Community discussions

[Iona-D]

I have to hand it to Roku.  They did deliver the promised goods to their customer base over the years.  Just not quite the way the customers want it.  Now the too much emphasis on cheap is proving too much to their growing masses of users.

Read the basic article first:

https://www.nexttv.com/news/rokus-looming-problem-a-lot-of-those-cheap-smart-tvs-arent-any-good

Then the zillions of posts right here on this and related forums on the Roku Community website.  You will see the pattern emerge.  If you are too lazy or bored to do this yourself, I will do it now.  

Roku succeeded beyond it’s wildest dreams.  They grew a very enthusiastic group of streamers and cord cutters since their creation over a decade ago.  These then and even now to a point supporters enjoyed the promised benefits of great monetary savings and alternate programing.  Until the perfect storm of a captive audience via lockdowns and simultaneously pricing out of most budgets traditional cable made Roku too famous, too rich,  too fast.  

Then their own cost cutting ingrained habits from their early days began to alienate their own fan base.  Now adding on the introduction of shoddy made with too much emphasis on Smart-ness really hurts the people both present owners and the possible future ones.  Roku is at the crossroads of becoming the mighty power house of streaming gate keeping or becoming Divx #2-the shadow of what-could-have-been.  

The ball is now in their court.

[Strega]

Well, I always recommend a conventional TV from someone decent like Samsung with a Roku plugged into it.  However, Roku TVs are phenomenally cheap and lot of people prefer cheap with some problems to the other options.  For example, I thought you used cheap but slow DSL.  There is definitely a place in the world for that.

[atc98092]

I've been perfectly successful with two different Roku TVs. The Insignia is a tad sluggish, but it's only a 720p set and I don't expect it to be a rocket. My Sharp is 4K and works just as well as all of my other players, although the 4800 is certainly the powerhouse standout.

It seems the majority of issues are usually found with TCL and Onn. TCL surprises me, but it does seem to have consistent issues, particularly with its WiFi radio. Since Onn is the house brand for Walmart, I expect it's built to a budget price point, and likely one reason AirPlay isn't available on their sets. 

[Iona-D]

I do use my cheap and somewhat inconsistent DSL for a number of years.  It has served me well so I don"t have any plans to change anytime soon.

I did not include I use 'dumb as 'h_ll "Sceptre televisions  The key to sucessfull use here is they are the secondary ones  with no  built in "smarts" or OS(s).  They just catch the freebie OTA broadcasts quite nicely.  Dongles and boxes hooked up to the HMDI ports take care of Streaming part. 

Total separation is the key here.  Keep them all dumb while  I can hook the dongles/boxes directly via Ethernet to the clunky  router to maximize what I DO have.  Until the day I can get my own Internet Access. The mistake I regretted is giving my WiFi password to an Internet Addict who I cannot get rid of, not a data byte issue. .   No dependence on 1 sole means of streaming cheaply.

[DBDukes]

Putting a good OS inside cheap **bleep** products didn't hurt Android. Think of all the throwaway phones that run Android OS. When you run it on a good phone, it's awesome -- and that's coming from an iPhone user.