Forum Discussion

bilmar's avatar
bilmar
Reel Rookie
2 years ago

New remote buttons wearing out insanely fast

My TCL tv's ROKU remote developed a hard to press button after 3 years of use so I went to Walmart and bought a 'voice remote' ( essentially the same as the original).

After 3 weeks or so I noticed the right arrow was requiring more and more pressure to work while all the other buttons continued to work with just enough pressure to trigger the button 'click'.

So, I returned it to Walmart and bought another - that one lasted 2 weeks before exhibiting the same issue.

The third one is starting to fail the same way after one week!

I am a heavy Youtube surfer so do use the right button a lot more than other buttons but surely the buttons should last more than a thousand presses before wearing out?

Did Walmart get a bad batch perhaps?

Since everyone sells these at the same price, are there any other Roku remote vendors that will likely source from a different factory than Walmart?

 

 

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  • bilmar's avatar
    bilmar
    Reel Rookie
    2 years ago

    Update:

    I purchased a 4th Voice remote from Amazon and although it is the same model it feels a little different - the plastic is not as smooth.

    Good news is that this one has not malfunctioned yet so I suspect the ones that are going to Walmart are different and poorer quality.

     

    • Strega2's avatar
      Strega2
      Roku Guru
      2 years ago

      Interesting.  Roku products sold through Walmart end in RW, and that’s always assumed to have just been a “bookkeeping thing”. But I suppose it could be more.  Both my father and I have spent time as product managers and we sometimes chat about how we have both had the experience of a major retailer demanding a lower price.  We’d tell them the only way we could do that was to cheapen the product – drop a feature, drop a component, replace something with something cheaper. And the typical response was: Sure!  Go Ahead!  Our customers only care about the price!  And we’d worry about the reputation of our company, but… they were a really big retailer…  Not an easy decision.

      • bilmar's avatar
        bilmar
        Reel Rookie
        2 years ago

        The packaging and pricing is identical  so they could all be made at the same factory this one does feel different - more satin than gloss feel.

        I doubt there was a cost saving decision to put less conductive coating on the buttons but perhaps some machine spitting out a thousand units  per hour was not calibrated properly and Walmart got a few shipping containers full of defective units.