Just got a 55" Hisense/Roku from Walmart yesterday. The Tweet I saw online about the deal said "we can all agree Roku is the superior smart TV UI". So I am shocked to find out this is a TV where I cannot enter in an OTA TV channel by number and go right to it. Every time you just want to get to channel "2" or "5" OTA, you are stuck endlessly scrolling through the massive channel guide of internet streaming channels, because any antenna channels just get lumped in under the "Live TV" input with all the streaming stuff. The only tool available to you are your arrow keys and scrolling for minutes at a time.
I have done my internet searching and I see that this is a known and commonly complained about issue but I can't think of what else to do other than post about it again and hope they would ever care to patch in an obvious function that people want.
This is my first TV from these sort of brands that have taken over the market, I haven't purchased a TV in a few years now. Almost all my impressions during unboxing and initial setup were positive.
Obviously looking at the remote tells you that there is no number pad, but I assumed it would be a few key presses to bring up some sort of on-screen keyboard or number input, nope. I saw that the mobile app has remote functions as well so even though that sounds like extra work to have to use our phones to control this TV I again thought: if that provides a traditional number input, fine. Installed the app, and aside from an inconvenient process of "open the Roku app, press the keyboard icon at the top of the virtual remote, it opens my phone's alphabetic keyboard, press for numbers and symbols at the bottom, press again to bring up the dedicated number pad, enter the exact number and decimal for the channel I am trying to find, and hope it registers", it still does not just provide a virtual TV remote with more of the expected buttons. This is basically the function I want but clumsily implemented with 5 extra screen presses and fumbling with my phone's keyboard instead of just having a nice full virtual remote UI when you use the Roku app. It's still not something convenient to do every time I need to pull myself out of that huge channel guide as I try to get back to OTA channels. It would be a good enough solution if it was just grab your phone, open the Roku app, and have the other buttons you need right there immediately.
I see posts where people say they get other random IR TV remotes from different brands somewhat working, but most times still it does not allow for input of numbers. I have seen the explanation that Roku obviously became popular as streaming took off and only more recently did a lot of us start going back to antenna to save on monthly bills and now this platform/software did not anticipate that people would want the ability to enter in numbers for old TV channels.
I tried adding the OTA channels that I want to the favorites list, thinking that might be one way that I could get back to them faster from within the guide, but this seems buggy as even though I take the time to tick individual tick boxes and tell it which channels I want to favorite, the next time I am stuck in the streaming channels and I arrow over to my Favorites menu, it says I don't have any favorites saved. This is another partial solution where if it at least worked as expected, I would accept this as the only "faster" way to get back to OTA channels. But I can't get my Favorites to actually stay saved, or it treats saved OTA channels as "separate" when looking at streaming content and that's why they don't show up.
I found the setting under TV Inputs where I can tell it to hide all of the streaming content in "live TV". This somewhat works, now if I turn the TV on it goes straight to antenna channels and I am not stuck deep in the list of streaming channels. But of course, this option actually does what it says, and removes all the streaming channels in a way that I literally cannot find them at all, so if I want to be able to access antenna TV in an easier way, I have to deprive myself of all that free streaming content that this TV came with. I thought maybe if I go back to TV Inputs manually and choose "Live TV" again maybe it would bring me back into the streaming channels list, but nope. If I tick that setting that says I want the streaming channels hidden, they stay hidden.
The most direct logic would be "provide users a number pad input somehow", but that doesn't have to be the only way to do it, if that is for some reason impossible. Can't you just have a quick button in the TV guide to immediately switch from streaming internet channels back to OTA channels, or have them on separate tabs that you can flip between with one press, something like that. Anything to eliminate this ridiculous scrolling through hundreds of channels just to get back to the other set of channels.
Roku is a pretty huge name at this point and I find it hard to believe they have zero programmers on the team who can see that this is a big problem and that it could be fixed somehow.
I was not aware when buying a "Roku TV" or "Fire TV" that it actually dominates the entire UI of the device, I just thought I was buying a Hisense TV that was going to have some Roku functionality built in that I could mostly ignore if I wanted to. But as I understand it now I am just trying to navigate one big Roku device with this TV, and that's why it sucks as a traditional TV.
The only other thing I can think of is a separate tuner box for OTA that I can plug into one of the physical TV inputs, if they even still make those, like when they first started switching to digital OTA years ago and you needed a box to replace your old rabbit ears. I figure a separate tuner box would come with its own remote and would function as a different input on the TV. But then I go from my "bargain" $178 Black Friday TV, to whatever additional expense to plug in an outdated tuner box so I can actually watch OTA conveniently.
For all the concerns I had about buying an unfamiliar brand, "Is Hisense any good?", "Is this thing going to break as soon as the warranty ends?", I didn't think I needed to anticipate "is this a TV where I can't punch in a TV channel and actually get there quickly?"
I suppose I do have the option to just return it, even though it is open now and used, I guess Walmart would probably take it back. I would like to keep the TV other than the fact that such a simple function is a huge headache. And it's one thing for me to fight through these menus with my level of tech familiarity, but I know when anyone else in my family sits down to use this TV they're going to have no idea how to even turn on a channel that they are trying to get to.
Can't this be fixed?
