED 4K and HDR capable TV set that also integrates Sky’s TV services via broadband (see full details). Prices for just the Sky Glass TV itself start from £13 per month, which includes their base 43″ TV on a 48-month interest free loan (£26 over 24 months) or you can also pay £649 upfront instead of the monthly fee. A bigger Medium (55″) and Large (65″) set exist at extra cost.
However, it’s perhaps not surprising that such a radical new approach (or product) for accessing Sky’s TV content has not come without a few teething problems, which is something that a good number of early adopters appear to be experiencing. Sky’s Community Forum is positively packed with related complaints from unhappy users (examples here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here and here etc.).
One of our readers, Kay (OhKay#Social#Media#Pulse), has been kind enough to help compile a list of gripes. Take note that many of the bugs are sporadic and won’t necessarily occur for you.
Sky Glass Bugs and Problems
➤ One of the most common complaints is that the Sky Glass TV set suffers from some kind of occasional flickering / blinking fault on the screen and malfunctions in the navigation system. Replacement Sky Glass TV sets also seem to suffer from the same fault.
➤ Sky Glass customers sometimes experience picture freezes or screen lag and, on other occasions, the TV will fail to turn on. Some TV channels also won’t start and report that there is a “technical problem” and to “try later“.
➤ The Sky puck is sometimes unable to turn on after standby (even when overnight power saving is off), with some customers having to unplug it and plug it back in again each time they want it on. Others have also found that the picture from the puck drops out, which again requires a restart to resolve.
➤ Various problems with recording programmes, such as some programmes not recording and long delays in recorded programmes becoming available to view.
➤ Some customers find that when they add anything to their playlist and have watched it, but then select remove, they still show and stay there. Speaking of the playlist, there are quite a few gripes about the way it directs users to Apps for the terrestrial TV channels on any related content added to the playlist.
➤ Lots of missing programmes on the TV guide, such as some from Channels 4 and 5.
The above list is not exhaustive, but we don’t have a lifetime to spend sifting through and identifying all the Sky Glass launch bugs that exist from the veritable mountain of complaints. Suffice to say, it’s not at all surprising that a few early adopters have opted to take advantage of the 31-day return window to seek a refund (i.e. rather than risk being stuck with a potentially defective product for a prolonged period).
We queried some of these issues with Sky and were informed that only a “very small number” of customers have opted to return their Sky Glass kit. The good news is that at least some of the aforementioned bugs, such as the flicker faults, do have a fix on the way, but this must go through Sky’s verification and test process before it can be deployed (sounds like a software patch, albeit one without a clear ETA).
Meanwhile, for those suffering from picture freezes and start-up problems, Sky simply indicated that customers who have concerns should call them, so they can investigate and find the best solution. But it appears as if Sky’s software development team will have its work cut out over the next few months. Meanwhile, others considering Sky Glass might prefer to wait until such teething problems have been resolved.
Sky also sent along this bit of information about the new Playlist feature.
Sky Glass Playlist etc.
We have reinvented recordings with our new Playlist feature, which brings together in one place all the programmes you have added from the TV guide, on demand and apps. The benefit is that you don’t have to jump from an app to a channel or search through our on demand catalogue to find what to watch next.
– You can add programmes from TV guide, during playback and when browsing the menus. This includes programmes from all major apps including Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, BBC iPlayer, ITV Hub and All4; so you can access all your favourite shows together in one place
– Adding a series and Playlist pulls every available episode past, present and future into one place.
– Everything in your Playlist is streamed, so there’s no need to worry about clashes, running out of storage or having to delete anything you’ve watched Playlist is sorted into categories so you can find what you want quickly and easily – TV shows, Movies, Kids and Sport, as well as your favourite channels
– When you watch a show from Playlist, it plays back from wherever the programme is available – it could be live TV, a cloud-based recording, video on demand stream or from within an app. Recordings are available for most of our partner channels but unfortunately, it’s not possible for everything. BBC, ITV (STV, if you’re in Scotland) and Channel 4 shows are available via their apps, and all of the content is available to search and add to your Playlist.
