Sky stream , honest review

[Jporch316]

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@Mark39 wrote:

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@Ellie_TV wrote:

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I beg to differ when it comes to comparisons to Sky Q however. In my experience I had zero issues with my single Sky Q box in the several years I had it.

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Understandable. My Sky Q issues were its propensity to generate the dreaded proximity error with Mini boxes.

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I almost took a hammer to my mini boxes on many occasions when trying to reconnect them with the main q box .......

[Jason+Golding]

I had far more issues with connection issues with Sky Q and mini boxes than issues I have had with Sky stream. 

the Sky Q mini boxes were always disconnecting 

[DanSalford]

Well, my 18 months with Stream is coming to an end and I can't wait to put in the 31 days' notice to cancel on the 2nd of January 🙂

My experience wasn't completely terrible, I mean it worked most of the time for me but it wasn't great either.

The clunky, slow navigating was so frustrating at times.. like many previous posts have mentione, of all the apps and devices I've ever used this Sky Stream puck thing is undoubtedly the worst. The hardware definitey lets down what should be a great, premium experience.

I wanted it for the sports, football mainly and in 4K UHD.

For me the Stream was the only available option at the time (no satellite where I am) so I stuck with it.

But with NOW also doing UHD, and cheaper than sky because I don't have to add an unwanted package that's what I'll be doing.

I doubt I'll return to Sky Stream in the future unless they release better hardware - at least as good as an Amazon Fire tv Cube or Apple TV box.. but I won't hold my breath 😅

[Super+Anthony]

New Year's resolution for Sky should hopefully be to accept more responsibility on fixing the hardware for stream and not to blame the ISP for us.

Stream is a great product but lacking with connectivity (freezing etc)

[Scuba6936]

Sky puck is awful and not fit for purpose 

[Mark39]

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@Scuba6936 wrote:

Sky puck is awful and not fit for purpose 

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Go back to Sky Q, as per your other post?

[HavencroftKev]

It works great for me, about 6 weeks in and I really enjoy it. 

From what I can gather, it doesn't work that well if you're using an ISP that isn't Sky.

Maybe Sky are going down the route of only having Stream compatable with Sky Broadband, like Virgin Media do with their Streaming box and TV services? 

[Mark39]

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@HavencroftKev wrote:

It works great for me, about 6 weeks in and I really enjoy it. 

From what I can gather, it doesn't work that well if you're using an ISP that isn't Sky.

Maybe Sky are going down the route of only having Stream compatable with Sky Broadband, like Virgin Media do with their Streaming box and TV services? 

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Not necessarily true. Mine works perfectly well, over wifi with a different broadband provider.

Repeating the same mantra about it not being 'fit for purpose'  (not you, obvioisly @HavencroftKev) doesn't make it true

[pressandgo]

Glad my car is not made by Sky. Given the number of issues reported on this site plus those issues not reported on here but handled by Sky directly, I would have to say it is not fit for purpose.

Not sure Sky broadband coupled with Stream is the away forward. I asked an Sky engineer and did not get a positive response hat it wold resove my issues.

Loss of connection, lip sync, freezing are just some of the issues.

Works well when working, but wait most days for an issue to arise.

[Super+Anthony]

Nothing to do with our ISP. It's an issue with the puck and needing a serious upgrade

[Jason+Golding]

Absolute not true about sky stream working better with sky broadband. It may be there is some slightly improved compatibility when using a Sky router. 

I use stream with Virgin Media. No issues 

[Jporch316]

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@Jason+Golding wrote:

Absolute not true about sky stream working better with sky broadband. It may be there is some slightly improved compatibility when using a Sky router. 

I use stream with Virgin Media. No issues 

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Snap - mine worked as expected on both sky and virgin when I swapped last year. 

[DanSalford]

Well, I phoned up just after 9am today and cancelled my Sky Stream subscription.

It wasn't as much of a hassle as I'd been dreading, took about 10 minutes in total.

I knew they'd ask "Why?", so rather than say anything that he could counter with.. such as a discount or new device.. I just declared that I no longer watch live tv and have already cancelled my tv licence.. blah blah.. and I think he pretty much accepted that without any fuss to be fair.

He didn't try the hard sell to stay (too much) although he did try and keep me with an offer that was just £4 less than I'm already paying but I politely made it clear I'm no longer interested, even at half price.

I've already received email confirmation of the cancellation, service ends on February 2nd and can see my final bill in my account.

Happy New Year from a satisfied - soon to be ex-sky stream customer! 😀

[mirrors90]

Update : I'm circa 11 months in.

Tellingly, when I called up to complain about pixelations and poor image quality during peak internet hours (8pm) even when my broadband is showing fine (40-50mb) - they apply credits and tell me a fix is coming.

do I regret changing over to sky stream? 
when it works.. no. It's a good product which unites all those pesky different services and allows you to watch sky sports / movies / Atlantic in 4k along with the other services. Even allowing us to watch tnt sport in 4k via the app.

Those evenings when something goes wrong? Yes. I have noticed they're not as often now - so things are improving. 

i do wish it was labelled as a beta and discounted though - we're paying premium price for something that's half ready. If it was labelled as such and you knew to expect such frustrations I think it would transform the whole experience. The fact it's sold as a finished product is kinda frustrating. 

I persevere with it and keep providing the feedback to sky so they can continue to roll out fixes. 

My rating so far 5.5/10 

better than average but with some serious shortcomings which prevent it reaching 6 

[TimmyBGood]

@mirrors90 

Selling something as a beta more than three years after release would be a bit of a stretch.

No device with an updatable operating system is really 'finished' until it stops receiving new software versions, at which point it's generally been superceded.