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AIBU?

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Original poster

If you have been with Sky for years and then swapped to a SkyQ box, do you hate it as much as me?

88 replies

WheresMyMask · 06/12/2020 20:07

Been with sky for years and moved house so they upgraded us to a Sky Q box.
It's bloody awful. Nothing make sense. Nothing is in the right place and the buttons don't make sense either.
I told myself it's because I'm getting old and I just need to get used to it.

But it's been 18 months and it's still a pile of confusing shit.

To the point where I'm considering going back to Virgin or other.

Does anyone else feel the same or is it because I'm old and don't like change?

OP posts:
FirstPost99 · 06/12/2020 21:01

We had sky before, switched to virgin as it was cheaper, hated virgin (useless) so wanted to go back to sky. But now we have skyQ and it's rubbish! So hard to use, nothing is clear. I only like the voice bit.

Shinygoldbauble · 06/12/2020 21:06

I dislike it too. I like to sit back from the Tv and I can't read the SkyQ screen. I could read the Sky plus screen. My glasses prescription is up to date so it's not my eyes.
I hate that the back button cancels things too.
I do like the convenience of the Netflix and Disney Plus apps though.

ShandlersWig · 06/12/2020 21:13

It takes a while to get used to it, but 18 months does seem long!!
I wouldn't go back now. Saw my mum's Sky plus set up this week and it seems so old fashioned.
The search facility is crapolla if you're on a mini box though. D I R E.

DivisionBelles · 06/12/2020 21:21

We've had it a couple of months now and I'm not that impressed. My biggest gripe is not being able to set a reminder, only record which I find really annoying.

Roystonv · 06/12/2020 21:32

We are in our 60's and agree with many on here, not user friendly, difficult to see what is highlighted, series linking still a mystery, back button does not work the same, takes longer to get where you want to be etc. Who test runs such things as so much stuff nowadays so poorly designed. Do like being able to talk to it and can record more though.

Piffle11 · 06/12/2020 22:03

I hate Sky Q. The remote is a bloody nightmare: the slightest touch of the wrong button and you’re sent here, there and everywhere. Drives me mad.

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 06/12/2020 22:11

We've still got our original Sky box (not SkyPlus) from 2004. Suits us fine - we record on to a separate Panasonic HDD recorder. We looked into SkyPlus and then SkyQ but were never convinced, and saw an awful lot of bad reviews.

AcornAutumn · 06/12/2020 22:16

Same for my mum

I don’t like it either

She often needs subtitles - otherwise she has the TV up to a volume that kills my ears - but on the Q there’s no way to have them with a download it seems, only with recordings?

She’s accidentally deleted a couple of recordings. On the old box, you could retrieve those but it seems on the new one you can’t.

Search facilities equally bad though.

AcornAutumn · 06/12/2020 22:18

@Roystonv

We are in our 60's and agree with many on here, not user friendly, difficult to see what is highlighted, series linking still a mystery, back button does not work the same, takes longer to get where you want to be etc. Who test runs such things as so much stuff nowadays so poorly designed. Do like being able to talk to it and can record more though.
Yes - but I’ve noticed a lot of tech updates mean things take longer, I wonder why?

There is a button for series link directly below “record” on ours.

RandyGiles06 · 06/12/2020 22:20

We’ve had it a couple of years and I agree it’s not as user friendly as Sky Plus, I have eventually gotten used to it though, and some of the features are useful like the voice search option. I agree that the remote is a very strange shape and I am forever losing it down the sofa or dropping it!

RandyGiles06 · 06/12/2020 22:22

Does anyone else find the series link really buggy, it’s always deleting our series links or starts randomly recording repeats on different channels!

WhoaBettyWhite · 06/12/2020 22:25

After reading all these comments, I've no plans to give up my Sky + any time soon..!!

Burnthurst187 · 06/12/2020 22:40

We've had one for six months, not a huge fan

We weren't told that we'd lose all of our saved programs until the engineer turned up and informed us. If we had known in advance we'd have watched certain things and made a note of what we had etc.