– BT Sport and Music channels are the key examples of channels that cannot be recorded. You can add programmes from BT Sport and music channels to your Playlist, however for live sports and music channels you can only restart them or watch live during broadcast.
– In some cases, our channel partners only have rights for shows to play out on a channel and only a few episodes (and in some cases no episodes) are available via on demand and the show may not be available for recording. In this scenario, if the show is still being broadcast you can restart it from the beginning. If you add it to your Playlist and then watch it back after the broadcast, you may be provided a link to an app such as Netflix or Disney+ to watch the show back instead. An example of this is The Big Bang Theory on E4.
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 Twitter, Google+, Facebook and Linkedin.
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It also seems that the Freeview element of the tv only works if the internet goes down, so you’re stuck if there’s a channel on Freeview or Sky Q that isn’t on the Sky Glass EPG unless you add a separate Freeview STB or streaming device to access it.
My thoughts on Sky not offering the internet version of Sky through a Q style box and hence competition, aside, it’s not surprising that early adopters struggle with bugs. It happens with almost every facet of computing, especially the more complex stuff, and what we have here really is a giant tablet computer masquerading as a TV. 🙂
Give it a year or so and it will be a whole different product, running much more smoothly than what we see now and will be very nice to use.
Thing is Sky have been testing this for months so just how did they miss the issues?
It’s not like they can blame customers equipment compatibility issues like they do with Sky Q.
They are working on fixes and workarounds now. As you say it will be resolved in due course. Others say they have been testing this for months, but those months have not had the same amount of users and circumstances as the testing. I am confident it will be good very soon
@RaptorX The fact that the product is a TV is irrelevant to the bugs. The SoC that the software runs on would be very similar in a streaming box.
@Winston Smith I think you’ve misunderstood what I’ve said. That argument does not negate what I said.
haha Sky are always useless but problems all the time!
Avoid Sky at all cost!
Makes you think what testing took place before the unit was launched, to kink out any bugs, or did they rush this out to market.
After the 30 day return window you could argue that the unit isn’t fit for purpose and return it under various consumer regulations, if the problems highlighted here and on the sky forums continue.
I am awaiting the undercover Sky marketing team to start posting here about how great the experience is for them. Maybe a bit too early on a Saturday for them 🙂
Sky using Microsoft’s play book, launch a unfinished product them work on the defects, good job the automotive industry isn’t the same, oh yes no they are moving that way with OTA updates.
I don’t think it’s unrealistic to expect a finished and polished product at launch.
AFAIC one of the really major gripes is the absence of volume control on the Sky remote when you use an external sound system. Sky claim that their new product will “declutter” your devices. Having to use two remotes – one for the tv and the other sound system remote for the volume control tends to negate this claim. I would regard this a serious shortcoming and together with the patronising banner on the screen that I am using an external sound source so I will not be able to use the “wonderful” sound options built into the tv doesn’t help.
Poor product. If you’re happy replacing Sky Q with ‘this’, you weren’t using Q properly in the first place.
Other than for a few who are not allowed a dish why would anyone go for a poor product like this? it just doesn’t make sense.
Looking at the issues in detail, this is shockingly bad. Yes, there are usually launch niggles like I mentioned, but this thing is half baked and not fit for purpose as it is. Of course, Sky gets away with this, because people really want access to the content and successive updates are gonna fix the problems – eventually. It makes one wonder what goes on behind the scenes to release a new product in this state. In my opinion, this points to significant corporate management issues.
I suspect they already had a container load of TVs delivered and needed to launch ASAP. I have a feeling launch dates are more to do with the hardware being manufactured and delivered than the underlying formware/software being ready , which can be updated as and when required. So you often find new products which have known flaws being made available for sale, waiting for the software to be fixed later.
@Squidgy Yes, that sounds quite plausible.
