Sky Q update: Host of new features to come to boxes and TVs this spring

The box has been out for years but is still getting significant upgrades

There'll be even less need to move around on your remote, with new voice features (David Parry/PA Wire)

Sky has revealed a whole range of new updates to its Q boxes.

The range of new features and tweaks will be arriving on viewers' TVs over the coming months.

They include features like Spotify on the TV box, a doubling of the amount of the 4K content that will be available, improved voice functionality, and greater personalisation. The company will also change the design of the menus that are used to get around, including a new widescreen interface and a special mode for kids.

Spotify is perhaps the most significant update, marking a major upgrade in the way that people can listen to music on their Sky box. People can listen to music through the box itself but also will see their TV as a speaker within the Spotify app, making it easier to use the television's sound to listen to music.

But the other updates are significant. They include improved ways of talking to the box – such as asking for "movies for me", for instance, or useful queries like "what's the weather today?" – as well as much more powerful personalisation algorithms that will suggest TV shows and films.

Personalisation has been a key part of the Sky Q offering since it launched, with the guide offering suggestions based on users' viewing habits and each box giving different recommendations. It will be improved by taking in extra information, like what shows people tend to watch at certain times of the day.

Sky Q was first announced in late 2015 and became available early the following year. But since then it has continued to add new updates and features, such as the addition of voice search and tweaks to its menus.

Those updates arrive over the air and are installed by the boxes themselves, meaning that owners don't need to do anything.

The announcement of the updates came the same morning that Comcast announced it would launch a bid for Sky. That could start a bidding war with 21st Century Fox, challenging Rupert Murdoch for ownership of the company.