I will never be purchasing a Roku product ever again. It is ridiculous that ads will pop up when using a Roku TV and I'm on my PS5, or using another device connected via HDMI. This is annoying, and it should be illegal. I hope Roku goes out of business.
For what it's worth here's a pretty good explanation of what has happened and what might happen:
Could it happen? yes. When? Anybodies guess. This is only a patent. Could be years, could be never.
Read article well worth the read.
So its not just The Verge that made an article bout this?
umpapamaomaois this actually happening to you? or is this a show of rage to tell them you don't want it? either way I agree with you it isn't acceptable.
umpapamaomao, can you post a screenshot? What are these ads? If they're showing features of your TV, your TV may be in store/demo mode.
Response from another Roku Guru who isn't on this forum:
This is simply a function of ACR (Automatic Content Recognition) which on Roku TV's is known as "Smart TV Experience" and recent functional improvements thereof, and it can all be disabled via:
Settings/Privacy/Smart TV Experience = unchecked (both Use info from TV inputs & Enable auto notifications)
In line with Anonymous article, here is a concerning read straight from Roku. https://advertising.roku.com/learn/resources/how-advertisers-can-leverage-rokus-acr-data/#!
Really starting to get more important to get back to the old method and habit of powering down these devices and depriving them of Internet access when not in use.
When Roku starts adding battery backups to their devices, I will also start pulling the HDMI cable as well. 🙂
Happening to my TV too, just started yesterday. i tried the fix that someone put on as a reply and it's still happening to me regardless.I also checked reddit and a few other people are having the same issue.
Apperently Roku announced this being implemented around April 5th in a "TheVerge" News Article.
This is absolutely ridiculous. Why in the world is my Roku TV playing ads on my PlayStation?!?? While I'm in the middle of a game!! NOT when the game is paused, but no, while I'm actively playing!! This is completely unreasonable and needs to be removed admittedly! This is vile! There is NO reason I should be getting ads on something that has nothing to do with Roku!! The amount of ads that Roku already puts, is more then enough. I don't need them to pop up in the middle of my screen while I'm in the middle of an unpauseable game. Until this is resolved, so when ads will no longer pop up on a 3rd party device through HDMI, I will be removing every Roku device in my home, I will never by another Roku device, and I will advise that EVERYONE do the same!
Ads through HDMI/ showing Ads when using other devices
For those of you still having issues with this, and are using a Roku TV and do not want your content to be watched or served ads, you can just change the TV's wifi network to a mobile hotspot, delete the old network, then disconnect your mobile hotspot. Yes, you lose the 'smart' features, but considering many of them reset on their own to re-enable things you've disabled when the TVs update, this is a much better solution for our privacy.
Don't trust them.