I understand the drive to move away from satellite delivery, it costs a lot of money and you have to hope the technology you load into the satellite will still be able to deliver the latest picture and audio standards for a long enough period to realise full RoI. However Sky Glass fees like it’s not successfully doing what it’s set out to. It feels like Sky want to move to a more cable like platform however Sky Glass is clearly not delivering this by trying to be ISP neutral it is essentially a dressed up version of NowTV with a full TV guide, as opposed to NowTVs Now & Next. It feels like a fully mature product would use Multicast and tie it into Sky broadband and actually have a real DVR. Now, I’m not a fan of locking people into a specific ISP. But, this approach would seem more logical and allow Sky Glass to be less of the hodgepodge it is now.
Eggs…basket…
All the complaints, Sky Q was just as buggy at launch. So we can only presume Sky Glass will be the same and will eventually have the bugs ironed out. But with Sky it’s best to not buy there first gen products, then you won’t be penalised later on for not having HDR on your first gen Q box and being asked to pay money for one that does, which you will still be renting from Sky.
You do not rent any boxes from sky!!
Dont need have Firestick which I have added apps which has scrappers to accesss paid content free
Which is theft, but I guess you don’t care!!
Piracy is NOT theft!
It is, you’re stealing intellectual property
The UK courts seem to disagree with you.
Under law it’s copying without permission.
No it’s not couldn’t careless about the law when it come to piracy I been doing it for years BitTorrenting since 2008
Haven’t been caught by the copyright trolls these movie actor get overpaid like the footballers in prem league so I condone piracy .
Moving to IPTV is a sensible move for Sky, however Glass… not so much.
The satellites at 28.2e are all 7-9 years old, with a 15 year lifespan, I would guess given the cost of delivery, that sky have no intention of contracting transponders beyond the life span of these satellites – I expect this is the beginning of the end for direct to home satellite TV in the UK.
With fast internet being available almost everywhere (Starlink) there is no further need for a satellite TV network.
I have been a sky for 12 months.
I got my sky Glass Tv 55 inch from sky Retail
You do not have to wait and can order now from sky retail.
There is bugs in the software on tv and missing loads of channels from sky Q.
But no satellite dish is a big win and all services can be changed every 31days
Which is more suitable in 2021
@John Phillips
You said “Which is more suitable in 2021”
Not Sky Glass, its a poor product with or without the current massive list of bugs. I’ll wait for the set top box thank you very much 🙂
This is what happens when sky buys old Samsung TVs and puts them in a different box…stupid idea….
Sky have a big issue this morning with the time being wrong on all their set top boxes, EPG still showing BST instead of GMT (should have change this morning), maybe fixed in next 24 hours, even something that happens every years Sky still can’t get right.
Do they still insist on using am/pm? Was bizarrely never an option for 24 hour clock on other sky devices.
Sky expect to resolve time bug by Thursday 4th November
https://rxtvinfo.com/2021/sky-clock-fault-to-be-fixed-within-days
The pricing quoted in this article isn’t correct. The hardware is £13 p/m but you must take a Sky TV package at the same time so minimum price is actually £39. Really sneaking pricing trcik from sky
Also buried in the small print is the need to pay £5/month to skip adverts after the first 12 months.
All these people commenting on a product they haven’t tried seems ridiculous. My 65” Sky glass was delivered over a week ago. The picture is simply astounding as is the sound.
@Tony Armstrong
So would a 65″ from Samsung or LG or a dozen other manufactures but with those you don’t have Sky taking over your living room.
Your money your wasting on paid subs when you could watch it free pirate streaming like me good 1080p on kodi ect .
What happens if the TV brakes? Do they send you a new one free of charge?
I don’t like services all being tied to one method because if something goes wrong then in this case you’ll be sat with nothing to watch.
What happens if the TV brakes?
It slows to a stop, has it got ABS is the important question 😉
2 year warranty.
2 year warranty on a 4 year lease-to-buy deal?
I’ll give that one a swerve, thanks.
I’ve had to have 2 replacement Tvs for them to finally get it right, now I have a perfect condition one that I’m very happy with. The picture quality is absolutely beautiful, as is the Atmos set-up….and yes, the replacements are free and quick to deliver…also the delivery itself is free, and its not like where you have to send it back then wait for a new one…they give you the new one when the pick up the old one
That’s what you get been clever and getting its it’s shit
Anyone know if Sky are deinterlacing interlaced source pictures correctly for this IPTV service? Also are the movies shown as native 24p or still PAL 25 frames?
