Sky for elderly people

[Danyal3]

Hi so befire we switched to Sky Stream, we always had the classic sky in our old house just like turn the tv on and your on the channels with the blue bar at the bottom streatching the whole way. But now as this is for my grandmother she can NEVER turn it on herself as she would have to go through the menus and get to live channels. Simple for us but she can not ever understand it as she is deaf plus she is 80+ now. She even cried today that she feels helpless and feels like she is a burden on me as she calls me everytime she wants to watch the tv and many times she just sits there look at the walls just so she doesn't disturb me or call me. Its really sad and i can't see her like this. Is there a way to go back to the old version where you turn the tv on and the channels are going? We don't care about sky stream its only made her life worse the past Whole Year to the point its made her cry at this age. Its absolutely saddening to see. So please help me woth what package etc i can get for her i just don't know much about aly and packages etc etc we just got this in an emergency situation hen we had to move house on short notice. Thank you 🙏🏼 

[Daniel0210]

@Danyal3 
You aren’t contacting Sky here. This is a customer ▶️ customer discussion forum where we try to help other customers.

By "classic Sky" I presume you mean Sky Q or Sky+. 

You'll need to call Sky to discuss whether reverting to Sky Q is an option. You will not be able to get Sky+ if that's what you previously had. 

[TimmyBGood]

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@Danyal3 wrote:

 Is there a way to go back to the old version where you turn the tv on and the channels are going? 

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That's not an option on Stream, and Sky+ HD is no longer available for reversion.

You might look at the Freely streaming app as a way of getting a simple EPG.

[Stephen+Mourton]

@Danyal3   I sympathise as my mother in her 80's struggled and she had Sky+.  I found it frustrating although she could turn it on and find the channel she wanted so long as it was one of the five main channels but never watched anything else as she couldn't comprehend what the other channels did.  Also if the phone rang she couldn't comprehend how to work out to pause it, so would miss the next part of what she was watching, even though I showed her countless times she just had to press the pause button but she could never remember.  

Having said all that this is a rapidly diminishing market and I doubt Sky would go to the expense of creating a simple system for elderly or those with special needs.  However it would be a nice move if they did.  I am not familiar with Now TV which is owned by Sky would have a simpler system?

[DaveDrizen]

I am going to have the same problem when we adventualy  change to sky stream  from sky Q because my wife is used to just tuning the sky box seeing the mini screen in the corner of the screen and then pressing the back button to the full screen and pressing the number to get the channel she wants if she wants to watch  things on any of the apps like Netflix  or even itvX, I have to do it for her, she dose not understand how to do it. Though I don't actully have Sky stream  at present I have made enquires  about the operation of Sky stream,  to see  if there is any easy way  of operating the system for her. And I understand there is. Though there is no longer a mini  screen on the home page, after turning on the box and getting the Home Screen then pressing back button on the remote, it looks simalr to the back button on the Sky Q box, its got a  arrow on it. This will give you a full screen picture on  your tv of the channel last watched. Then if you know the channel number you want to watch , just press the number  buttons on the remote of channel you want. To watch, just as you did on your old Sky  box. If you don't know the channel number of the channel you want to watch.   Pressing  the tv channel guide icon on the Home Screen will give you a tv guide, like  you had on you old box. Using the up and down buttons  and the enter button,  to select the channel you want, like you did on the old Sky Q box. You can select the genure like "all channels" or ' sport" or " cinema" by pressing the left key on the remote,  selecting one of those will just give you just the channels in the tv guide for that section, like on the old box. However if even finding and using the tv guide is still to complicated for her, may be she could tell you the channels she normally watches,  and maybe you could find  the channel number in the guide for her and write  them on a piece of paper for her, then all she has to do is look at that piece of paper, see what the channel number is and using the number keys as I described above select the channel. I hope this is of help for you.

[TimmyBGood]

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@Stephen+Mourton wrote:

Having said all that this is a rapidly diminishing market and I doubt Sky would go to the expense of creating a simple system for elderly or those with special needs.  

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On the contrary, increased longevity and the higher incidence of cognitive decline which that implies means it's an increasing user-base which might well benefit from a simpler UI.

I'd think it wouldn't be technically difficult to create an option to default both power-on and 'Home' to the numbered EPG: the obstacle is really a commercial one because Sky regards eyeballs on the aggregation page as being valuable in promoting its own add-on products, and, presumably, saleable to its app partners.

[DaveDrizen]

Sorry I did not realise she had a very old box that give you a picture when turn it on. That being the case tell her when turning the box,  just ignore the Home Screen on her tv,   tell her  just to press the back button on the remote,  that's  the one with a arrow on it to get a tv picture as I described in my earlier post. She then can select  a channel using number keys. She can also  use the up and down button to change channel if wants  to as well to find a  channels  that way also.