Sky Glass vs Sky Q: What's the difference?

Information technology was rumoured that Sky was working on a TV only Sky Drinking glass goes across that, integrating a complete streaming platform into the mix and removing the need for a dish.

With Sky Q even so available and delivered by a dish, what's the difference between the two services and which ane is right for you?

We'll compare the two Sky services on price and features, here, but you lot'll have to wait until we have review samples before nosotros tin requite full paradigm quality comparisons.

Pre-register for Sky Glass at Sky.com

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Installation

Sky Glass combines Television set with Sky services, and information technology'south available in 3 different screen sizes (43-inch, 55-inch and 65-inch). These are the chief products, although the company likewise sells an boosted streaming box (the Sky Stream puck) that lets you add together Sky Glass features to an existing Goggle box in Ultra HD.

Without the need for a satellite dish to be installed, Sky Drinking glass is far easier to install. The engineer will set up the Boob tube and position information technology for yous, then one time it's continued to your existing Wi-Fi network, you're washed. It's that like shooting fish in a barrel. The TV includes everything you need, with a Dolby Atmos Soundbar built-in. From what we've seen, the TV looks keen and sounds great, merely further testing is required.

With Sky Q, yous need to accept a satellite dish fitted past a professional, and two cables run inside your home to your main Sky Q box. If y'all go for the multi-room installation, so the Mini boxes take to exist connected to the Sky Q box, via the integrated mesh network.

The quality you get from the Sky Q box volition depend on the quality of the TV that you connect information technology also, so the experience tin exist very unlike; Heaven Glass presents a consistent experience, tuned for the channels for anybody that buys it.

Merely put, it's faster, easier and cheaper to take Sky Glass installed than Sky Q.

Channels and content

Both Sky Glass and Heaven Q have the aforementioned range of content available, depending on the level of your subscription. That includes all of the free-to-air channels, premium Sky channels including Sports, Movies and Heaven Atlantic, and streaming content, with Netflix, Amazon Prime and Disney+.

Equally with Sky Q, Netflix can be bolted onto your Sky Drinking glass subscription, giving yous a huge corporeality of content in one subscription.

The main departure comes down to how the content is presented and how information technology'southward delivered. With Sky Q, alive channels are delivered via satellite direct to the main box, so don't require any internet bandwidth. On-demand content from Sky is downloaded to the Sky box at broadcast quality, and so the speed of your internet connectedness but affects how long information technology takes to download something. Of class, streaming content (Netflix, Amazon and Disney+) are streamed alive and then need a good enough internet connection.

With Sky Glass, everything is streamed direct over Wi-Fi (the TV uses Wi-Fi six), so you lot need strong enough wireless and a fast enough cyberspace connection, specially if yous want to scout in 4K.

In terms of presentation, Sky Glass fully integrates all streaming services into the primary interface, including recommendations and search. Content is more tightly integrated than on Sky Q.

Both services have vocalisation search via the Bluetooth remote, although Sky Glass also has far-field microphones built into the TV, so you can activate vocalisation by saying, "Hey Heaven."

Pre-register for Sky Glass at Sky.com

Recording

You tin only tape live broadcasts using Sky Q. With the Ultra HD box, y'all tin can record upwards to six programmes simultaneously, while still watching a further live channel. The benefit of recording is that the shows never expire, and then you can watch repeatedly or even watch something after a long suspension.

With Heaven Glass, everything is streamed alive and y'all can't record. Information technology presents both live content and on-demand shows, so you can lookout things that have already been on. Notwithstanding, all content is subject to a rights agreement that governs when it tin exist shown, when it can be made online and when it expires.

For many people, this may not make a difference, but in that location may exist times where something you wanted to lookout is no longer available on Sky Glass, but you lot would have had your own locally-recorded copy with Sky Glass.

What Sky Glass does that Heaven Q can't is permit y'all collate everything you want to spotter in ane playlist. Via the Heaven interface, you can add together shows from whatever service to the playlist, and so you've got everything yous want to watch in one place. That's very powerful and means an end to opening multiple apps and hunting around them for something to watch.

Fifty-fifty meliorate, the system is intelligent enough to collate shows under i thumbnail from different streaming services. For instance, if some seasons of a testify were on Netflix and the newest on Sky Atlantic, Sky Glass will collate all of that into ane place.

Sky Glass does let you pause live Tv, using an internal buffer, which you can likewise do with Sky Q.

Offline viewing

If your internet connection goes downwardly, Sky Drinking glass can't stream anything, so yous're largely out of luck. The Tv does have a standard DVB-T2 tuner as fill-in, and then you can watch Freeview channels.

With Sky Q, no internet means an finish to on-demand and streaming services, but alive TV is yet available and you lot can lookout your recordings and downloaded TV shows.

Multiroom

Sky Glass lets you have multiple devices, and in that location'southward even a special Whole Domicile package that gets you a Telly and a separate streaming Sky Stream puck that you can plug into an existing TV. Content from any device is streamed independently from the internet. In any one household you lot can take upwards to three TVs and six pucks, only y'all have to accept at least ane Television set.

With Sky Q, the Sky Mini boxes connect directly to the chief box and stream alive channels from satellite, recordings and downloaded content over your home network, so you don't have too much traffic going over the net. The only times Mini boxes have to talk directly to the internet is when you stream content from a service such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video or Disney+.

Price

Pricing is quite similar only you have to cistron in the different services. Heaven Q with the basic packages and Netflix add-on costs from £26 a calendar month. Sky Glass costs from £39 a month for the aforementioned content, although that payment includes Hard disk as standard (a £7 upgrade with Sky Q) and £13 a calendar month to get a make-new Ultra HD Tv set.

Multi-room and additional devices toll more, equally practise Ultra Hard disk drive and premium channels. Nosotros'll take more on pricing when Sky Glass launches officially.

Pre-register for Sky Glass at Sky.com

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Sky Glass vs Sky Q – Early verdict

Information technology'southward non equally piece of cake as to say which service is the best, every bit the choice largely depends on what you desire to get from a subscription.

Heaven Drinking glass is built for streaming, which is how a lot of people watch exclusively. With the Television delivering a fine-tuned experience and quality audio out of the box, information technology'southward a simple way to become premium content, with simply three installation jobs: set the TV up, plug information technology in and connect it to Wi-Fi.

Sky Q remains a compelling choice, and there are three main reasons to choose it: you tin use it with your own choice of Television set, which is an of import cistron particularly if you've spent a lot of money on a new set; secondly, you can record TV, storing shows to sentinel when y'all desire; thirdly, it'southward less reliant on Wi-Fi and internet speeds, with satellite taking that worry out of the equation.

We'll have more when nosotros review Sky Glass, just for now, the good matter is that there's now more than choice as to how you get Heaven.