Now TV doesn’t and usually just recodes interlaced material at same frame rate (25fps) resulting in judder on moving credits or non-live look to stuff made in a studio. Its for this reason Id stick with a satellite service as pictures better quality.
I have been waiting over a week now for sky to collect the glass and turn my Q back on, but I just keep getting through to people who say there’s nothing more they can do and I will be contact when the couriers are ready to collect it.
Any trick or tips to getting this done? To be honest I don’t want to be a sky customer anymore either, I don’t know what they were thinking with these shoddy tv’s but there’s no way they can claim it to be the future of tv as the tv itself is worse picture quality and terrible interface than what we already have and now I’ve got to get an installer to put my qled telly back on the wall and put the wires back into the wall channels.
Making me go this long with only basic freeview with no pause, recording etc is a slap in the face on what has been a really stupid decision to have tried glass. I feel like they should be paying me as a tester with the tv for free.
Does anyone know if the courier will take the tv down off the wall and pack it up? I don’t have a box for it and I can’t take the tv down off the wall myself. There must only be a very small proportion of people keeping glass surely? Anyone who spends nearly a grand a year on a tv subscription isn’t going to be cutting corners with rubbish tv sets, sky made them out to be the best thing since sliced bread, but I see now why they don’t list proper specifications on the order page as they are no where near worth the money sky are valuing them at.
Anyone thinking of getting glass should be very worried that if it flops they’ll end up having to buy a new tv again.
You’ve been placed in a Q
A grand a year on TV subscription???? What works are you living in???? Your mad!!!!!! Absolutely barmy!!!
I did order sky glass and being a sky customer for 12years sky have misled people from the start as they tried to make diamond and platinum customers feel special and constantly stating that we get a TV before non sky customers, anyway ordered 55 inch white did credit and got email saying thanks for ordering white medium tv then got tracking and they are sending me blue, so cancelled sky glass now account a mess, I’m owed money and having to chase to sort it out
I have been with sky from the very start, they give me nothing for being a loyal customer .
Its taken you over 30 years to realise companies don’t care about customer loyalty?
I’m one of the early adopters who have chosen to return glass.
In a nutshell Sky Glass is not ready for the market, it is full of issues which need solving before Sky can even begin to charge a fair price for the subscription. In 4 days ownership, I can only describe it as 4 days of stress.
8th November can’t come soon enough to get this piece of junk picked up.
Sorry Sky, junk is an honest description of the product, and vast improvements have to be made before I change my opinion.
Note: The PR phrase ‘a very small number of customers have problems’ means ‘at least one person is OK’ to normal people.
And if they had a very large number of customers, it would be “a very small proportion of customers have problems”. Or not.
Why did sky launch Skyglass when in Italy sky over the Internet seems to be working really well why not just improve on that service and bring it to the UK yes I know we’ve got NOW TV
Greed
Well what can I say about Sky Glass TV other than I must have been in a parallel universe when viewing the launch of this product. This is not what was promised by the Sky bigwigs. The picture quality is at best average. The sound is decent to be fair. But the main issue is the bugs that come with the service. Technical issues meaning channels cannot be shown and to try later. Frozen interface using the paired remote. Dark UHD footie channel. All I’m told by Sky advisors are these issues are being worked on. I received my TV on October 22nd. Since then there has been one software update. Sure I have around 3 weeks to keep it or get rid of this package. But why oh why can’t these problems not have been solved whilst on the test benches. Instead of using loyal customers as very frustrated guinea pigs. Let’s see what happens in the next few weeks.
Oh this could have been really good. But then I am just a Sky customer.
Just thought i would add my six pence worth.
1. delivered yesterday, no issues
2. Guys put it together for me and placed excellent work.
3. turned on 15 mins done all up and running.
4. set puck up 10 mins all done.
