New SKY streaming devices

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342 posts

Ultimate Geek

ID Verified

#3077107 17-May-2023 12:36

I thought I was smart ordering another 2 Sky Bluetooth remotes to be able to use them in other rooms but I have hit a concreate wall.

Apparently I can only pair one remote at a time to the Sky Box and when I try to use another remote it says to press [CH+] + [OK] buttons for 3 seconds to pair then that remote will pair and disable the other remote.

Surely I can pair additional Bluetooth devices and just rename the device in the Sky Box settings?

clayton

342 posts

Ultimate Geek

ID Verified

#3077108 17-May-2023 12:40

Jiriteach:

clayton:

I thought I was smart ordering another 2 Sky Bluetooth remotes to be able to use them in other rooms but I have hit a concreate wall.

Apparently I can only pair one remote at a time to the Sky Box and when I try to use another remote it says to press [CH+] + [OK] buttons for 3 seconds to pair then that remote will pair and disable the other remote.

Surely I can pair additional Bluetooth devices and just rename the device in the Sky Box settings?

Are there any workarounds, what a disaster!!

Out of interest - how much if additional remotes? Cant see why they wouldnt pair.

$30 each

It would work in the same room as the Sky Box but would keep nagging me to pair it, but not in the other rooms, maybe the RF has kicked in prior to pairing to Bluetooth

clayton

342 posts

Ultimate Geek

ID Verified

#3077221 17-May-2023 15:10

Flashes Blue when sending commands via Bluetooth (BT / BLE)
Flashes Red when sending commands via Infra-Red (IR) - Uses IR for Auto-Pairing feature. RC stops sending commands via IR once BT paired
Flashes Green if BT Pairing action is successful, flashes Red if BT Pairing fails
Flashes Red when Battery Low

JoBudge

25 posts

Geek

#3077233 17-May-2023 16:57

Been following this post for years. When I first got VFTV and we had trouble loading six devices. And there was someone e on here who worked at VF and they were terrific help. Loved the product..

Anyhow, after waiti g so lo g for the Skypod, have had enough of how slow and horrible the Sky Pods are. Today I cancelled Sky and asked for a refund for our five pods. After waiting so long for VFTV replacement which were great little devices that made our dumb tvs smart, I will just buy smart tvs and the oldies will forgo Sky news and Sports on the TV.

Interestingly it took;

1. One call where I needed to identify myself with four security questions and a pin and then the call was disconnected when transferring. 6 minutes.
2. A second call with four security questions and a pin and then the call was disconnected after transferring and waiting on hold at minute 13.
3. A third call where I was transferred no fewer than five operators and transferred four times with significant wait times and was required to identify the account and provide the pin all taking approximately 28 minutes before the line cut out again. The operator called me back this time!
4. Incoming call, by Shena who transferred me to Chaharna, who transferred me to Shashana (yep I am writing their names down now) and you guessed it, I had to identify myself with all three of them again! It then took 21 minutes speaking with her or her trying to contsct her supervisor - or putting me on hold who eventually asked for my address. What I just told you my account and address 10 times! A courier bag is being dispatched. The account is cancelled and the refund? Apparently I will get an email. Call time 35 minutes.

This took in total over an hour and a half! All whilst I get the message 'our new Sky boxes are so popular - we are busy and the wait may be long' I actually think they may be busy with everyone cancelling because the product is rubbish. Was happy to buy the pods, pay multiroon and Sky subscription to keep five TVs we have at hone in a multi generation home plus the Bach TVs from landfill, had the product been as good as VFTV.

Skypods are slow, clunky interface, no recording, no channel three live, not great APPS to load and overall just crap.

prevaljo

175 posts

Master Geek

#3077235 17-May-2023 17:17

I have some sympathy with this poster. The only reason I haven't done the same thing is a desire to watch sport, football, netball, surfing. After the Womens World Cup I may review my options.

Hammerer

2476 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#3077271 17-May-2023 20:28

bmr63:

As a 29+ year customer of Sky, plus even longer as an IT professional, I’ve read other peoples posts with equal measures of interest and dismay. The functionality in those “ancient” MySky-type boxes should be an absolute MINIMUM starting point for any new product! People shouldn’t have to wait weeks for updates to be released to return functionality they previously had with the ‘outdated technology’!!

I’ve got to say they certainly won’t be getting me to give up my Hdi box any time soon, and as technology rollouts go, this has been frankly less than professional. Sorry, you can tell they are in a captive market. If there was true competition, they wouldn’t survive.

This seems to be typical of the PVR transitions in New Zealand: lots of disgruntled customers due to usability issues and important features “missing”. Having said this, I have no qualms in getting the new box because at least we are sure it will get better given history of such services in NZ. We’ve just got the new box and so far have had no problems but we are taking it easy. If recording many channels were really important to us then we would have held off until it was proven bulletproof.

This is my journey so far with these PVRs.

2005 SkyTV mySky box records 2 channels. I remember a catastrophic bug where nobody could view anything but apart from that it was much better than the opposition’s TBox launch.

2006 TelstraClear TBox launch which, from memory, took four years (if not more) to become really usable despite, or perhaps because of, it being based on the existing Telstra service in Australia.

2008 MySky HDi box records 4 channels but has some serious teething problems … GGGRRRHH. Still much better than the TBox launch.

2017 VodafoneTV launched to Vodafone customers with loss of usability compared to the T-Box. We regretted shifting and we moaned about it for at least two years.

2019 VodafoneTV standalone service used generation 2 boxes and sped up usability improvements to gen. 1 boxes.

2023 VodafoneTV closes and SkyTV launches new box to record 5 channels. VodafoneTV users regret losing VodafoneTV. My technophobe wife regrets it most because she actually mastered the VodafoneTV interface.

