The brand new Sky Glass is being billed as a powerful 4K TV, with Sky's excellent programming and hardware expertise to bear – without a satellite dish or additional set-top box needed to access the broadcaster's vast array of content. With a simplicity to its hardware, it appears to offer a 'no fuss' solution for customers that just want to kick back and relax to their favorite shows and films.
However, Sky Glass’ overabundance of pricing options makes working out the best deal a confusing mess. Even once you’ve sorted through the literal hundreds of options you can choose between, you’ll probably have to spend hours working out which combination of channels and programming is right for you – with the varying costs that can entail.
Confused? So are we.
How many Sky Glass packages are there?
At first the pricing is simple enough. For the Sky Glass TV itself, you'll find every model offers two pricing options: either contract or one-off payment. But here’s our first snag as you can actually get the contract over 48 months or 24 months – really giving you three options per TV.
Unless you have a specific model size in mind that means you’ll have to weigh up nine different pricing options. That’s not too bad, but that’s just for the hardware. If you want the Sky Glass TV, you’ll also need to purchase a Sky TV subscription.
The most basic option here is the ‘Sky Ultimate TV’ bundle which throws together Sky’s entertainment channels and TV boxsets in with a Netflix subscription. You’ll need this no matter what, but that’s far from all Sky has to offer.
Sports fans will probably want to upgrade with a Sky Sports package, and you might also want to consider BT Sports for even more content. Movie buffs will additionally want to consider Sky Cinema and a Disney Plus add-on to have a massive library of films at their fingertips. And if you have children running around the home you might want to keep them entertained with Sky Kids.
Finally if you want to enjoy Sky’s own content in 4K (the same resolution as the display you’ve just bought off them) you’ll have to pay extra too for the UHD add-on.
Thanks to those six possible additional options you’ll be faced with 64 unique combinations of packages to choose between to spice up your regular ‘Sky Ultimate TV’ bundle (including not choosing any add ons at all).
Simple and confusing all at once
If you had no clue what Sky Glass TV size you want, how you want to pay for it nor what Sky TV package would best suit your needs, you’ll need to compare 576 different options.
That's not to mention hidden costs, like the fact that fast-forwarding of ads is included for free for the first 12 months of owning the set, but then begins to charge you £5 for the privilege thereafter.
Now, anyone used to Sky's bundles and packages will have a better idea than most of what channels they need, and a firm budget in mind will do most of the work of deciding when to stop adding on, well, add-ons.
But for a product designed to make home entertainment simpler, it feels like the benefits of all-in-one hardware is being let down by a complicated mess of payment options – which could threaten the success of Sky Glass before it's really gotten off the ground.
