Netgem Launch New Freely Supporting UK TV Streaming Box – PLEIO UPDATE
Digital entertainment platform Netgem TV has this morning announced the launch of their next generation IPTV box and service – PLEIO, which is also set to be bundled by broadband ISPs including WightFibre, Connect Fibre and Brsk. The new kit is both more powerful and features support for the new broadband-based live TV streaming service – Freely.
The set-top-boxes that Netgem have provided in the past – like the Netbox 4K (inc. HDR, Bluetooth pairing, Ethernet, Wi-Fi, USB and Dolby Atmos sound) – have been fine, if nothing particularly special. As usual, the new and perhaps oddly named PLEIO box (a circular “puck“) hopes to improve on that and includes access to all the usual on-demand apps (iPlayer, ITVX, Netflix, Amazon Prime, NOW, Disney+, Apple TV, YouTube etc.) via the Google Play Store.
However, the new kit replaces Freeview support in the UK with the new Freely platform for access to 55 live and on-demand TV channels (including the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and 5) – all accessible via your home broadband connection instead of a TV aerial, alongside 150+ extra channels (premium); this makes it one of the first such set-top-boxes to do so.
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One of the biggest roadblocks to adoption of Freely’s platform today remains its limited availability, and Netgem TV’s new kit may help to change that. In addition, Netgem have included access to their cloud gaming service, although this and their 150+ extra TV channels do require a separate Netgem PLEIO subscription (more on that later). But access to Freely does not require any subscription and is always free.
PLEIO Specifications
➤ Resolution – 4K UHD (Support 4k AV1/H.265/VP9 decoding), HDR10
➤ Connectivity – Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.0
➤ Compatibility – Freely (Twelve on-demand apps including BBC iPlayer, ITV, Channel 4, 5, U, WATCH FREE UK + more all in one place), Netflix, Disney+, Prime Video, NOW, etc
➤ Operating System – Android TV 14
➤ Audio Support – Dolby Atmos (passthrough), DTS-HD, 5.1 Surround Sound
➤ Voice Control – Built-in voice assistant
➤ Ports – HDMI 2.1, USB 2.0
➤ Power Supply – 100-240V AC, 50/60Hz
➤ Dimensions – ⌀64mm x 14mm (⌀ x H)
➤ Weight – 40g
➤ PLEIO REMOTE – IR & Bluetooth (near field voice control), batteries included
➤ PLEIO GAMEPAD – Wireless Bluetooth, built-in 3.7V/600mAh lithium battery
On the surface, this looks quite reasonable, although it’s a little disappointing to see that they haven’t included a LAN (Ethernet) port for those who have access to and prefer the dependability of a wired link. Personally speaking, I’d also still like the option of an aerial connection, such as for watching live sports without delays and as a backup in case the broadband link goes down. But each to their own.
Sylvain Thevenot, Managing Director of Netgem UK, said:
“After a decade of collaboration with national broadcasters and operators, we recognised the need for a simple, all-in-one platform and are proud to launch in the UK, as a first step of our product strategy. We built PLEIO as the answer to the fragmentation of the entertainment market.
PLEIO delivers a truly comprehensive viewing experience – Watch, Stream, and Play – that is ready for any Fibre broadband-connected home today. It represents a new approach for consumers and an unparalleled opportunity for operators to deliver both choice and exceptional value.”
PLEIO will be available at retail via Amazon (affiliate link), and bundled via ISPs as a fully managed white-label service. Netgem TV are launching with WightFibre, Connect Fibre and brsk, but more broadband providers are expected to follow in the near future.
The retail price will set you back £99, which includes the PLEIO Puck, PLEIO Voice Remote, PLEIO Gamepad and a 3-month trial of the Netgem PLEIO subscription. The subscription includes access to 250+ Cloud Games and 150+ extra channels. Afterwards, it’s an optional £9.99 monthly fee for these features.
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However, customers who take the box via a bundle will typically pay just £9.99, which includes all the kit and covers their PLEIO subscription. The prices and bundles for this may vary a little bit between ISPs.
UPDATE 25th Nov 2025
Some additional details about the new box. The hardware seems to have been made by ZTE (B866W6M4) and uses an Amlogic S905Y5 chipset with Quad-core 2.0 GHz (ARM Cortex-A55) CPU and ARM Mali-G31 MP2 GPU. The device contains 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage.
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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About time something like this surfaced. I will definitely be purchasing, just for Freely, currently using freesat with no ability to pause live tv, so this will be an upgrade
You can get an Arris Recordable Box
that does Pause Live TV and Records
If this can have kodi installed onto it. Then it would be perfect. Anyone know if it can?
It runs Android, so probably?
it will yes.
however performance may vary. Kodi via my TV (sony) runs very slow.
Performance here should be better.
Too expensive if you just want to try Freely out. Unless they can make Freely available as an app for IOS, Android & Firestick I’m afraid Freely’s appeal is going to be limited.
Well, I was going to buy one to check freely out, before it became unavailable.
I do agree though, an iOS/Android app would be good (but wouldn’t get them any money).
Amazon Fire Stick 4K under £50 (On offer today at £29). This is the price point they need to be hitting.
Strange. It was available for £99 with delivery tomorrow via the Amazon link and now it says unavailable and they don’t k now when or if it will be back in stock.