P.S. I did say TelstraClear was competing with SkyTV in 2006 but they had been on selling SkyTV since early 2000s.

prevaljo

175 posts

Master Geek

#3077285 17-May-2023 21:10

The Sky Pod is an evolving beast, in the last few days the "home" page has been rearranged and I've now lost the Chromecast feature. As many posters have said this is a product that the customers are testing rather than a completed product.

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clayton

342 posts

Ultimate Geek

ID Verified

#3077286 17-May-2023 21:11

From what I understand is you can not use more than one BT remote with the Sky Box at the same time,

However the remote initially uses infrared to pair it to BT, once paired it's good to go

I was planning on pairing 3 remotes for 3 different rooms but now that's a no go.

The Sky Box is in the Lounge and I can use the remote as infrared for line of sight but need to press the buttons twice and a message keeps nagging me to pair with BT

I will move the remote connected to BT between the two other rooms

Using infrared, the voice doesn't work and many other main feature buttons don't either

What are others doing in this case?

Ramjet007

319 posts

Ultimate Geek

#3077304 18-May-2023 03:59

My issues with the Box so far.

Freezing in most recorded programs. I have to fast-forward a few seconds to get it to go. If I rewind and play again the freeze is still there.

Last few days I have been getting video corruption on recorded playback throughout the program (I don't watch Live TV so not sure if it's in the live show)

Pretty sure that the series link has failed to record at least one program.

My sky remote is turning off my TV when I turn it off with the sky remote and my TV remote turns the sky box on when using the TV remote. The TV is an old Panasonic. I didn't think it was using Bluetooth.

Haven't rung Sky as can't be bothered waiting on hold for hours.

I still have my old one, but so far i can live with the issues.

siva992

77 posts

Master Geek

#3077305 18-May-2023 04:10

Ramjet007:
My sky remote is turning off my TV when I turn it off with the sky remote and my TV remote turns the sky box on when using the TV remote. The TV is an old Panasonic. I didn't think it was using Bluetooth.

That's not an issue per se, and certainly has nothing to do with Bluetooth. Your new Sky box connects to your new Sky remote via Bluetooth. That's as far as you go with that.

Your TV, which I assume it's connected to your new Sky box using HDMI, is what's turning your TV on and off whenever you power on your new Sky box. That's what you call HDMI-CEC, it's feature you get when you have compatible HDMI devices connected to each other. You can turn it off if you don't like it.

mclean

581 posts

Ultimate Geek

Subscriber

#3077445 18-May-2023 10:42

JoBudge: Skypods are slow, clunky interface, no recording, no channel three live, not great APPS to load and overall just crap.

I don't really agree with that. Comparing the Skypod with the old VFTV:

Yes, the interface isn't the best, but having used it for a few months we now find it OK.
Correct, the Skypod can't record, but neither could the VFTV.
Channel 3 live works fine on our Skypod, and so does the ThreeNow app.
Other apps we have loaded work just great. The only exception being the TVNZ+ app which is poor, but that's not Sky's fault. The VFTV couldn't load apps at all.

TVNZ have made it hard to access their content on the Sky platform so we simply don't go there. It's no great loss. We used to watch their news, but now it's mostly a regurgitation of party press releases with a few magazine-type segments to pad it out. So their lousy app is no big deal.

The bluetooth remote, the ability to install Android apps, and lots of other little things, make the Skypod already better than the old VFTV, IMHO.

pristle

158 posts

Master Geek

Subscriber

#3077450 18-May-2023 11:17

After several telephonic attempts, I was finally able to cancel the SkyPod, along with Starter+Entertainment plan. I cited all the painful issues that've been shared by others though these pages.

There was much cajoling to get me to accept a SkyBox instead, for the price of a Pod as "you'll be able to record" they said. "For free" I countered, "Sorry no". And judging by what been said here, the experience would be only marginally better. I did toy with a further offer that was made, of an older MySky device. But again I weighed up the cost, despite the fact I have a 4 year old Sky installed dish, they insisted on an installation charge, plus the $15/mo recording.

Plugged in my mother's old DishTV Freeview satbox, and it's providing me with base F2A channels. Which will make life easier for my wife. Although it doesn't have the pause/rewind capability.

I miss Discovery Turbo much less than I expected. I'll find out next week about UKTV, when my wife is back and finds she can't watch "Death in Paradise". But I think between subscription streaming and freeview, we may do okay.

Rikkitic

Awrrr
18663 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#3077451 18-May-2023 11:20

Sky is really eating its babies, isn't it?

Plesse igmore amd axxept applogies in adbance fir anu typos

SouthernGeek

68 posts

Master Geek

#3077453 18-May-2023 11:34

Rikkitic:

Sky is really eating its babies, isn't it?

Yep, it was dying anyway, but seems they wanted to speed the process up some. I dont think I have ever seen such a catastrophic failed launch of proven older tech.

Its hardly new Tech is it? So very far behind.

If they just allowed a cheap app based access to channels like a "Neon" or "Skysportnow" but in 4K, with the ability to add/pay for channels as required they might have saved their skin. But they seem hell bent on making access for the paying customer as hard as possible....

clayton

342 posts

Ultimate Geek

ID Verified

#3077468 18-May-2023 11:59

SouthernGeek:

Rikkitic:

Sky is really eating its babies, isn't it?

Yep, it was dying anyway, but seems they wanted to speed the process up some. I dont think I have ever seen such a catastrophic failed launch of proven older tech.

Its hardly new Tech is it? So very far behind.

If they just allowed a cheap app based access to channels like a "Neon" or "Skysportnow" but in 4K, with the ability to add/pay for channels as required they might have saved their skin. But they seem hell bent on making access for the paying customer as hard as possible....

The Sky Boxes are like the deck chairs on the Titanic !!

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