NowTV white boxes no longer compatible

Candypat

I was horrified this weekend when went to use my white NowTV box to receive the message “no longer compatible”. With no warning, their white boxes no longer allow you to access ANY content, whether that be a NowTV pass you have already paid for or free catch up services like BBC iplayer. 

Has anyone else had this problem? I’ve complained as have three boxes and as a “gesture of goodwill” I’ve been offered ONE stick to replace my three boxes. If I want to replace them all it will be at a cost of £25 each. Really disgusted they are choosing now to pray on loyal customers all to make a profit.

I cannot justify spending £50 to replace my access to free catchup tv in my house. The subscription/pass to NowTV is already overpriced and now I cannot use what I have already paid for without updating the technology in my house. Does anyone have money to burn for such a frivolous lifeline? No!

I would be interested if anyone else is having difficulty with their customer service team. They said they emailed a month ago everyone registered with a white box - I have three registered to my account all used regularly in last few months and had nothing. Not even spam.

ruthber

I have had the email and will get the stick replacement for £9.99. I only need one.

Neil_Jones

.Yeah, that was news back in August.  The notifications were put on screen for six weeks prior to today, so hardly "no warning".

Note that Now TV is available on multiple devices, not just something with the brand on it:

https://help.nowtv.com/article/what-devices-can-i-use-to-watch-now-tv

As to "overpriced subscriptions", well I don't know what you've been looking at but are you aware one Now TV account can work on six devices?  You don't need three different accounts, one would have powered all those boxes...

Candypat

In reply to Neil_Jones,

I have one account that I access from three boxes throughout our house. Movies is £12.99 per month and Entertainment is £8.99 per month - that is not cheap, especially compared to services like Prime.

As someone that used her boxes weekly, there was no message on screen! No email! No warning! Maybe on newer models not affected but not my white boxes. I was literally watching a film one day and the next told to put the box in the bin because it no longer works.

Neil_Jones

Well there are always offers on Now TV If you know where to find them.  I have Now TV myself and I'm only paying £8.25 a month for Entertainment AND movies.  Other people will have their own deals.  Only apathetic people pay full price for anything.  Prime for your information is cheaper at paying it for a year, £79 (which works out at £6.58 a month) as opposed to the monthly option at £7.99.

JJ_Egan

Prime Video only  is even cheaper .

But Prime does not compare to Now TV as different content .

matelodave

Unfortunately stuff does go obsolete nowadays and a lot faster than you would hope.It's just something you'll have to accept.

It gets to a stage where there is either insufficient memory to accept a software update or the software has change to be incompatible with the hardware. Just look at what happing with mobile phones, computers and tablets. They can only be updated so far until they start to lose functionality or stop working altogether.  Old analogue TV's stopped working when they went digital but they didn't hand out free telly's. The government keep talking about turning off FM radio in favour of digital and I guess they wont be handing out free radios either. 

Neil_Jones

matelodave said:

Old analogue TV's stopped working when they went digital but they didn't hand out free telly's. The government keep talking about turning off FM radio in favour of digital and I guess they wont be handing out free radios either.

Point of order, the TVs didn't stop working when we went digital, they just needed a Freeview box adding on.  That aside, the TV would have continued to work fine, the built-in tuner just became obsolete (unless you had any RF devices of course).

FM radio is/will be the same thing.  The multi-purpose units (with CD/tape) won't spontaneously stop working, the tuner will just become obsolete.  But you can get "transmitters" as such that your FM tuner will work with as an adapter for DAB radio reception.  Although all of that being said DAB isn't particularly great quality wise at the moment anyway for boring technical reasons, which makes FM more appealing at this time.

J_B

Candypat said:

I would be interested if anyone else is having difficulty with their customer service team. They said they emailed a month ago everyone registered with a white box - I have three registered to my account all used regularly in last few months and had nothing. Not even spam.

F - i - L was 'dumped without warning' too - they have offered a free NOWTV stick. I've told him to join the compensation culture bandwagon as he couldn't watch the footie on Sunday.

giraffe69

I can understand why this is irritating but as well as being inevitable for reasons given above why will it cost £25 per box. You have been offered one Now TV stick free. Two more will cost a total of around £20 so unwelcome possibly but not a major outlay.

Chino

giraffe69 said:

why will it cost £25 per box.

Perhaps because that's what Now TV sells its dongles for:

Just £24.99

https://www.nowtv.com/smart-tv-stick