Sky is “surprised and happy” about the demand for its all-new Sky Glass ahead of Christmas, Chief Product Officer Fraser Stirling has revealed. Sky Glass was announced back in October and has been tough to buy in the weeks since. Customers who want to buy this popular QLED television need to add their details to a waiting list, with Sky promising to get in touch when stock is available. Unlike Sky Q, which has been available since early 2016, you can’t simply add Sky Glass to your online shopping basket on Sky’s website …backing up Sky’s claim that uptake has been strong for its latest product, which is a dramatic departure for the satellite television company. This custom-designed QLED TV includes a sound system, hands-free voice controls, and will support video calls in the future. It’s also the first product to launch from Sky that doesn’t require a satellite dish on the outside of your house – everything is streamed via a Wi-Fi connection, so you’ll only need a single power cable plugged into Sky Glass to get everything up and running.
Sky Glass isn’t just designed to cut down on the clutter on your media unit, either. That same philosophy permeates the experience when you turn on the telly too. With hundreds of live channels available and a dizzying number of new releases arriving every week – not to mention the vast catalogue of on-demand boxsets and films vying for your attention, it can be a daunting task to find something new to watch.
Bringing together series, films, and sports from Sky, Netflix, Disney+, Prime Video and Apple TV+ …Sky Glass is designed to cut through the clutter. The QLED TV analyses your viewing history to make intelligent suggestions based on your tastes, which are refreshed up to six times a day on the main menu. Not only that, but Sky Glass can also automatically present a slideshow of high-resolution artwork from the shows, films and events that it thinks will appeal to you (and anyone else in the household who uses the same telly) whenever you walk into the room and Glass detects a presence. Picking up the controller will throw you to the content that was on-screen when you decided to grab the remote.
In an interview with Sky News, Chief Product Officer Fraser Stirling discussed the thinking behind the all-in-one television: “How we really think about Sky Glass – and why it is genuinely different, globally a different thing, there’s no other product like it right now – is because we look at it as a massive catalogue.
“There’s a catalogue that sits there and has information on live [programming], on-demand, things that you can record, stuff that’s in-app, stuff that’s in other apps, and it’s all there in a massive catalogue. If I search for Bruce Willis movies, which I do all the time, especially this time of year, you will see all the Bruce Willis movies, but that’s from everywhere, from Amazon, from Cinema, from Netflix, from Disney, all of them, in one place. And that is because it’s in the catalogue.”
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Fraser Stirling recalls his father confessing that he was having to rely on Google Search to find out which streaming service a particular show was hosted on. Aside from exclusives, syndicated shows and movies often drift between on-demand providers – with Christmas films that were included as part of your Netflix last year now only available to those who subscribe to Amazon’s Prime Video, for example.
The universal search built into Sky Glass is designed to stop anyone from having to open Google to find the channel or streaming service that houses a particular show. Of course, you’ll need to hold subscriptions and accounts for each streaming services to watch on Sky Glass, but the all-in-one television can scour catalogues from BBC iPlayer, Prime Video, Netflix, Disney+, ITV Hub, All4, Spotify, YouTube, Apple TV+ and Peloton.
If you don’t fancy typing out the search query, Sky Glass supports voice search, either using the far-field microphone array (you’ll need to use the wake phrase “Hello, Sky” to let the telly know that you’re about to issue a command) or using the microphone button built into the remote control.
Shows from a variety of streaming services can be added to the Playlist, which replaces the Recordings section found on the Sky Q box. This brings together everything you want to watch, with Series Link adding new episodes in a continuing series as soon as they’ve aired. A + button on the remote replaces the R icon used to trigger a recording on every Sky box since the original Sky+ box 20 years ago.
For anyone who has been desperately trying to get their hands on Sky Glass, it will come as no surprise that the company behind the all-in-one 4K TV is “happy” about the sales. Since its launch, Sky Glass has been unavailable to add to your shopping basket on the online Sky Store. Instead, customers who are interested in watching via this clutter-free telly need to register their details, with Sky pledging to get back in touch when it’s your turn in the queue.
“Sky Glass is in high demand right now,” the online order page explains. “Register today & we’ll send out your invite to purchase as soon as we can.”
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