Hubbl review: Is the Hubbl Hub worth the trouble?

A major part of the whole Hubbl experience is the platform itself, which is identical across the affordable Hubbl box and the pricier Hubbl Glass. For the most part, it’s a smooth experience that consolidates content from partnered services in a very similar way to competitors like Samsung, Sony and Apple.

There are some thoughtful touches to the UI too. There’s a universal continue watching section that lets you pick up where you left off across all your subscriptions and a neat little search feature that directs you to your most recently used platform if a TV show or movie is available on multiple services.

Navigating the Hubbl dashboard is nice and simple. The app you want is usually one or two clicks away and the universal search feature is fast and accurate.

Launch bugs will no doubt be ironed out with subsequent software updates, but thus far they've resulted in a couple of hard crashes at setup and some bizarre UI behaviour.

Hubbl's vision here is to reduce friction when it comes to both finding something to watch and subscribing to the relevant services. At that, it largely succeeds within its limits. But that simplified approach can also create some issues for anyone who wants to dig deeper.

One of the earliest hurdles I came across using Hubbl was discovering that I couldn't use the universal search function to find titles available to buy or rent through Apple TV, Amazon or YouTube. In fact, I couldn't find a way to watch rentals or purchases through Apple or YouTube at all, and resorted to purchasing what I wanted (Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero) through Amazon Prime on a separate device. Even Fetch had a smorgasbord of digital rent and purchase options; that comprehensive coverage was part of its appeal. 

This same overcorrection has led to extremely limited customisation options. Despite the in-built soundbar, the bass is pretty weak out of the box and the binary "bass boost" option doesn't seem to make much difference. Picture settings go a little bit deeper if you know where to look, but even those have mostly boiled down to simple on/off toggles. This is maybe a good thing for the average punter, you can make a real mess with modern televisions if you don't know what you're doing. More experienced home entertainment engineers are going to feel incredibly hamstrung by Hubbl's limitations. 

Hubbl doesn't run on Android TV or any comparable smart TV operating system. That means there's also no app store, so if Hubbl hasn't struck a deal with your favourite streaming service, it's simply not available.

There's a decent lineup of apps there but a few key niche services are nowhere to be seen: Britbox, Shudder and MUBI are just a few examples you won't find on Hubbl at launch.

Even Foxtel's own Foxtel Now isn't available. As strange as that sounds, it actually makes more sense than something like Britbox, considering Foxtel considers Hubbl and Foxtel two distinctly separate products (that also happen to offer a lot of the same content.) 

But let's talk about those Hubbl apps, specifically Kayo. More than just a sports streaming app, Kayo offers a few unique features that its users love. Split-View lets you watch up to four sports at once and Interactive Stats gives you live facts and figures based on whatever you're watching. These features are available on just about every smart device except Hubbl. 

Hubbl told us in a hands-on preview that this was mostly down to the fact that their users mostly access those features on mobile, but that doesn't change the fact that the Kayo app does less on its own hardware than it does on competing smart TVs and streaming devices.

Lastly, there's the remote. It's a fairly standard remote by today's standards: three dedicated streaming buttons, a voice search button, and a circular button at the centre for navigation. You know the drill. 

There's also a multi-coloured button at the top-right, next to the power button, that does... nothing at all. I was convinced it was a voice control button but there's a dedicated button for that. 

The Sky Glass equivalent seems to be a contextual button that performs unique tasks for different apps, such as providing an additional menu in BBC1, but I'm yet to stumble across a single use case for the same button in my travels.