OPINION: Sky Glass 2 has arrived, and from my brief look at it during an event in London, it looks like it’ll be an improvement on the older model.
Yet there’s still a sense that people are left wanting more. Specifically, there are people in the industry who are clamouring for a Sky Glass 2 in OLED form.
The potential for that to happen is low. Why? Because we don’t need an OLED version.
Why do people want an OLED version?
Quite why people are motioning for one are for reasons that I don’t quite understand. It sounds like people want an OLED model in the (slightly mistaken) belief that OLED is better.
It’s not necessarily better, it’s different.
Even though Sky believes itself to be a premium broadcaster and that its devices incur a premium price, it has nothing to do with the hardware but the content and software that drives the premium price point. Its focus remains on being a mass market producer of hardware and content, and that’s what the original Sky Glass delivered.
So yes, if you’re a home cinema fan, you might want to have an OLED version of Sky Glass, but that begs the question of what type of OLED display would you prefer.
A standard OLED display like the Sony A80L? The brighter OLED EX version such as the Philips OLED809? Or do you want to go hell for leather and choose either a QD-OLED from Samsung or LG’s new RGB Tandem OLED display? Which one would actually satisfy?
The OLED TV is a competitive market. Even brands such as Sony and Panasonic are struggling in terms of drumming up OLED sales, their market share is not as much as you might expect for brands of such renown.
I have my suspicions about whether LG or Samsung would want Sky to be directly competing against their OLED models. That’s partly because Samsung and LG saw the shift years ago that apps, software and content was going to be the next battlefield to grab consumer’s attention. It’s not necessarily about having the best tech specs – which is a niche market – but creating a TV experience that people want to come back to over and over.
Sky Glass Gen 2 is mass market not niche
Going back to Sky’s mass-market ambitions, that approach also has affect on the features Sky puts into its TVs. It’s not as if a Sky Glass OLED will suddenly become a gaming powerhouse with 4K/120Hz refresh rates, VRR, and Dolby Vision Game modes.
It’s not interested in DTS, Dolby Vision IQ, 120Hz panels, HDR10+, Filmmaker mode, PC gamers, Netflix Calibrated Mode, how many dimming zones the display has, peak or average nit brightness, white points etc.
These are all niche features that have little relevance to the audience Sky is interested in cultivating. It wants families, it wants parents and 2.4 children, and it wants the type of person who doesn’t care about having the best hardware.
A Sky Glass OLED wouldn’t make sense with the current design concept that Sky has, the very opposite of OLED’s aesthetic strengths with its chunky, thick appearance. You’d have to design a new version of the Sky Live camera, you’d have to forfeit that built-in Dolby Atmos sound system while you’re at it.
If you want a Sky Glass OLED, the solution is a simple one. Buy Sky Stream and connect it to your existing OLED TV. Voila.
Sky is all about creating experiences and it doesn’t need OLED to do that. Sure it’d be nice to have one, but it’s worth remembering sometimes that ‘tech heads’ are not the target market – and that’s completely fine.
