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S ky’s first own-brand telly is a breakthrough for anyone living in an apartment or sick of multiple boxes clogging up the living room. But while there’s a lot to like about the simple, elegant set, its lack of ability to record programmes might hold some buyers back.

Sky Glass comes in five colours and three sizes

Sky Glass has tidied up a previously cable-ridden corner of Adrian Weckler’s living room. Photo: Adrian Weckler

The remote control for Sky Glass is simpler to use than most

Sky Glass is a little thicker than other TVs because of the incorporated sound bar

Sky Glass is a brand new idea for a TV company — its own branded telly with a proper sound bar built in. It’s a big deal in that you won’t need access to a dish or a separate set top box; it all works over wifi.

Pros: simple to set up with no dish, good audio quality, makes for a tidier living room

Cons: can’t record programmes and its ‘watchlist’ replacement system is ineffective

There are some huge advantages to this. Indeed, there are more than a few shades of Apple’s design process (simplicity, elegance, some innovation) in much of what Sky is doing here. But is the whole package compelling enough to switch your TV for?

For the last week, I’ve replaced my Sony 55-inch Oled television, and all of its accessories, with a lone 65-inch Sky Glass model.

This first impressions review is based on a diet of sport, regular live TV, catchup TV, movies and streaming platforms. It’s also based on other effects on our living room that the Sky Glass set has had. Here’s what I have found to be very good, fairly good and bad.

Sky Glass has tidied up a previously cable-ridden corner of Adrian Weckler’s living room. Photo: Adrian Weckler

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(i) It’s ultra-simple to set up: there’s no messing around with satellite dishes or enquires to see if your estate has a communal dish. You just take it out of the box, plug it in, match it to your wifi and sign in to your account. That’s it: you’re up and running.

(ii) It’s really neat and tidy: the Glass set has had one unexpected, but significant, benefit: decluttering. As mentioned above, our living room’s TV corner had included our Sony 55-inch Oled set, two set-top boxes, a separate main speaker, a DVD player, and all of the wires and cables needed to connect them to one another. All of them are now gone as they’re no longer needed. (The DVD player has been tucked into a drawer as it’s only occasionally used anyways.) Although I have no issue with wires and gadgets on show, certain members of the household are very, very happy about this turn of events.

Sky Glass is a little thicker than other TVs because of the incorporated sound bar

(iii) The built-in speaker: at last! A television you buy that has audio quality you’re not immediately disappointed by when you stream a movie. Sky has built a six-speaker system into the television, which is the main reason that it’s physically thicker than most new tellies you’ll see in shops. The resulting sound quality out of the Glass TV is really decent and, I think, will more than suffice for the vast majority of people looking for clear, bass-sufficient sound. Is it an audiophile’s dream? No. When I compare it to the Panasonic HTB700 (soundbar plus wireless woofer) I have set up on a TV in another room, there is no question that the more elaborate separates setup produces deeper, superior audio than the Glass TV. But that’s an extra €500 in accessories, not to mention a couple of extra tech boxes and cabling littering your TV table or floor.

What’s more relevant is that it compares just fine to the Devialet separate speaker and pair of Apple Homepod mini speakers I had set up with my existing Sony telly in the living room. What will probably matter to most people is that the speaker on the Sky Glass telly is significantly better than on most any other regular TV. It’s designed to be ‘good enough to please’ rather than an AV enthusiast’s aspiration.

(i) The picture quality: I’ve been reasonably satisfied. I went from a 55-inch Sony Oled to the 65-inch Sky Glass, giving me a really up-close chance to compare the two for picture quality. Overall, the Sony is better. But it also costs at least half as much more. And it’s not that much better: I’m impressed with the depth of black that the Glass set offers. There are some compromises for those with specific requirements; the 60hz display isn’t ideal for those who are into gaming, for example.

But overall, the screen quality on the Sky Glass set is good enough for the money you’re paying, given the other features it has.

(ii) Voice control: Sky’s voice control has become a lot more polished and comprehensive. Saying ‘hello Sky’ lets you search for almost any movie, programme or actor across any platform that Sky has access to. That now also includes YouTube (“hello Sky, Liverpool videos on YouTube”), as well as results from Sky, Netflix, Amazon, Disney Plus, Paramount Plus and all the rest. The accuracy is not too bad, either – I tested it with searches such as “hello Sky, show me Saoirse Ronan movies” and it got it right first time.

The remote control for Sky Glass is simpler to use than most

(iii) The remote control: it may sound minor, but having one, simple, tactile remote control is a relief. Gone are the multiple 40-button remotes that no-one other than me was ever sure how to operate. A really nice touch is that the remote has backlit buttons, so you don’t have to use your phone’s torch to see it when looking for the pause button during a movie at night.

