Features, settings & updates

[ryanj403]

Hi folks, 

Why is guest mode not available in Australia? Seems like a weird arbitrary restriction. 

Are there plans to make guest mode available in Australia?

My Roku streaming stick works fine when I'm in other Countries but doesn't seem to allow me to enable guest mode when in Australia. 

Regards, 

Ryan

[Anonymous]

@ryanj403 

according to this:

https://community.roku.com/t5/Roku-setup/Which-International-Countries-Can-Use/td-p/788254

ROKU is not officially supported in Autrailia

Roku is officially supported here:

• United States
• Canada
• France
• United Kingdom
• Germany
• Argentina
• Brazil
• Chile
• Colombia
• Costa Rica
• El Salvador
• Guatemala
• Honduras
• Mexico
• Nicaragua
• Panama
• Peru

That's it. Apps outside those counties may or may not work, depending on if the developer decides to support a Roku app in a country where Roku itself isn't supported. Most don't, though a few do.

[ryanj403]

Thanks for the response.

I note here that Guest Mode did work until Roku detected I was using the device in Australia. Then Guest Mode was actively removed from my account with no notification or explanation. This broke the device as it was stuck in a failed Guest Mode state with no recourse to fix it without a full factory reset. I actually thought the device was faulty until I stumbled upon a forum article buried somewhere that mentioned that guest mode would not work in Australia. 

I'm fine with the device not being "officially supported" in Australia. However, this appears to be active Geo-restriction for the Guest Mode feature. 

I'm curious as to whether this artificial restriction for the Guest Mode feature is likely to change in the near future as the Guest Mode feature was the main reason I bought the device in the first place. 

[renojim]

I'm not sure where @Anonymous 's list came from, but Roku does officially support Australia.  It's a rather recent addition, but it was at least several months ago.  However, as was stated, not all features are supported in all regions.  What isn't supported is a VPN or anything that masks a user's true location.  Why Guest Mode isn't available in Australia is anyone's guess.

[ryanj403]

Cheers for that. Sounds like there’s hope that the feature may be available in Australia then. Would be handy if someone from Roku could pop in and comment.