Freesat has just rolled out a software update to its 4K boxes, and it’s mostly good news. The update brings better integration for Channel 4 content, alongside improvements to search, recommendations, and programme information.
The update, which began rolling out on October 13 2025, represents the most substantial addition of features and tweaks we’ve seen from Freesat in some time.
The bad news? This update will not roll out to the older Humax Freesat devices, and there’s one downside if you’re a fan of Amazon’s Prime Video.
What’s New in the October Update
Freesat has outlined several improvements in this update:
Channel 4 Content Now Supports Backwards Scrolling
One useful addition is that Channel 4’s on-demand content can now be accessed by scrolling backwards through the TV guide and from the On Demand section.
To be clear, Channel 4 catch-up content was already available on Freesat 4K boxes before this update. What’s new is that you can now access it by scrolling backwards through the TV guide to see what was on earlier today or yesterday, and then clicking on those programmes to watch them on demand.
Previously, to watch something from Channel 4 on catch-up, you had to use the Channel 4 app or navigate through other menus (or scroll forward to find the upcoming next episode of a show).
It’s not a massive change, but this now brings Channel 4’s EPG behaviour with some of the other channels that are available on-demand.
Improved Home & On Demand Content
Freesat has also upgraded the Home and On Demand page rails with what they’re calling “improved consistency across all featured and recommended content.”
Better Search Functionality
The search functionality has apparently been upgraded to deliver “more accurate and relevant search results.”
Whether this turns out to be a genuine improvement or just marginal tweaking remains to be seen, but at least they’re working on it.
Enhanced Programme Information and Images
You’ll also see “richer visuals and detailed programme information throughout the platform.”
Better images and more detailed programme info help you figure out what to watch, and they can make the whole interface feel a bit more polished and less dated.
The Downside – Amazon’s Prime Video Loses Search Integration
There is one bit of bad news tucked into this update.
Amazon’s Prime Video content will no longer appear in the main search results on your Freesat box.
Of course, the Prime Video app remains available, and viewers can continue to search within the dedicated app – but Prime Video will no longer be part of the global search.
So when you search for a programme on your Freesat 4K box’s global search, results from Amazon’s Prime Video won’t show up anymore. You’ll need to open the Prime Video app separately and search within it if you want to find something there.
This is annoying because one of the main points of having a unified platform is being able to search once and see results from all your available services.
September’s Update – Performance Improvements
This October update actually follows on from another update back in September 2025, which brought some useful performance improvements to the 4K boxes.
The September update focused on making the TV guide load faster (always appreciated), adding a refreshed start-up message when switching on from standby, and including various minor fixes and maintenance work – the boring but necessary stuff that keeps things ticking along.
Freesat also highlighted some handy tips with that update. Things like pressing the LIST button to personalise your TV guide (including increasing text size), using the GUIDE button to jump back to “On Now” if you get lost in the guide, and enabling High Contrast Mode under Accessibility & Language settings for a simpler, more accessible look.
Together, the September and October updates suggest that Freesat is actively working on improving the 4K box experience, which is encouraging to see after the year we’ve had.
A Difficult Year for Freesat Features
This positive update comes after what’s been quite a rough year for Freesat users, particularly those with older hardware.
Over the past 16 months or so, Freesat has removed several features from its platform, often with frustratingly limited explanation.
Back in June 2024, the remote recording feature was stripped from the mobile app across all boxes – both the older Humax models and the newer 4K ones.
This was a properly useful feature that let you set recordings while you were out and about, and its removal left a lot of users fuming.
Freesat blamed it on “a change to our internal systems” and the scrapping of Freesat ID accounts, but that didn’t make it any less frustrating for people who relied on the feature.
Then in July 2025, the mobile app lost its remote control functionality – but this time, only for the older Humax boxes.
You could no longer use your phone to change channels, adjust volume, or navigate the interface remotely. The newer 4K boxes never had this feature anyway, so they escaped that particular cut.
August 2025 brought yet another round of cuts to those same older Humax boxes.
This time, Freesat stripped away the ability to scroll backwards through the TV guide, the search function, and the Showcase recommendations system.
These were genuinely useful features that made the boxes feel more modern and connected, and their removal was a proper blow for anyone still using them.
It’s been a frustrating pattern for users of the older hardware, who’ve basically watched their boxes slowly lose functionality over time.
The older Humax models – like the HDR-1100S and HB-1100S that were Freesat’s flagship devices back in the day – have now been stripped of many of their smart, connected features.
To be fair, those boxes are getting on for a decade old now, and it’s increasingly difficult and expensive to maintain software support for ageing hardware.
But it’s still disappointing for users who invested in what was premium kit at the time, only to see it gradually reduced to little more than a basic Freesat tuner with recording capability.
Who Gets the New Updates?
The new October update applies specifically to Freesat 4K devices – that’s the Freesat Recordable 4K TV Box (available in 500GB, 1TB, and 2TB variants) and the Freesat 4K TV Box (the non-recordable version).
The update should install automatically on your device, so you shouldn’t need to do anything to get the new features.
If you’re still running one of those older Humax Freesat boxes, unfortunately these updates won’t apply to you. Those devices are no longer receiving software updates with new features, though they’ll continue to function for watching live TV and making recordings if you’ve got a recordable model.
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