Sky UK to Make TV Streaming via Broadband Boxes Standalone
Last year’s launch of Sky Glass, which made it possible to stream Sky’s TV channels and content over a UK home broadband ISP connection (here), received a mixed reception because customers could only do this by adopting a special Sky branded TV. But the good news is that you’ll soon be able to do this without their TV.
The Sky Glass product also shipped alongside the Sky Stream pucks (boxes), which were designed to work with your existing TVs (i.e. adding Sky TV via streaming for a multi-room solution). The pucks attracted a £50 upfront cost, as well as a £10 monthly subscription, and required a slightly faster minimum download speed of 15Mbps (vs 10Mbps on Sky Glass).
Sadly, at the time of launch, Sky said their pucks would only be available alongside Sky Glass, thus the wait went on for Sky to produce a true dish-less TV via broadband product. But it looks like the media giant has now had a change of heart, and you’ll soon be able to buy the pucks as a standalone product, finally. This is the product that a lot of consumers wanted to see last year.
The pucks support many of the same features (4K, HDR, Dolby Atmos etc.) and apps as the full Sky Glass product, albeit lacking in local video recording capabilities (but they can create a Playlist that brings together cloud-based recordings and favourites from the TV guide, on demand, and apps into one place). At present we don’t know what kind of prices and packages will be available alongside the standalone Pucks, but Sky said the new product would launch sometime “later this year“.
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 and Linkedin.
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Speaking to Sky installers, they were worried this day was coming soon. I imagine this will be the default for Sky soon enough.
It’s a good idea but with the way finances are with people at the moment, I can’t see much take up. Until Sky gives value for money rather than an excessively over priced service, people will use other mean ie iptv and such to get sports. Lower prices so much to price out the iptv market.
@LeeB You overestimate the general population that don’t frequent sites like this. For example if I said to mum or brother to leave their sky sports package and setup some IPTV package online they would just stare blankly. And that’s before I tell them about the potential issues that come with it.
@LeeB Also, going back to when I worked in a bank. You wouldn’t believe the amount of people who would come in complaining of hardship, unable to pay rent, water or buy food. Yet on the review you go through their direct debits and the £100+ Sky bill is deemed “essential” and can’t possibly go.
@Anon
You’re still going to need a box, is that a deal breaker?
I’m not suggesting £10 p/m but asking for best part of £100 is excessive. If they were to allow sports watchers just the sports channels none of the other garbage but you can’t.
I get iptv is complicated to explain and sometimes to install and use, it won’t be for everyone. I left sky over 10 years ago after a price increase, when the ” retentions” agent asked why I explained I could only watch one thing at a time to which they explained but you can record at the same time, they just didn’t understand, regardless of what you watch and record, you can still only watch one thing at a time, yes you could if you watch on more than one device but again not for everyone. A good iptv service is hard to find, they all quote to be great but often fall far short, I used them a few years ago but wasn’t for too unstable. If they can provide that service illegally then create an option by sky that is there’s an therefore legal. Give people the option of sat dish, these pucks, glass or iptv version. For example NOW tv is £33.99 per month for 11 sky sports channels.
£20/mo is all I can pay for all sport channels. I don’t want anything else. I can sign 3 years long contract.
“If they were to allow sports watchers just the sports channels none of the other garbage”
BT TV has that package – sky sports, bt sport and Eurosport for £46/m in HD. Need to have their broadband too though. Sky retentions team might be able to match it, but none of their new customer packages comes close.
The days of pay tv via direct broadcast satellite in developed countries are numbered, it’s quickly becoming an unnecessary expense for the providers.
Don’t be naive that price will go down.
Why should I clog up my network/bandwidth if I am not getting a significant reduction in price?
and deal with 30 seconds+ of streaming latency and lower bitrates than Satellite broadcasts…
Exactly this.
A dish also has the benefit of when the Internet goes down the kids can still watch TV.
Tbh it’s the only reason we have Sky… I need the bandwidth of my “superfast” connection for work and streaming.
My impression is this is meant for the growing Fibre to the Premises customer base.
Unfortunately Smythe,
Sky are trying to sell Sky Glass etc to all of their customers. Not just those with FTTP.
I’ve had emails and a SMS about it.
Imo it doesn’t matter whether I have FTTP or not, I’m doing Sky a favour and getting nothing in return…
Cut the cord a year ago. Had Sky for twenty years. I was sick of the increasing cost. Now I subscribe & stream everything from America with vpn. More content & sports. Makes me laugh, what they charge & you cannot even watch 3 pm Saturday football in England. Only costs me £25. Moving to Madrid in September. I’ll take my services with me. I’m certainly not paying Movistar €200 a month!
What service do you use?
It could work if they made all the current Sky Q channels available, which are not all accessible on Sky Glass
My partner loves Talking Pictures TV and we have about 10 movies stored at any one time, which he plays during the afternoon, when pottering about. This wouldn’t be possible, if a) it’s not a featured channel or b) if there is no record facility because you’d just forget about the film a few weeks later, instead of being able to store it indefinitely until you wish to view it
I dont agree that this wouldnt be popular. If it means install it yourself after buying a box from amazon or currys would be great. On the streaming quality side, Virgin Media have been doing this for years, as have BT and the other ISPS. I would gladly get this if it means i can get rid of Sky Q and their miniboxes. My other relatives refuse to get Sky as a dish devalues their house, so there is that market as well. More options on the market like this is good, but if you dont want it dont buy it.
What kind of house do they live in that a non permanent fixture actually devalues?
I just asked someone at one of their Sky booths about this and he was clueless! He only remarked that it would take at least a couple of years before they would offer such a product without Glass.
I’m interested though. My contract is up in August so if its available around then, for the right price, I might start a new contract.
This is good. If it works as smoothly as satellite TV then I might consider it one day.
It won’t because Sky Glass is awful compared to Q via dish. So many are being sent back its crazy. Sellers are not telling people there is no recording on Glass, or that so many channels are missing. Sky are even paying people to write nonsense on their ad posts on social media, “there’s no recording but catch up means there’s no difference” is just one gem I’ve seen.
This puck is little more than a Now TV box with a better picture and UI. It’s aimed at everyone but really it’s for people who can’t have a dish, or the few that are so against a dish they’re happy with the trade off in functionality.
@LeeB
Premium sports channels won’t be around for much longer now that the tech companies like Amazon and Apple are bidding for sports rights.
Of course, sports is already avaialble for some streamers. And no doubt at some point in the not too distant future, the newly merged Warner Discovery company will bring out a new streamer with the merged Eurosport and BT sport stuff on it.