Freely’s Pleio streaming puck is here, bringing free TV, apps, and game streaming to your living room

Stuff / Hot Stuff / Freely’s Pleio streaming puck is here, bringing free TV, apps, and game streaming to your living room

Freely Streaming Puck on TV in living room

Netgem and Freely have teamed up to create a new streaming stick for your TV stand, and it leans hard into the idea that you shouldn’t need a dish, an aerial, or a pricey new telly just to watch live TV. Meet the Pleio puck.

Pleio is a small, round streamer, about the size of a biscuit, built around Freely – the UK’s newest free-to-air streaming platform.

Haven’t heard of Freely before? It’s basically Freeview delivered over the internet. You get BBC, ITV, Channel 4, 5, and U, all delivered over Wi-Fi with live channels and catch-up apps baked in. No subscription needed and no hidden strings.

That’s only the start, though. Pleio also pulls in more than 150 extra internet channels and gives you access to pretty much every major streaming app you already use. If it lives on the Google Play Store, chances are it’ll run here, from Netflix and Disney+ to YouTube and Prime Video.

It could be the best way to upgrade an older TV without replacing the whole thing, especially if your aerial socket hasn’t seen action since the late 2010s.

Once you’re done watching? You can switch to playing, because the Plio puck supports cloud gaming with more than 250 titles, complete with its own wireless gamepad included in the box.

You don’t need a separate console or game discs – just a decent broadband connection.

Freely Streaming Puck with remote and controller on white background

Setup is about as easy as it gets. Plug in power, connect over Wi-Fi, and you’re off. The puck supports 4K with HDR10, Dolby Atmos passthrough, Wi-Fi 6, and includes a voice remote, so it’s not cutting corners on the tech front either.

For anyone who’s fed up with juggling remotes or hunting for lost HDMI inputs, Pleio lands as a tidy all-rounder that keeps things simple. It could see it fitting well into a living room, kids’ room or spare room.

The Pleio costs £99, and for that you get the puck, the remote, the controller, and three months of Pleio’s optional subscription service, which covers those bonus channels and the cloud gaming library. After that, it’s £9.99 a month unless your broadband provider bundles it in (several already do).

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About

As Buying Guide Editor, Spencer is responsible for all e-commerce content on Stuff, overseeing buying guides as well as covering deals and new product launches. Spencer has been writing about consumer tech for over eight years. He has worked on some of the biggest publications in the UK, where he covered everything from the emergence of smartwatches to the arrival of self-driving cars. During this time, Spencer has become a seasoned traveller, racking up air miles while travelling around the world reviewing cars, attending product launches, and covering every trade show known to man, from Baselworld and Geneva Motor Show to CES and MWC. While tech remains one of his biggest passions, Spencer also enjoys getting hands-on with the latest luxury watches, trying out new grooming kit, and road-testing all kinds of vehicles, from electric scooters to supercars.