I will say that I am in two minds about questions of Sky's honesty. I think there are a number of factors which are affecting this issue.
Firstly, the technical. I have spoken to Sky staff on a technical level, (electronics is my job), and can confirm that the problem is unsoldered connections between the terminal strips and the PCB just as others have suggested. The same remotes were originally designed and supplied for Glass as a soldered version and gave no trouble. The suggestion was then made that it would be good to leave off all unnecessary soldering as part of their move towards "Carbon Neutrality". Those power connections to the PCB are of course a problem which has been identified as and acknowledged for a while. The unsoldered remotes have been scrapped and new ones are being delivered as we write. They say they have already taken delivery of a fair number so they are available and are being fed out on a first come first served basis.
The supply of the new versions is no doubt being impacted by the Royal Mail strikes. I have noticed myself that, while RM deliveries are over a week behind, independent courier deliveries are also being badly affected as they are currently taking on a lot more deliveries with despatchers swapping from RM. That is my own observation not any excuse that was given by Sky staff.
Again this is only my own observation but, staff in the support department are being as helpful, open and honest as they can IF you approach them offering to share a pot of honey and not force them to drink from a vinegar bottle! All they can do is to register complaints, implement plans for replacement, then pass that on to the next department. Yes, they are the customer face of their company and as such part of their job is to soak up bile and vitriol, but they are only human and, as I said, I found them to be very suportive as I made sure to be sympathetic towards them. So, nothing really new there, I just thought it worth pointing out that pushing our bloodpressure up to dangerous heights is neither good for us nor does it shift telephone staff in any way when there is no doubt an element of truth to what they say.
Now a really simple suggestion. I have found that my own remote, while it seems to work fine with the "positive terminal stretch" applied, has run through a set of batteries in a few weeks, just as many others report. I put this down to the remote's use of Bluetooth. Bluetooth as an omnidirectional radiator is very power hungry so they have set it up so the remote switches off in a short time after each use. As an example, see how long your mobile battery lasts with Bluetooth switched on compared to off. The motion sensor in the remote wakes it up and turns on the backlighting for the keys as an indication of its readiness. This probably means Bluetooth waking too and it will need to pair up each time it starts. There are implications to that.
I am prone to sitting with the remote in my lap or even in my hand as I watch programmes. That keeps the remote moving and therefore turned on constantly. That in turn keeps Bluetooth running constantly too. If you have a problem with battery life just try actually putting the remote down on a stable surface where it will not be moved when you are not actively using it and see if the batteries last longer. My bet is that they will and in line with that I'm changing my habits in this way too. Of course, a Bluetooth device will always be power hungry so batteries may never last as long as in an IR type remote but we may get a lot more life out of a set if we don't keep the remote constantly active and radiating.
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[Just ask! A moment of embarrassment is better than a lifetime of ignorance.]
Stream remote completely unresponsive
