Roku standard remote drains batteries quickly, and battery status icon won't stop appearing

Have a roku 3 that was working previously although it was used minimally.  Have now returned our cable boxes and gone to solely streaming, and am having great difficulty with the remote.  It is going through batteries quickly, and even with brand new batteries, the roku is sluggish to respond when a button is pressed on the remote.  With used OR new batteries, the battery icon symbol keeps appearing on the screen repeatedly every few seconds.  The icon battery level varies all over the place, showing red when batteries are new, and then showing green 5 seconds later.  Then back to red.  New batteries drained 30% in first 3 minutes of use.   I have tried resetting the roku, re-pairing the remote, etc. and nothing is resolving the problems.  I am reluctant to invest in a new remote if the problem is in the system or software updates.  I am especially reluctant to purchase a whole new roku system as I have seen many complaints online about similar issues and there is no way to reach a roku employee directly for help.  I am a senior, and not super tech-savvy.  Does anyone have suggestions about what to do next?  Thank you.