Sky to let people watch TV through boxes without a dish for the first ever time
Sky will finally sell a box that does not require a dish mounted to the outside of their house.
The company is planning to launch its “Sky Stream puck” later this year, allowing people to get the full Sky TV experience through the internet.
Last year, it released Sky Glass, a full television built around Sky’s TV offering. But customers were required to buy the TV if they wanted to watch over the internet – with all of Sky’s boxes still requiring a connection to a dish.
Now Sky says that it will sell a streaming puck as a standalone device. That will work something like a Chromecast or Apple TV, but offer full the full television experience, with live channels and other Sky features inside.
The new release will be coming later this year, Sky said.
When it arrives, it should be plug and play, without any other Sky equipment needed. The box connects to the internet and streams live TV and existing programmes over the internet, but is not able to record its own programming.
It will be missing some of the features that come with Sky Glass. It does not have Dolby Atmos sound, for instance.
The Sky Stream puck was actually unveiled alongside Sky Glass. But for now it only works with one of those televisions in the house, and the company.did not indicate then whether or not it would be released on its own.
Sky Glass was announced in October, after months of rumours that it was working on a way to do away with the satellite dish and allow people to stream over the internet. Those rumours had led to speculation that it was working on a new kind of Sky box – but in the end it only launched the standalone TV, with the existing Sky Q box the only way to get the Sky experience on another TV.
Sky Glass was then released a month later, to mixed reviews. While many praised the introduction of a new way of watching Sky, the TV itself was missing some high-end features, and the software experience was hit by some problems early on.