Aerial… 🙁
Nope not for this one – all IP all via WiFi 6. Which unfortunately means “freeview content” it slightly delayed vs normal aerial broadcasts.
@Testing Testing…., Freeview is delayed anyway, compared to the old analogue system and even on different sets it is delayed. Encoding and decoding takes time, but yes Freely will take even longer.
It would help freely rollout if there was an app/channel available on the Roku platform.
Roku already offers some streamed IPTV (low artistic quality mostly sourced from US) and does have the major channels (BBC, ITV, C4, 5, U, STV), but nothing that brings it all together and fills in the gaps vs. Freeview, especially for Radio (BBC Sounds, yes, but not a full offer vs Freeview/DAB/FM/MW).
And Roku have a TV streaming/EPG capability in the US (often needing a cable company app to check “entitlement”), so they are not strangers to this.
It could be a commercial issue.
Bought via Mark’s link.
See what this is like, fed up with Amazon Fire Stick as has to boot up every TV power on and after they made changes to delay auto loading your own shell interface instead of the cluttered mess that is Amazon’s that was a step too far. At least Freely has a decent interface.
Got it for free, as used my topcashback cashback 🙂
Would assume that £20-30 can come off this price if they stop bundling a game controller, at which point I’ll pick one up just to see what it’s like.
Doubt it I’m afraid… the previous Netgem box was more or less the same price with no gamepad
@Jonny: The gamepad is integral to the bundle and in all probability is the main reason why people will pay £9.99pm for the premium features. You can always wait for price reductions when a sale is on.
I’m fortunate enough to have been testing this for a few weeks and its a great device – speedy, responsive and because its on Google TV I can cast to it as well. I’m not a gamer, but the games are surprisingly responsive (don’t expect PS5 quality, but for pickup and play for 15mins its pretty good).
I was sceptical, but I am a convert – having true IPTV (not the Firestick “live TV” that forces you to have an iPlayer/ITVX account to actually work) that just works out the box on a puck is very very good. Plus all the usual apps, what’s not to like?
(The comparisons to Firesticks aren’t really fair, for the audience its aimed at – ie. not the visitors to this site – this is pretty much spot on, especially as the Pleio subscription is optional meaning it’ll always run Freely, unlike a Firestick that does NOTHING without a service subscription)
thats good to hear, glad its using Google TV, do you know what the specs are on this, RAM, storage etc?
interesting this is a Google TV device, with Freely, wonder if this means Freely is coming to other streaming sticks
I would dispute that you need a Prime subscription to use Firestick. You need an Amazon account for sure but you should still be able to use apps like iplayer, youtube etc plus any purchased content without subscribing to Prime.
£99 and no lan port? Wow.
To be honest, is it really worth having, like can it do anything that normal smart TV can’t do apart from Freely? If you can get Freeview then what is the point of Freely? It offers nothing extra.
Eve if I watched Freeview, which I don’t, no licence, I would not bother with this thing, I really don;lt see the point. If a new TV is needed then yes, buy one with Freely, but buying a separate unit for Freely seems a waste of money unless you need to get the channels in a place where you have no aerial and then, a cheapo TV is not much more.
The other thing is, if you buy one of these pucks and in 12 months or so your TV goes belly up, you wasted £99 on the puck because you can then buy a new TV with Freely.
There is a but in all of this, people who buy Samsung sets as they don’t have Freely and i think it may be a few years beofr they do, if they ever do.
Its always better to use an external device instead of smart tv apps as the performance is so much better.
Freely – this service needs to be compatible with existing services. Tv os, firetv os, google tv etc for it to go anywhere. At present its only aviailable on low to mid range TV brands. They need LG, Sony an Samsung on board to make it universal.
@John Smith, I use a Hisense TV with Roku OS and the built-in apps are fine, what make you think that an external device would be better? Some may have faster CPU and more memory, but not all.
A lot of the external devices are Wi-Fi only, so you can lose performance that way.
So it may take a second more for an app to start up on a TV built in app, compared to maybe an external device, oh wow.
I don’t see the point in buying an unit that does what a Tv already does, which why I am surprised that external units are still around.
As for Freely, a complete waste of time unless you want to put the TV somewhere that has no aerial or you have a bad Freeview signal, what is the point otherwise?
TV manufacturers don’t support apps for terribly long. I had a Sony Smart TV that gradually lost all its apps – Netflix, Amazon Prime, iPlayer, Skype and the ability to play content from my NAS. My choice then was to use it just for watching live TV, bin it, or use an external source to extend its life.
Just because you can’t think of a use-case doesn’t mean that they don’t exist.
Be nice if some kind sir would rip the freely app and TV guide so people could side load this on to their Google TV devices
I’ve got a Sony TV with Google TV, which works fine. I normally use Freesat in a block of flats, something happened to the dish connection and it took the landlord a week to fix, so in that case this would have been handy, as using the apps was extremely clunky.
So, I wonder if the Freely app on Netgem’s device is specify to Netgem or if it’ll make its way to other Google TV devices like Sony TVs.
Back in stock at Amazon. £99
unavalbe again, but that could be because Brsk now offer it
Quite annoying because I’m trying to get hold of a second one!
99 quid seems a lot for a box that gives a reduced service compared with Freeview. I bought a new 32 inch Tv that has Freely, Freeview, Satellite and iptv and Smart Tv. And can plug=in Firestick too.