topic Accessing Channels in Sky Q

Accessing Channels

BobbyWat — Sun, 17 Aug 2025 10:49:49 GMT

Hello, I am asking on behalf of my father in law for help on a few topics due to sudden memory loss. I will raise a separate discussion regarding his phone.

He no longer has the ability to use a Sky handset/remote. We had to remove Sky from one room to leave Freeview but even with a flipper type remote, he is struggling with Freeview 🥹 He still has Sky in another room as he only wants to watch sports or news, so Freeview is very limited. We have been putting Sky Sports on there and told him not to touch the remote or we need to hide it. He says it turns itself off after a while (is this correct as I don't have Sky)? He has a blue button that he can speak to and it works, but if I leave him for 5 mins, he then forgets what button to press, then presses it too long etc etc.

Does anyone have any ideas on how we could simplify things? I think we have done all we can and maybe it's not possible to improve the situation but I would welcome any thoughts/inspiration!

thank you

Re: Accessing Channels

Daniel0210 — Sun, 17 Aug 2025 11:16:46 GMT

@BobbyWat wrote:

He has a blue button that he can speak to and it works, but if I leave him for 5 mins, he then forgets what button to press, then presses it too long etc etc.

@BobbyWat

I have moved your post from the Sky+ board as Sky+ does not have the Voice remote function you describe above.

Re: Accessing Channels

Mark39 — Sun, 17 Aug 2025 12:56:53 GMT

@BobbyWat Difficult. In honesty, I think the Flipper remote is about is simple as there is. You might need two Flippers, perhaps, one for the room with Freeview, the other for Sky?

Re: Accessing Channels

nigea99 — Sun, 17 Aug 2025 13:08:15 GMT

@BobbyWat wrote:

Hello, I am asking on behalf of my father in law for help on a few topics due to sudden memory loss. I will raise a separate discussion regarding his phone.

He no longer has the ability to use a Sky handset/remote. We had to remove Sky from one room to leave Freeview but even with a flipper type remote, he is struggling with Freeview 🥹 He still has Sky in another room as he only wants to watch sports or news, so Freeview is very limited. We have been putting Sky Sports on there and told him not to touch the remote or we need to hide it. He says it turns itself off after a while (is this correct as I don't have Sky)? He has a blue button that he can speak to and it works, but if I leave him for 5 mins, he then forgets what button to press, then presses it too long etc etc.

Does anyone have any ideas on how we could simplify things? I think we have done all we can and maybe it's not possible to improve the situation but I would welcome any thoughts/inspiration!

thank you

hi @BobbyWat

Regarding the TV switching off you can try checking & setting this :

Home - Settings - Setup - Preferences - Standby Mode to off

However, I think it is far more likely the TV itself which usually have a shorter shutdown time than the SKY box, add to which by having SKY the interaction is with the SKY Q box and thus very limited interaction with the TV so the TVs think they are not in use

My usual tip is just to press the volume up/down buttons if a message comes on the TV but your Father-inlaw may forget this so do explore if you can stop the TV from switching off - although I suspect with the EU/UK regs. now in place you may not be able to switch off.

There is an accessibility remote which has larger buttons etc but this does not have voice control so may be less useful

If the flipper remote can learn commands then we can advise how to set the SKY Q remote to Infrared so it can learn the commands (& then set back should you want voice control back)

Re: Accessing Channels

nigea99 — Sun, 17 Aug 2025 13:15:25 GMT

@BobbyWat May I also suggest you check that his most used channels are set up as Favourites in channels 1 up to 99

By being in favourites they are easier to access needing only 1 or 2 key presses & easily flip between them by pressing up and down

They can also be viewed in the TV guide together (unfortunately the TV Guide defaults to all channels but can be selected from the Favourites sub menu or scrolling up from the full list)

Re: Accessing Channels

BobbyWat — Sun, 17 Aug 2025 23:07:37 GMT

Thanks for that detail, I will have a look at the settings. He's struggling with the flipper for Freeview but hopefully if I can get him used to that, we can move onto the Sky. Thanks again.

Re: Accessing Channels

BobbyWat — Sun, 17 Aug 2025 23:09:10 GMT

Thanks for that, I was thinking Flipper would struggle with Sky but if we can get him using it for Freeview, then I'll give it a try for Sky too. Appreciate you replying.

Re: Accessing Channels

BobbyWat — Sun, 17 Aug 2025 23:10:59 GMT

Thanks, I'd forgotten that I saw 'favourites', so that may be something that he could retain. Thanks