*** Sky Q Thread ***

steve5424 said:
They tried to offer me that and glass last month when I renewed. Said I want local recordings I can store and watch. A relative has Stream I while it work fine, I could not handle being at the mercy of on demand and catchup services.
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Ah they didn't offer me anything other than a very small reduction in cost. I'm going to Now TV, Netflix and TNT subs using apps on my TV / Firestick and will see how it goes.
 
CliffyG said:
Ah they didn't offer me anything other than a very small reduction in cost. I'm going to Now TV, Netflix and TNT subs using apps on my TV / Firestick and will see how it goes.
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Had a huge discount last time. Full price of £195 as we have everything and 1 multi room box. Last renewal was £79 as id spoken to the customer relations type people and had recently had a transplant(kidney & pancreas) and was home most of the time, the girls friend also had a transplant so she was extra nice.

This time the best I could get out of them was a reduction to £129, with a broadband upgrade to full fibre 150 from full fibre 70 as they could give me a bigger discount on the newer speeds.
 
Well, the Sky Q Mini box isn't even connecting. It either has a network issue or an issue connecting to the main Sky Q box.
Everything seems so locked down on these boxes I can't look at anything.
Completely useless! Sky Q would be a waste of money if it was free let alone the silly prices they're charging for it.
 
Its locked down to keep it simple and straight forward.
Don't you have to pair the box on first set up? It's been a long time so I can't remember specifics. There is a hidden engineer menu with certain settings.
 
steve5424 said:
Had a huge discount last time. Full price of £195 as we have everything and 1 multi room box. Last renewal was £79 as id spoken to the customer relations type people and had recently had a transplant(kidney & pancreas) and was home most of the time, the girls friend also had a transplant so she was extra nice.

This time the best I could get out of them was a reduction to £129, with a broadband upgrade to full fibre 150 from full fibre 70 as they could give me a bigger discount on the newer speeds.
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They offered me 148 originally then went away and offered me 142 without cinema so a discount of about 23 quid.
 
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steve5424 said:
Its locked down to keep it simple and straight forward.
Don't you have to pair the box on first set up? It's been a long time so I can't remember specifics. There is a hidden engineer menu with certain settings.
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Yeah, it seemed to work then, but not after the engineer had left.
Being locked down is annoying as I can't set things up how I want (like I could with the old Sky box), so now we have to get an engineer out to change any little setting.
 
steve5424 said:
What settings are you looking to change?
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Mostly WiFi stuff (password or the WiFi network), maybe DNS.
It's be nice if there were something showing WiFi strength too.

On a different note, I'm a little confused why the mini box won't let you watch TV when it doesn't have an internet connection but does have a connection to the main Sky Q box. I'm not sure why the mini box needs an internet connection at all.
 
It needs an Internet connection to the other box to get content.

If you also have the sky broadband then the router is where you change things like WiFi passwords and settings. That isn't on the Q box.
 
steve5424 said:
It needs an Internet connection to the other box to get content.

If you also have the sky broadband then the router is where you change things like WiFi passwords and settings. That isn't on the Q box.
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It says it has a connection to the other sky q box though. It shouldn't need an internet connection to connect to something on the same WiFi network!

They don't have Sky broadband (Sky TV is bad enough), which is annoying as I believe that would allow me to connect the mini box via ethernet, but that only work with a Sky router.

I'm thinking I'd like to take the Sky boxes off the main WiFi and put them on their own WiFi, but I don't know how to tell the Sky boxes to use a different WiFi. Would also be handy then if I could set the DNS addresses on each box rather than via dchp.
 
The DNS and WiFi network can be changed from the network settings in the menu. Settings-setup-network from there you will see the WiFi network scroll to the right and select reset, youll then setup up the WiFi connection from the beginning.

DNS is settings-setup-network-advanced youll then see the IP address is set to automatic, choose set manually on the right and youll see the list and dns is on the list.

If you had sky bbq then the Q boxes would also act as WiFi extenders, creating a mesh network.
 
steve5424 said:
The DNS and WiFi network can be changed from the network settings in the menu. Settings-setup-network from there you will see the WiFi network scroll to the right and select reset, youll then setup up the WiFi connection from the beginning.

DNS is settings-setup-network-advanced youll then see the IP address is set to automatic, choose set manually on the right and youll see the list and dns is on the list.

If you had sky bbq then the Q boxes would also act as WiFi extenders, creating a mesh network.
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I did try resetting the network on the mini box and it didn't give me the option to change, do you have to do that on the main box? An annoying way to change a WiFi network though, most of my devices just let you pick the WiFi network from a list without having to reset anything.
Makes sense the DNS stuff is in with the static IP address, that does seem to be the case. Annoying that it doesn't appear there though before selecting the option, hard to find things if they're not visible!
Thanks for letting me know.

I guess this probably all boils down to Sky Q being 10 years old and from a time when being customer friendly wasn't a thing they cared about. Or maybe that's just Sky and they're still like that today!
 
