SKY Q - Now seems a complete waste of money for most customers

[Magic+Edd]

We have realised that with NETFLIX, PRIME and APPLE subscriptions we get all the content I need - there seems it be very little current content on SKY. Years ago we enjoed thinkgs on SKY 1 .

All Sky is useful for is a a FREEVIEW box and to RECORD and connect up multi-room boxes. However, all our TV's are smart so we can just use apps within them. Sky have been charging us for HD and UHD even though we only have free-to-air channels and Sky SIgnature (that we don't watch or need) but they have been charging us for UHD and HD for years. Apparently for free-to-air, you do not even need the HD on your subscription so it seems like we have been completely ripped off. 

We have had to change SKY Broadband for Skylink broadband as we do not have full fibre broadband needed for streaming. This stopped our hotspots working (due to latency according to Sky engineer) so we lost that as well. 

We can't justify a SKY SIGNATURE package just to use the hardware - but we are locked in for another 11 months before we can cancel and send the hardware back.

There is a gap in the market for a hardward only solution to watch freeview, run apps, and have ethernet connected multi-room (WIFI multi-room in not viable in our barn conversion). Any ideas on who might offer such a solution?  

[TimmyBGood]

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@Magic+Edd wrote:

There is a gap in the market for a hardward only solution to watch freeview, run apps, and have ethernet connected multi-room (WIFI multi-room in not viable in our barn conversion). Any ideas on who might offer such a solution?  

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Any kind of 'multiroom' is the tricky bit, because that almost inevitably requires both better technology and expensive customer support which the Freeview/Freesat model doesn't cope with, being 'free'.

Given the upcoming launch of Freely, I suspect it's not now worth anyone getting into that market space: at the high end there are already HDbaseT solutions available for anything from moderate investment up to oligarch money.

[Magic+Edd]

Great reply - I am stuck in a SKY SIGNATURE contract until DEC 2024 so I will (very grudgingly) have to keep SKY until then.

I resent what they have done charging my for HD and UHD and not making it clear I didn't need it for the free-to-air HD channels. It was my bad signing up for the Sky Signature to a 2 year lock in. I had thought I needed is a minimum to have a viewing card though to make the equipment work (Apps, Recording and Multi-room). 

I think we could do without multi-room but we still need to be able to record free-to-air channels, at least on the main TV even if we are forced to watch everything live on the other ethernet TV sets using the smart functionality.

[Chodley]

You did need a viewing card to make recording and multiroom work.

Personally I pay the UHD sub to get UHD (albeit you can get some limited free-to-air BBC content on iplayer in UHD) so the fact that FTA stuff gives you 1080i anyway is neither here nor there for me.

I find there's just about enough value in the combination of Cinema, the multiroom facility and the recording plus Sky Go to justify my £80 a month. Lost interest in most of the sports a long time ago when they all became "biggest spender wins".

[Magic+Edd]

I used to have SKY SPORTS GOLF but there are so many advert breaks (incrdible when you paid £17 a month for it!) it proved unwatchable for me. 

[Magic+Edd]

Sky have allowed me to cancel HD and UHD but will I was disapointed that they will not refund any of those payments even though we only watch free-to-air (HD inclusive) channels on SKY. They allowed to to downgrade SKY SIGNATURE to SKY ESSENTIALS + MULTI-ROOM (£15+£15 less £10 a month in contact discount so £20  month for freeview and sky equipment). I just which sky WIFI hotspots worked with STARLINK but they don't. I will have to wait until we have full fibre, then take SKY BROADBAND again to get the the hotspots back. 

[TimmyBGood]

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@Magic+Edd wrote:

I will have to wait until we have full fibre, then take SKY BROADBAND again to get the the hotspots back. 

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https://www.sky.com/help/articles/wifi-hotspots 

However, I didn't think Mini boxes were supposed to work at all with 'Essentials'

[Magic+Edd]

Initially the agent said the mini's would not work but he called me back haven spoke to a colleague and said they could offer it (the agent had been there 15 years and did not know this) - so they say it I can have it with the essentials package. £15 a month less £10 a month in-contract discound for 18 months. 

[Chodley]

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@Magic+Edd wrote:

Initially the agent said the mini's would not work but he called me back haven spoke to a colleague and said they could offer it (the agent had been there 15 years and did not know this) - so they say it I can have it with the essentials package. £15 a month less £10 a month in-contract discound for 18 months. 

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in that case the hotspots should work too

[Laing1]

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@TimmyBGood wrote:

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@Magic+Edd wrote:

I will have to wait until we have full fibre, then take SKY BROADBAND again to get the the hotspots back. 

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https://www.sky.com/help/articles/wifi-hotspots 

However, I didn't think Mini boxes were supposed to work at all with 'Essentials'

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@TimmyBGood I thought that until last week when it came up on another thread and it was confirmed in the closed part of the forum that as long as the multiscreen subscription was paid they would still work

[Magic+Edd]

Hotspots don't work with Satellite Broadband (Starlink) as there is a latency issue - two engineers were here and they called their 'expert' who said it was the latency causing it (I am sceptical) - even thoug hotspots are activated, each mini-box thereform transmits their own SSID (that you can't connect to) instead of broadcasing the routers main SSID. The only hot-spot that works in the main SKY Q box. The mini's do not. Everthing connect to the router via a 16-port switch. I found it odd that the mini's were affected by 'latency' yet the main sky box was not. 

[TimmyBGood]

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@Magic+Edd wrote:

 I found it odd that the mini's were affected by 'latency' yet the main sky box was not. 

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To be fair, the launch of Q (with its rather weird semi-proprietary networking) was three years before the first Starlink satellites went into orbit.

[Magic+Edd]

I am unsure what affect losing HD and UHD will have on our Netflix experience, watching Netflix through the SKY APP. I am not sure how much Netflix is in SD anyway. If we use the Smart TV's App for Netflix it would bypass the amp so the sound would be through the TV. However, if we use Netflix through the firestick which plugs into the a HDMI port on the AMP,  think we will have the HD picture and great sound. 

When we one day have full fibre we will go back to Sky Broadband for full superfast broadband just to get the hotspots working - they have about 60 people out of 120 signed up (pledged to get a supefast service) in our local village - I am not sure they will reach the target the Openreach need to roll it out. 

[TimmyBGood]

@Magic+Edd 

On its new pricing tiers there's no SD subscription for Netflix any more: 'Standard with Ads' is 1080p.

[Chodley]

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@Magic+Edd wrote:

Hotspots don't work with Satellite Broadband (Starlink) as there is a latency issue - two engineers were here and they called their 'expert' who said it was the latency causing it (I am sceptical) - even thoug hotspots are activated, each mini-box thereform transmits their own SSID (that you can't connect to) instead of broadcasing the routers main SSID. The only hot-spot that works in the main SKY Q box. The mini's do not. Everthing connect to the router via a 16-port switch. I found it odd that the mini's were affected by 'latency' yet the main sky box was not. 

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I'm skeptical too. Sounds like gibberish. Presumably you had turned on the "wifi hotspot" option that only appears on the Q once you are NOT on sky broadband?