Sky launches Sky Glass, its own line of smart TVs

Sky’s long journey to move beyond satellite TV is finally over, as the company launches its brand new internet-only TV platform. Sky Glass is the company’s first own-brand smart TV, moving away from the satellite dish and set-top box in the home in favor of pulling all of its content from the Internet. The company’s pitch is to not only centralize its own content in a single box, but to act as a universal platform for every streaming TV app currently on the market. Not to mention that putting everything in one piece of hardware reduces the clutter that accumulates under the family TV.

On the hardware side, Sky Glass comes in three sizes, 43, 55, and 65-inch displays, all featuring 4K Quantum Dot LED displays with 10-bit HDR + and Dolby Vision. It comes in five colors: blue, white, green, pink, or black, with matching remotes, speaker faces, and brackets. Audio wise, Sky says you won’t need a soundbar with this kit, as the hardware comes with six-speaker Dolby Atmos sound, as well as a built-in subwoofer.

(The company added that, as a result, Sky Glass is up to 50% more power efficient than your current setup because you won’t be powering a discrete set-top box and soundbar.)

But Sky’s value proposition isn’t just to sell a fancy TV with a few streaming bits inside, but a whole new way to end endless scrolling. With Sky Q, the company has already positioned itself as a curating layer between you and the content you want, but it’s a big step forward. It is designed to bring together all the catalogs of all available streaming apps and lets you choose what you want from a centralized location. This means that you can watch episodes of the same TV series, in order, even if they are hosted on different streaming platforms.

Sky Glass is also voice activated, with the activation word “Hello Sky” and you should be able to access all of your favorite shoes, live TV and play the content listed with it. But if you prefer, you can use the new remote, which is a streamlined version of the touchscreen remote already available for Sky Q, but with backlit buttons for better nighttime operation.

At the same time, Sky also announced a 4K webcam that it plans to launch at some point in the future, which will sit above the TV and offer portal-like video calling. This system also offers motion tracking and skeleton tracking for motion games and custom workouts, and it even looks like a Kinect. When this material becomes available, you will also be able to watch evenings for live TV even when you are not in the same location.

Of course, given that Sky is owned by Comcast and the company is working on its own TV platform, you can assume for yourself that a renowned version of Sky Glass is coming to the United States. Protocol reports that Comcast has been working on a product, dubbed XClass TV, for the US market. Additionally, Sky says Glass will not only be available in the UK and Europe, but also in Australia and other markets over the next year or so.

In terms of price, Sky Glass will cost £ 649, £ 849, or £ 1,049 depending on whether you go for the 43, 55, or 65-inch version. It will be available in the UK on October 18. But the company says it expects more people to buy it on a monthly subscription contract, just like it does with phones through Sky Mobile, for a minimum contract length. In this case, the material will cost you £ 13, £ 17 or £ 21 per month, depending on which size you choose.