(iv) Simple ‘settings’ controls: it’s worth mentioning this, because Sky has done a great job here in making the general ‘settings’ controls accessible and easy to understand. There are fewer than a dozen controls, with the majority being on-off choices. Everything else is reserved to a separate custom settings menu, which Sky suitably warns is only for experts to tinker with. This Apple-like ethos of simplicity is much closer to what I think most ordinary people want from their TV settings.

(v) Overall design: as mentioned above, our sitting room now looks a lot neater. But the Sky Glass set also comes in a choice of five different colours, reflected in the side and top of the telly, as well as a three-inch coloured strip along the bottom of the set. If you prefer a little less colour, this strip is removable.

(i) Recording programmes mostly doesn’t work: you need to know this before buying this system. Sky Glass has no storage to record programmes on it. Instead, you put the programme on a ‘playlist’ by clicking the ‘+’ button on the remote control. The idea here is that Sky uses the programme station’s own online player to stream the programme you wanted to ‘record’. Or it records the programme itself ‘in the cloud’ for your playback (within 30 days, and no longer).

Or if it can’t do either of these things, it goes hunting for that programme on a range of other online platforms, like Netflix or Amazon and then links you to those episodes.

Honestly, it doesn’t really work. I ‘playlisted’ Match Of The Day* last weekend and… nothing. It accepted my playlist request (it says it is still “series linked”) and then ghosted me afterwards, with no reference to the episode I wanted, as if I’d never made the request. This was replicated with several other shows I tried to playlist. I had better luck playlisting a Liverpool football match on BT Sport, which is still sitting in my playlist waiting to be watched (again and again, for that last minute goal). But my overall experience in playlisting across various channels has been a hodge-lodge of separate online players, being ghosted like I was with Match Of The Day, and the odd successful cloud recording.

In short, you can’t reliably watch things you miss, like you can (unfailingly) on Sky Q or Virgin Media.

Not everyone will regard this as a main factor in choosing a TV system. But for those who do, this is a significant downside and a very nasty surprise if you haven’t fully been made aware of it first; Sky could arguably do a much better job in explaining the extent of the limitation, rather than letting people find out the hard way, as I did.

* Edit: Sky has clarified that it is introducing a video-on-demand arrangement with BBC, starting next month. This, it says, will cover “hundreds of hours of key BBC favourites”, but apparently not Match Of The Day. 

(ii) There’s no ITV: this continues to be a weird gap in Sky’s programming choice.

(i) It’s not just a Sky TV: this has all of the regular ports of a normal telly. That means you can plug in all the usual things if you really want, from Chromecast and Fire TV dongles to gaming consoles to separate soundbars. It even lets you connect to rival TV service set top boxes, such as Virgin Media or Saorview, if you get sick of Sky at any point or want it simply as a decent TV with a good speaker.

(ii) Same tech specs on all sizes: you get the same screen resolution, engine and speakers, whether you opt for the 43-inch, 55-inch or 65-inch model. That makes the smaller models slightly more technically impressive.

(iii) It’s cheaper to buy in instalments: one interesting thing about buying this is that it’s actually (slightly) less expensive to buy over two years in instalments than outright. This is likely a Sky strategy to keep Sky Glass customers subscribed to Sky services. But in such an inflationary era, it has to be chalked up as a consumer win.

(iv) You can connect other regular TVs in the house: Sky has a new ‘puck’ system that lets you use a small gadget-box (the ‘puck’) to connect to other TVs (up to six) in the house to act as replica Sky Glass sets (obviously with separate hardware setups). You get one free when you buy Sky Glass and you can purchase others from Sky.

(v) Good wifi is required: it goes without saying that a system that works primarily over wifi needs good wifi. Sky recommends at least 25Mbs. I’d say you should have twice that level (50Mbs) to guarantee buffer-free watching, especially in winter evenings when some areas’ broadband signals slow up as everyone logs on at the same time. Anyone with fibre or cable broadband will have no problems whatsoever; anyone relying on wireless or telephone line broadband should think twice before taking the Sky Glass plunge.

(vi) The only wifi Sky package: other than Now TV, which is very limited in its quality, this is the only way to get a full Sky service over the internet. Sky Q, which is still something of a gold standard for pay-TV, requires a satellite dish. Sky is showing that it can deliver TV over the internet, but isn’t offering a standalone set-top box that would let you connect a regular TV in this way. Buying Sky Glass is the only way to do it.

Sky is to be commended for introducing this: it’s a simple, good quality TV that lets you ditch the satellite dish, the separate set-top box and the external speaker. For those living in an apartment block, often without access to satellite dishes, that means real competition with Virgin, whose user interface generally isn’t as good as Sky’s. On the set itself, there are more pros than cons to Sky Glass. It’s easily good enough to be a decent, somewhat-premium family TV. True, you’ll get slightly superior screen quality from a Samsung, LG or Sony set at the same price, but nothing like the audio quality. And you’d need separate access to a satellite dish.

Its lack of ability to reliably record a wide range of programmes is a drawback, to be sure. But if that doesn’t bother you, this seems like a step forward and a decent overall buy.

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