GoogalyMoogaly said:
I did try resetting the network on the mini box and it didn't give me the option to change, do you have to do that on the main box? An annoying way to change a WiFi network though, most of my devices just let you pick the WiFi network from a list without having to reset anything.
Makes sense the DNS stuff is in with the static IP address, that does seem to be the case. Annoying that it doesn't appear there though before selecting the option, hard to find things if they're not visible!
Thanks for letting me know.

I guess this probably all boils down to Sky Q being 10 years old and from a time when being customer friendly wasn't a thing they cared about. Or maybe that's just Sky and they're still like that today!
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The box will only connect to 2ghz networks weirdly as it using 5ghz for its mesh network although that seems pointless as youll then really be on slower speeds. Yes just on the main box.

The mini just connects to the main box as it gets all its content from that box and so it extends the mesh when used with Sky broadband.

I think the settings etc have been kept simple purely as most customers wont ever touch them and it helps keep setup simple as many will not have a clue about all the complicated stuff.
 
steve5424 said:
The box will only connect to 2ghz networks weirdly as it using 5ghz for its mesh network although that seems pointless as youll then really be on slower speeds. Yes just on the main box.

The mini just connects to the main box as it gets all its content from that box and so it extends the mesh when used with Sky broadband.

I think the settings etc have been kept simple purely as most customers wont ever touch them and it helps keep setup simple as many will not have a clue about all the complicated stuff.
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I was wondering why it was all connecting on the 2.4GHz network (and thus running slower). That is rubbish.
I hate this mini box concept and preferred the old style of just having multiple boxes connected to the dish.

If most customers won't ever touch them, why worry about keeping them simple? Add in all the stuff that people that may touch them might actually need!
 
And now the mini box won't even turn on (not that the WiFi would connect if it did).
Feels like this is gonna need an engineer visit, having to pull the plug multiple times a day just to get the box to turn on doesn't seem right. Neither does the WiFi constantly disconnecting for that matter.
 
Mini box might have a fault. We are still using the original mini(8 years) and it never has problems unless the main box does or the WiFi has issues.
 
A couple more questions you guys might know that isn't to do with the seemingly broken Mini box.
The "apps" button on the remote (the ... button), can my parents customize what apps appear there as the ones there (apart from the weather app seem useless to them)?
On the old Sky boxes all your recordings were just shown in a list and you could get 6 or 7 on the screen at once, in the Sky Q recordings it would appear that they show massive tiles for each recording and you can get 3 (I think) on screen at once. Is there any way to get it back to what they're used to so they can find their recordings more easily (as in the way they're used to)?

Also, what's the reasoning behind lumping all the recordings in together with no way to separate or even filter by which box they were recorded on? Different people recording different things with little interest in what the other has recorded. Combined with the way so few recordings are now displayed at a time, it'll be harder for them to find what they want to watch and increases the chance they delete each other programs by mistake.

I really get the feeling that Sky didn't care about making it easier for their customers to do what they want, they just want the money. Customers just seem like an irritation to Sky, but they tolerate them because they do love money.


EDIT:
Also, why get rid of the "Back Up" button. I don't know about my parents on this one, but I used that one all the time when I used Sky, now it's gone.
And why is it so much harder to search, it used to just be at the top of the main screen, not there's a separate key buried in the cluster of small buttons (great for older people that might not have the best eyesight).
And since you can't stream programs you have to download them right? Why is it so slow? I understood the old boxes being slow, having built-in WiFi was a novelty for them, but I'd expect the Sky Q boxes to be faster. 1.6GB has take about 5 minutes or more!!!
 
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You can't changes the listed apps in the shortcut button. Though to be honest I never use it, I use the apps directly on my tv as they work better and are more stable.

The tiles are meant to make it easier to find what you are looking for, by having a picture, as the box is fairly responsive it doesn't take too long to find and on the recordings screen they are listed with most recent recordings at the top. On the left you can filter a couple genres like movies. You can also list by recently watched.

As the mini boxes are just slaves, the recordings and downloads all happen on the main box and stream to the mini when playing. I can easily spot what my wife or daughter have chosen to watch as I have no interest in those and easy to tell what they are called. I never even look at those and don't go in to delete.

The Q menu style was all about the tiles and making the menus easier to navigate, I did take me a week or so to adjust to it, but now it's so easy to get to where I want.

Searching isn't something I do often but the voice search is probably the fastest way to find things. Press and hold, say a programme name or actor name and it finds everything it can. You can also search by quoting a movie, for example "who ya gonna call" brings up ghostbusters.

Yes it's slower as on the 2.4ghz WiFi but an ethernet makes it quicker and I usually click to download and you get a message on screen telling to its ready to watch within a minute usually. Sometimes less.
 
GoogalyMoogaly said:
I was wondering why it was all connecting on the 2.4GHz network (and thus running slower). That is rubbish.
I hate this mini box concept and preferred the old style of just having multiple boxes connected to the dish.

If most customers won't ever touch them, why worry about keeping them simple? Add in all the stuff that people that may touch them might actually need!
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To make it seem a little bit more rubbish, they do support 5GHz networks but ONLY if you're using a Sky router. Using something else? 2.4GHz only for you. Crap, isn't it?

Personally I've hard wired both my boxes and disabled Wi-Fi on both via the hidden menu which has at least given me very stable connectivity.
 
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