5. Sound and picture great
6. Subwoofer scares the dog!
7. nothing to write on a down side so far (but we do have 100mbs) think som problem are possibly down to some users having slow speed broadband. With 5G , you should be able connect from your phone!!
Steve you need to take off those rose tinted glasses.
Sky have admitted to the product have bugs, if you haven’t seen them yet then you haven’t really used the product so maybe rather than posting positive comments you should be testing your new purchase a little harder 🙂
I completely agree. I have the 65″ black one, admittedly, the first couple were already defective, but that was due to PANTHER delivery service treating them like it was a piece of crap, really manhandling them and fucked the panel….the third one I got, due to me complaint to sky about PANTHER, was delivered with PROPER care. And this one is in tip top shape….
Oh, and I havnt had ANY of the bugs other people have been having…again, like you, I’m on a full fiber service. I was on sky’s ultra fast plus at 500mbps, now, since moving flat, I’m on virgins gig1 with over 1.1gbps….
the picture quality is truly beautiful, the sound quality even more so, I find the interface really easy to navigate to be honest. I don’t think there’s any problem with the Interface, people are just used to sky q and trying to use it like a sky q box and are pissed off they can’t navigate it properly…well they should LEARN!!!! That’s what I did. I now navigate it as easily as my the sky q box.
The only problem I’ve got is when I use my computer I can’t use HDR as it is overly saturated due to the TV being so newnit isn’t actually on the HDR certification list, and therefore comes up as though there’s no HDR certification, so the computer reads it as being 1499 nits, which is it’s SDR peak brightness, so it looks completely washed out ..but that’s okay as that will come in an update…other than that, I’m having a v
VERY pleasant experience…..
Oh. And to the tosser that said this guy wasnt using it properly, well I’m physically disabled, aswell as metal health issues, therefore I’m house bound and the only thing that keeps me sane is my TV, films, and consoles and pc….my TV is on 24 HOURS A DAY!!!! Therefore I DO use It properly so you have no excuse pal….your just hating on something you know nothing about …
And to the OP, I hope you carry on enjoying your sky glass set as I am. Take care pal
Just to chip in for those considering Glass.
Had sky glass since Sunday and cancelling tomorrow, fed up with black screen, having to unplug and reboot, technical faults with channels, unable to load Netflix titles or download them which goes to 20% then crashes. Sky puk has serious lip sync issues which cannot be resolved in the settings, have to keep rebooting device. I would say they I have rebooted , reinstalled, reconnected about a dozen times.
Now the TV, picture is good when looking directly at it however from the side the picture is completely washed out. I have a £400 Hitachi which is head and shoulders above the Glass. Agree with most comments on here I may re order when Sky has ironed out the problems and better quality TV. BTW I have at least 68mps from Vodafone so no issues on that front.
68mbps isn’t really adequate….sky do recommend a 100mbps connection for best results….. You might have a 68mbps connection, but I guarantee you don’t hit that target all the time… therefore your average is more than likely lower than that….my connection is a 1148mbps connection, over Ethernet. I average about 1030/1040mbps…I hit the top speed on my pc at all times for some reason…but that’s.the only device that does….your 68mbps connection more than likely isn’t adequate enough…when I was waiting for my broadband to be put in, I was tethering off my phone with about the same speed give or take…I had the same lip sync problems every now and then, as well as.channels not loading sometimes….that was where the speed would drop past a certain point and it would have to wait for it to gather itself back up….since having my.fiber Installed…it’s been nothing but perfect…same as before I moved and I had ultrafast plus in my previous property, it worked perfectly there too….just food for thought…..they do recommend 100mbps…I recommend ultrafast plus as you’ll stay over the 100mbps needed that way…the normal ultrafast which is 140 odd does drop below the 100 at times….just need a better connection dude… ESPECIALLY if you’ve been trying to play 4k HDR content…you won’t have a hope in hell having a stable playback experience on your current speed
Had it two weeks two weeks of hell the internet keep going off it I had it it going it rubbish
You can have mine, just sent it back after 3 days. Not fit for purpose.