Why are your remotes complete **bleep**?
A few years ago I purchased the Roku model with voice command and earphones that was sold only thru Best Buy. Within weeks it was eating batteries at the rate of three times a week. And when the batteries had the life sucked out of them if I was using the headphones I would experience a screeching noise that was nearly deafening. I stopped using the extra functions, wrote a complaint to your message boards where, surprise surprise, many other customers where having the same problem. One of your techs said that using earphones drained the battery. Hahahahaha. I am an old fart who grew up using transistor radios running on old school batteries and used earphones and could go days without the batteries wearing out. So, apparently in the 21st century with the use of longer lasting Ni-mh batteries Roku has found a way to be less effective than batteries I used 60 years ago. Then, less than two years into using my Roku unit it died. Well done! Problem solved. Foolishly I purchased a new unit, the Express 4k, figuring that you all had enough time to figure this out. Low and behold, I am replacing batteries every two weeks. I’ve taken to using rechargeable batteries. I never use the volume buttons in hopes the batteries would last longer. I have remotes for my tv and house fans that get used numerous times a day, every day, for months/years and in a couple of them I’ve never had to replace the batteries. So, where are you manufacturing these stellar instruments of **bleep**? North Korea? And have you EVER actually dealt with a problem that is apparently years in the making? Sadly for me, I prefer Roku to Chromecast, but when this unit kicks the bucket, I will also kick Roku to the curb. It’s not just annoying, it points to arrogance or stupidity that you haven’t taken care of this issue. Maybe check in with Samsung or any company that make remotes that actually work, and find out how to design and produce a remote that isn’t faulty garbage.
When you plug earphones into the remote, it powers up a stereo audio amplifier. That old transistor radio you used had an audio amp within the radio that also powered the earphone (singular, since it was mono). As long as the earphones are plugged in, that audio amp is powered on, regardless if it's actually being used. So yes, it will drain a pair of AA batteries in days that way. If you left your old transistor radio on for several days, it too would drain the 9V battery pretty quickly.
Another thing to remember is the WiFi Direct remote has two way communication with the Roku player. While it does have a "sleep" mode, it's always "on" at some basic level. This too will use more power than a simple IR remote. If you want long, long battery life, get a basic IR remote and you'll go many, many months on the same batteries. But you won't have an earphone jack in the remote, as IR remotes are not two way devices.
There's nothing wrong with the remotes. Leaving earphones plugged in full time is user error. I never use the earphone jack, and my Ultra remotes (same remote you're talking about, WiFi Direct voice remote) go for 3-5 months (or more) before a battery swap out. Rechargeable batteries don't have the capacity of standard alkaline batteries, so they do need to come out and be charged more often than just using alkaline batteries. That's simply a nature of rechargeable batteries.
Oh, and there's no Roku player or remote that is only sold through Best Buy. The only retailer-exclusive model has been a specific version of the Ultra for Walmart.
Yes, Best Buy did offer a Streaming Stick Headphone Edition, model 3811. They didn't keep it in the lineup long, which would explain why others aren't remembering it. Link to discontinued item.
If memory serves, the stick was the same stick sold simply as Streaming Stick+. The difference was the remote. Model 3811 was simply model 3810 on the inside. I had several 3810 devices, but as I didn't care for the headphone feature, I never spent the extra money on the 3811. But I remember the device being a Roku item and Best Buy exclusive.
I think that remote is essentially the Voice Remote with headphones. Roku used to sell those standalone -- I had one or two -- but discontinued those in favor of the Voice Remote Pro ($30), which, by the way, has rechargeable batteries.
A cynic would say that means Roku recognized that the battery life of the headphone-enabled remotes was bad and they made that remote rechargeable. I'm not a cynic, but I'm not saying a cynic would be wrong.
However, I'll add that I have never had issues with batteries dying quickly in any Roku remote, and I've had Roku remotes with headphone capability ever since they introduced them. As I mentioned, I never used the feature, so that may explain why the batteries lasted longer for me than for you.
There is some evidence that one cause of battery drain for those with point-anywhere remotes that connect to the Roku via WiFi-direct can be use of a router channel that is crowded by nearby routers using the same channel. It's been suggested that the remote has to work too hard constantly sorting through the information packets from other devices using the same channel such that it accelerates the battery drain. This is more likely to be a problem in the more heavily used 2.4 GHz wifi band than in the 5 GHz band.
If you have access to your router's setup, try configuring it to use a different WiFi channel to see if this helps the situation. If you are connecting in the crowded 2.4 GHz band, channels 1-11 are supported. Channels 1, 6, and 11 do not overlap each other and so give you the best chance at reducing congestion, so try each in succession, although depending on what channels your neighbors are using, other channels in the 1-11 range may work best. Also, reducing router bandwidth from 40 to 20 kHz may also reduce interference.
Note that optimum channel choice can be a moving target as neighbors bring new routers online in your vicinity, or reconfigure their routers to use different channels. I periodically use a wifi analyzer app on my smart phone that can show me which available wifi channels have the least congestion and I change the channel my router uses accordingly. I don't know if that explains my battery longevity (usually 3 months or more with fairly heavy use) but it's probably worth a try to see if it helps.
