Sky Glass Accessibility

[Kieran+L]

Hi,

I'm excited about Sky Glass and think it has the potential to be a game changer.

I'd certainly be interested in partaking if, sky can confirm that the product will be accessible?

When will we know the accessibility features that are present? Mainly for me I'm interested in a screenreading / voice guidance feature; will it be the same as sky Q? What about other functions of the TV.

If sky are shifting towards a streaming approach, will more of an effert be made to get audio described content available on catchup / on demand services? As currently the only way to watch described content is to record it.

Thanks,

Kieran.

[SDR]

---

@Kieran+L wrote:

Hi,

I'm excited about Sky Glass and think it has the potential to be a game changer.

I'd certainly be interested in partaking if, sky can confirm that the product will be accessible?

When will we know the accessibility features that are present? Mainly for me I'm interested in a screenreading / voice guidance feature; will it be the same as sky Q? What about other functions of the TV.

If sky are shifting towards a streaming approach, will more of an effert be made to get audio described content available on catchup / on demand services? As currently the only way to watch described content is to record it.

Thanks,

Kieran.

---

I don't know the answer to this but I am asking to see what is known

[Daniel0210]

@Kieran+L 

If you use this link and scroll down it gives (limited) info on accessibility.

https://www.sky.com/glass/technical-specifications 

[SDR]

@Kieran+L 

Quote

Voice Guidance isn't available just now but will be added next year. Audio description will work when you're watching a live channel.end qoute

[elliot2012]

i'm also very interested in this, but if there is no voice guidance feature unlike on sky Q I won't be able to use it. Also agree that catch up content needs to have audio description if you are unable to record

[SDR]

---

@elliot2012 wrote:

i'm also very interested in this, but if there is no voice guidance feature unlike on sky Q I won't be able to use it. Also agree that catch up content needs to have audio description if you are unable to record

---

No but it can all be controlled by voice commands apart from the playlist 

[Annie+UK]

---

@elliot2012 wrote:

i'm also very interested in this, but if there is no voice guidance feature unlike on sky Q I won't be able to use it. Also agree that catch up content needs to have audio description if you are unable to record

---

Technically there is no such thing as catchup on this service it is just content, it works much like youtube

Not seen anything mentioned about the availability of AD on content

[elliot2012]

it will be interesting to see if Sky can make more on demand content available with audio description.

Most TVs out of the box now have some sort of voice guidance feature. I'm definitely interested in the product and I think the whole ditching the dish thing is a good idea as long as you have reliable broadband. Although very different products the Apple TV on an Amazon fire sticks are both very accessible for blind users, I appreciate this is an actual TV rather than a streaming device but hopefully in time voice guidance will be added.

[DaveAccess]

Hi all,

Yes, Voice Guidance is coming to Sky Glass next year. We'll do our best to keep you posted here.

AD is available on live content. AD for on demand content is also expected to be next year.

Dave

[elliot2012]

Thanks Dave good to know voice guidance is coming to Sky Glass and that audio description should be added to on-demand content in the future. Hopefully that applies to Sky Q as well. If you can keep us updated on here that would be great!

[DaveAccess]

Hi,

Yes, AD on demand will be coming to Sky Q too.

Will do 🙂

Dave

[Miguel+allen]

A date would be nice? my daughter is blind and loves programs which are Ad enabled, however I find it very frustrating that sky are so behind the times when it comes to this and the  inclusion of visually impaired people ?  You have the files for AD for movies but don't include them in sky store films or downloadable content. This has been going on for years and hasn't been rectified, visually impaired people should be getting sky half price as they are only getting half a service! 

[Aaln]

Right now accessability on Glass is pretty non existent.

It is a new product and voice commands have not improved other than being able to do it without a remote. 

The remote is required for anything other than turning on or off, finding content, changing channels, and setting volume. There is zero voice navigation control  nor abillity to pause, rewind/fast forward stop or play within any 3rd party apps.

There doesn't currently exist any ausio feedback to what you asked it to do was done either. 

The entire platform is so fragmented with extra steps required for different channels.   BBC, ITV and chanmel 4 all act in different ways when opening a programme or just as simple as fast forwarding. 

I therefore would not recommend Glass to anyone who needs any type of Accessability requirements for quite some time. 

[ThePenSlinger]

This is all very exciting. As another poster said, it is frustrating that Sky have been so slow on the draw for accessbility but David and the team are working hard to rectify that so the future looks exciting. I'm sure there are reasons for slow adoption too, hardware restraints come to mind as the sky Q box is pretty woefully under powered under the hood, which is expected as it was designed for a specific set of tasks of which, sadly, voice guidance wasn't one. The upgraded system, same as Comcast, as far as I know, is well up to the task so going forward the hardware will have plenty of headroom for on device processing.

Regarding this, voice guidance is still rather limited on sky Q, EG, no app access such as netflix. Is this going to change with the updated glass system or will it remain sky content only? My ideal is to be able to drop my apple TV for watching needs though, with sky go coming out for apple TV in in the middle of 2022 and, fingers crossed, audio description being available on sky go at some oint for live and catchup, the issue may be moot. The apple TV can work, in effect, like a highly accessible glass puck.

Live TV, for me, is something I miss. Accessibility needs have fragmented options for me so it is merely catchup services that work on apple TV. There is something comforting about watching TV you know that thousands of others are also watching... A silly thing maybe, but also nice plus, live programming is an excellent way for those of us who are blind, to keep our sleep and wake cycles in check.

Thanks for all the hard work on this.

[lynnjovigirl]

I have skyglass..it can be really annoying using it...for example....you are watching a program and start talking ..the voice control kicks in and turns the bloody thing over.. now have turned that off. Plus you can't delete individual episodes from your playlists,which is also annoying as it puts all past and present episodes on playlist.

Also you can't record on BT sports through BT direct you can only record if you subscribe through sky.