Roku remotes with channel numbers?
Wow, my parents and I are having this problem with the lack of numerical buttons with a TCL HDTV (28S305)'s Roku RC. They watch it from OTA (antenna) and Internet apps (Spectrum, YouTube, CBS News, V...
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You have to take thst up with Roku tv manufacturer, roku only supplies the OS for the roku tv, not the remote.
You are correct...or at least partially correct. Yes the TV manufacturer is responsible for hardware but Roku absolutely DOES have input in those decisions when they contract with a company.
Also, when Roku conspires with TCL on such a level as to put their operating system in the TCL hardware, they are also responsible for the overall finished product as far as customer satisfaction. Roku puts their brand/label on TCL TVs therefore, they share in the responsibility for keeping their customers happy. Their brand is why most people purchase a TCL TV.
Do you think cheap TCL TVs would sell at the rate they do, even at the lower prices without the Roku name on the box? Nope.
The popularity of the Roku platform is what sells the bulk of those TVs in the first place. You don't get to rake in the dough and not listen to your customer base and get away with it forever. People are catching on and purchasing other TVs that have traditional remotes/capabilities. Nobody wants to scroll through pages and pages of channels. It's ludicrous.
There are other TVs with the same problem (Samsung for one) and I predict the market will shift in the direction of TVs that not only have streaming platforms but also traditional tuners with remotes because antenna TV is making a comeback in a big way, but even many free TV apps like Pluto literally have over a thousand channels. Nobody wants to sit and scroll for an hour just to see what's on or take literally minutes of time just to page through hundreds of channels in order to turn to a specific channel number that may be pages of channels away. It's completely unreasonable.
Roku has a responsibility to listen to customers and put pressure on manufacturers because they are making a killing and their brand is what sells these TVs. Just my opinion.
I just replaced a fairly new Samsung TV that I was really unhappy about, and one of the criteria was a remote with channel entry buttons. That eliminated TCL from my shopping list, even though practically every online site said they were the best set for the money. I ended up with an LG Nano85 that blows the Samsung away in picture quality, especially with HDR material. And from the issues I've seen posted here about TCL sets, I'm not certain I would have gone with one anyway. Besides, I don't care for any of the apps on my Smart TVs, as none compare to the simplicity of using a Roku, or the shear power and abilities of the Nvidia Shield.
So even though almost every TV I own is considered a Smart TV, we don't use those functions on any of them except for the Sharp and Insignia Roku TVs. One (Insignia) is in the spare bedroom that the grandkids use if they visit, and the other (Sharp) is a larger 4K set that I use as my teleworking add-on monitor for my laptop, and we also use it for OTA TV and playback from my media server. For both of them, the lack of numeric buttons on the remote isn't a significant issue. But the two big screen sets (bedroom and family room) are used for more OTA than the others. The bedroom Samsung doesn't have numeric buttons, and it's an annoyance but the wife copes with it. The family room (now the LG) absolutely had to have them.
But in the end Roku has no control over the remotes used by Roku TVs. Yeah, they most likely sell their remotes to the TV manufacturer, but I can't imagine any reason they couldn't offer their own, more optioned remotes. Especially since many of the same manufacturers have non-Roku TVs that use different remotes. Now if I'm wrong, and their contract with Roku requires them using the Roku supplied remote, then Roku themselves really need to listen to the complaints. I was contacted for a survey several months ago about something unrelated, but I made sure that the interviewers heard me about it and the promised to make sure Roku heard them.
Congrats on your new LG Nano65 purchase. If that set has a picture that blows away your other Samsung then you probably wouldn't be happy with a TCL ... depends on the set model/type of course... but while my TCl 4k 65 inch has a nice picture, my son's Samsung blows mine away. There's no comparison his is so much better so now I'd like to see how his model compares to your LG Nano65.
Your post about the great LG picture and remotes going to cause me to go shopping to look at LG sets ...thanks!
Gkendee wrote:Congrats on your new LG Nano65 purchase. If that set has a picture that blows away your other Samsung then you probably wouldn't be happy with a TCL ... depends on the set model/type of course... but while my TCl 4k 65 inch has a nice picture, my son's Samsung blows mine away. There's no comparison his is so much better so now I'd like to see how his model compares to your LG Nano65.
Your post about the great LG picture and remotes going to cause me to go shopping to look at LG sets ...thanks!
Well, there's different models of Samsung, TCL and LG TVs. The Samsung that was so bad was the NU7100. I have an older JU7100 and it's fine with HDR, especially since it didn't even support HDR when it was released, just updated firmware. Samsung of course has some higher end models that are exceptional as well. I just found that in this price range, the LG Nano85 was head and shoulders over the NU7100, and after the lack of support from Samsung I wasn't going to even consider a new one. I looked at a Sony and didn't see anything with it that the LG didn't have, and when I plugged in a portable hard drive (so I could play some HDR content), the Sony wouldn't even see the movie files. Crossed that off my list immediately.
EDIT: I realized I entered the wrong model number of the TV I bought. It's the LG NANO85, not 65. No excuse other than I'm getting old... :P
Hallelujah! We must force Roku to give us a remote with numbers on it to change channels! :):)