I reckon they don't tell you on purpose as a lot of ppl would be put off

VanCleefArpels · 06/12/2020 22:55

I LOVE skyQ. I love that you can watch anything recorded on any telly (we have 4 skyQ boxes), I love that it remembers you recorded a particular series and so automatically records when a new season starts. I love you can watch Netflix and YouTube and box sets. It honestly only took a couple of days to get the hang of the menu layout. Stick with it, it’s the future!

Theluggage15 · 06/12/2020 22:56

Absolutely hate it. We’ve had it about 3 months and I still have no clue how to use it. It might be flashier but the old type did everything I wanted and was so simple to use. The q box is just a big mess on the screen, sky plus was so clear and unfussy.

Also, I used to cast my iPad to the tv but now the q box seems to have shoved the tv off the list and refuses to show anything I cast.

RowenaRavenclawsLostDiaphragm · 06/12/2020 23:30

@AcornAutumn

Same for my mum

I don’t like it either

She often needs subtitles - otherwise she has the TV up to a volume that kills my ears - but on the Q there’s no way to have them with a download it seems, only with recordings?

She’s accidentally deleted a couple of recordings. On the old box, you could retrieve those but it seems on the new one you can’t.

Search facilities equally bad though.

If you actually click on recordings and then click on manage, you can undo deleted programs from there.
AcornAutumn · 06/12/2020 23:38

Rowena - thank you

van “ I love that it remembers you recorded a particular series and so automatically records when a new season starts.“

The old box did that too.

ruby4ever · 07/12/2020 02:15

I love it. The only thing is the design of the remote. It's curved at the bottom, so you can't press the buttons if it's laying flat on the table as the curve makes the remote move from its place

ruby4ever · 07/12/2020 02:18

The think I hate though, Is if I tune into a program that's being recorded live, it won't let me rewind, I'd have to play it from planner if I want to rewind!

Original poster
WheresMyMask · 07/12/2020 06:30

@ruby4ever

The think I hate though, Is if I tune into a program that's being recorded live, it won't let me rewind, I'd have to play it from planner if I want to rewind!
Yes! I hate that as well! I'd forgotten about that.
OP posts:
ExpensivelyDecorated · 07/12/2020 07:35

We've had it a couple of years and although there are a few niggles overall it's a massive improvement over Sky+.

I like:
Huge capacity
Being able to watch recorded programmes on any box and from my phone
Being able to set things to record from my phone
Being able to cast other services through it from my phone (youtube, spotify etc) as our TVs aren't smart.
Voice search
Easy access to eg Disney+
The small neat remote control feels nice in my hand
You can beep the control from the box to find it.

fiorentina · 07/12/2020 07:41

I agree. I wonder who actually tested the user experience before launch as I find it really poor. Our box also loses internet connection regularly when sky plus rarely has that issue. I like the voice search and apps including Netflix but not much else!
Sky have never really cared about having a customer focused approach in my experience though.

ArthurShelbysTash · 07/12/2020 07:41

Yes to the slippery remote that makes creaky noises. Maybe because I'm forever dropping it?
I do like voice control though. I do not like that when you've deleted an episode of something, delete is highlighted on the next episode down. Thank goodness for undo delete.

AcornAutumn · 07/12/2020 08:54

Arthur “ do not like that when you've deleted an episode of something, delete is highlighted on the next episode down. Thank goodness for undo delete.”

Oh, that must be why mum keeps accidentally deleting things!

Wejustdontknow · 07/12/2020 09:15

@fiorentina this may be outing but I worked on the skyQ development team. The first people to have it were us the developers, it had an awful lot of bugs to sort out in the early days with how it creates a wireless network, it was then rolled out to all other sky staff members who signed up to trial it and they had it for around 6 months before it went to customers. Most feedback during the early days was around bug fixes rather than the interface. Surprisingly it wasn’t until it got to the customers that we started getting complaints about that and it has changed a lot since the early days, the main man from the project always wanted it to be a very different product to sky+ but it has slowly morphed into a very similar product. Maybe the staff were more easily pleased. I haven’t worked for sky for quite a few years now though and actually got rid of it myself once I left although I did love skyQ I couldn’t justify paying for it when we hardly watched it

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