German pay-TV operator Sky Deutschland extends Sky Q with third-party apps from YouTube and ARTE, a kids and energy saving mode, programme trailers and more personalised recommendations.
Sky Q switches to a child-friendly user interface via the Kids mode, which can be selected directly via the Kids section with the youth-protection PIN. When the Kids mode is activated, only linear channels, on-demand content and recordings from the Kids area are accessible.
The Kids mode, which is also introduced in the UK and Ireland, remains switched on even after the Sky Q box has been switched off and is only deactivated when the PIN is entered again.
The Eco Plus mode is intended to simplify power saving. If the function is selected in the energy-saving menu, the box moves into deep standby mode five minutes after switching it off. Depending on use, this reduces power consumption to up to 0.5 watts. For updates, Sky Q is ‘woken up’ up at night for one hour and then reverts to deep standby mode. The Eco Plus mode does not affect scheduled recordings which are still performed.
Also new: Programme trailers are offered for a large part of the content available on demand. They can be accessed up via the ‘View Trailer’ feature. In the ‘Movies>Recommendations’ section, customers can also see more suggestions based on their previous movie consumption.
Customers with an ‘Entertainment Plus’ package or Netflix account can now also find personalised recommendations from the Netflix line-up in the ‘Film’ and ‘Series’ categories.
The extensions will be deployed to the boxes through a software update in the next weeks. Sky Q was launched in May 2018 and now reaches around 1.5 million Sky customers in Germany and Austria.
