very poor product and service

[paracarter]

having been with sky since the year dot i decided to go to sky stream what a mistake it is shokingly bad the sad thing for sky is i work for the countries no1 electrical retailer and we have to sell this product guess what not happening on my watch for sure i will tell my customers how poor this product reallly is the freezing  of the puck the switching off half way watching something really bad interface its rubbish worst bit of tech ive ever owned sky what the hell you need to great a grip 

[GD1]

@paracarter You're not talking to Sky and as an Employee of Curry's perhaps you need to understand why you're having such issues.

How is the puck connected to your router? What speed is getting to the hub? Have you contacted Sky at all regarding these issues?

You need consistent and strong WiFi for the pucks.

You need a minimum of 25mbps for HD and 35mbps for UHF.  Did you know this?

Try opening netflix, go to get help and run the speed test, what are your speeds reporting as?

You may also want to not bring your employer into this on a public forum as I dare say they have rules in their policies on what employees say online?  

[Nigelb1972]

Hmmm interesting because apart from the ongoing Atmos issue my pucks have been rock solid for nearly a year. They have the occasional reboot which takes a couple of minutes. If you're having so many issues, you've either got a faulty puck or a setup issue. Probably should have taken the extended warranty that provides in home support 🤣

Also, using the term number 1 retailer is subjective. I absolutely refuse to use said retailers but the service, technical knowledge and general all round experience is shockingly bad.

[MarkGoldsmith]

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@Nigelb1972 wrote:

Hmmm interesting because apart from the ongoing Atmos issue my pucks have been rock solid for nearly a year. They have the occasional reboot which takes a couple of minutes. If you're having so many issues, you've either got a faulty puck or a setup issue. Probably should have taken the extended warranty that provides in home support 🤣

Also, using the term number 1 retailer is subjective. I absolutely refuse to use said retailers but the service, technical knowledge and general all round experience is shockingly bad.

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Certainly I'd expect an employee of a "leading technical retailer" to technically understand how a product they sell works and to be able to troubleshoot any issues.

As pointed out by @GD1 it's all signs of inadequate WiFi signals.

[Chrisee]

@paracarter I would be very careful assuming your experience is anyway typical and let it influence your work . As someone with hopefully some technical knowledge you will be aware that streaming video is quite demanding on the home network. Streaming over WiFi is indeed possible and I have three pucks and a Glass TV thst do not suffer from any of the faults you mention but then again I have invested in a decent WiFi set up - opportunity for an upsale 😉 The applies especially for customers moving from Sky Q who lose the wifi hot spots Q boxes offer.

The interface does require getting used to as did the switch from Sky+ HD to Sky Q took me a few days but then again I am well passed retirement age. Given Sky are selling far more Stream set ups than Q which is likely to be removed from sale soon maybe your concern could be career limiting ?

[lettice]

As above.

For someone that works in a tech store, would expect to you to grasp that having a good local network for such a product is necessary and also the interface itself is a pretty easy step up from previous Sky products. In my view it is well laid out and the UI is a joy to navigate with remote and voice options.

The playlist is a new concept that may take a few days to get used to, think we have all been there, but using it for a few days and a little research it becomes second nature to use and navigate.

Myself, having had Sky Stream with two pucks since February this year, I have had none of the issues you are reporting.

[Jporch316]

As well as the above you should also be aware of troubleshooting electrical equipment and warranty replacement procedures for potentially faulty items (which happens with all tech manufacturers)

skys troubleshooting and potential replacement is pretty straightforward....

[DazLad1]

I've got to say the I totally agree with Paracarter here - Sky Stream is a complete bag of rubbish!

Everyone seems to be pointing towards all the garbage problems with Sky Stream being a WiFi issue - I have fiber optic to my house, it goes through the wall to the router and that sits about 10' away from the puck, in direct line of sight!!

How come I get so many problems with Sky Stream?  BTW - I don't get any other problems with anything else connected to Sky WiFi!

[GD1]

@DazLad1  The reason why is that wifi can be affected by numerous thing, such as interference from neighbouring signals, drop in speed etc,  pucks need a constand 25mbps for HD & 35mbps  for UHD. 

If the router is soo close why not try ethernet from the puck to router and turn the wifi off on the puck.

Fairly sure you'll see a biig improvement.

The problem is everyone thinks wifi should work as it does for other devices that may not consume that amount of bandwidth.

Until you try ethernet you can't say that the puck is solely at fault.  I can tell you that I have mine hardwired and have never suffered the issues some people seem to do with wifi.

[DazLad1]

Is there a specific type of Eithernet cable I require?

I've looked at getting some and you have different catagories - which is best?

[GD1]

@DazLad1  Cat5 will suffice as the ethernet ports on the pucks only support 100mbps (more than enough for UHD).

[MarkGoldsmith]

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@DazLad1 wrote:

How come I get so many problems with Sky Stream?  BTW - I don't get any other problems with anything else connected to Sky WiFi!

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This is a common misunderstanding with how the Sky streaming platform actually works, it's unique with its client server architecture so works in a completely different way to other devices.

Most other services stream the content directly from the device, and have some sort of hard drive in them. When streaming from the actual device content is typically buffered which means any small drops in WiFi connection so are unlikely to notice and what you are watching will continue as the next short period will already have buffered locally onto the device.

Everything in the Sky platform is streamed from Skys servers, which means your Sky device connects to Sky servers and it's the servers where the content is streamed from, which means you lose the benefit of locally buffering and is the reason that a drop in connection due to WiFi interference will cause issues as you may even for a split second lose connection to Skys servers.

[DazLad1]

Thanks for the explanation - it makes a lot of sense.

I'm now more disappointed with Sky, in that they know there's an issue with the standard of their streaming service, yet they don't give a Flying Figg about their customers and keep using sub-standard methods/equipment.

I will definitely be moving to another service when my contract is finished.