Sky’s NOW TV Retires Support for Older UK Boxes and Smartphones
Sky has confirmed that their sibling NOW (NOW TV) video streaming platform and broadband service will soon stop working on several older TV set-top-boxes, as well as various older Apple iOS based Smartphones and tablets. The changes will start to be felt from mid-July 2026 onwards.
Nothing lasts forever and over time it’s fairly common for older TV devices to eventually lose support. This is usually partly because the hardware can no longer keep up as software and codecs evolve, as well as being due to the wider economic or security considerations of putting development time into kit that hasn’t been sold for years etc.
Due to this it’s been revealed that, from 3rd August 2026, several NOW TV and Roku boxes (NOW’s older set-top-boxes were all based off Roku’s kit) will no longer work with the Roku app (i.e. the boxes and other apps may still work, but NOW’s app won’t). The devices affected include the NOW TV Smart Box (4500SK), Roku Streaming Stick 3500X and Roku box models 2700X, 2710X and 2720X.
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The above change largely reflects Roku’s own decision to end support for its older devices, although customers who have the NOW TV Black Box (model 4200SK) will continue to be supported. But it’s not only older set-top-boxes that are about to lose NOW App support.
According to CordBusters, several older iOS-based devices, including anything that only supports iOS 15 or older (i.e. Apple iPhones older than the iPhone 7, as well as the iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 4 or older), will similarly find that the NOW App stops working for them from mid-July 2026. Apple dropped support for this hardware when it released iOS 16 and the NOW App will soon need at least iOS 16 to run.
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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They’ve been downgrading support for the 4500SK for sometime now. It came with Freeview HD but without warning Freeview was disabled a few years ago now.
The ITVX app is also being retired on some older NOW boxes.
I bought a new Roku HD stick for £20gbp from Argos in the UK as a replacement. To be fair my box is over a decade old.
Not only ‘older’ boxes as I discovered with my brand new Pleio Freely puk:
“We’re saying goodbye to this device…
NOW will not be supported on this device from 28 July 2026.”
Really?
Not a good advert for that. I wonder if it’s due to sky stream? I.e not wanting people to buy a freely box to access nowtv?
Amazon Firestick is probably the safest bet for Now TV these days. You don’t need to subscribe to Amazon Prime to use the apps but you do need an Amazon account.
probably right actually.
there is also apple tv as well, which seems to have good support.
google seems to have shot itself in the foot somewhat (no new devices in a while and the new streamer while not a bad device lacks in some features)
Roku was bought by fox, so who knows whats going to happen with them. shame some of their products didn’t make it here. the us had a large streambar (not the one here) that actually did surround and probably might have donbe well if launched here.
freely boxes are a bit thin, and I have not used the new tivo OS yet. Humax Aura EZ was another one thats shot itself in the foot. the original aura could have been the best device if they didn’t blunder netflix support. had humax released the aura again with netflix and freely, then that would have been a real all in one solution. despite me being a sky stream subscriber if they had got now’s ultra boost on such a device then I would have probably switched.
+1 to Jennifer90s points about Roku not offering their full range in the UK. Short sighted.
Not looking forward to the day when my streambar is desupported as it will also mean that I will need to also buy a new TV and multi-region DVD player).
My particular beef with Roku is they never offered the rechargeable voice remote pro in the UK (orderable from US at a price! and small enough to ship), nor the add on wireless speakers/bass unit for streambar (the speakers are not practical to order from US due to size and weight and oddly they really are 110v only with no cost effective/pleasant looking fix to enable use at 240v, short of a building site step down transformer)
Apparently that’s a mistake by Sky and will be fixed – see the last section here:
Oops…link seems to have been removed. It was to the Cord Busters UK website and the page titled “Pleio Freely Box Just Got a World Cup Hub and Free Sports”. The section at the end (“That NOW App Message: What’s Going On”) explains further.