Features, settings & updates

[RWEE]

The front panel light on my Roku Ultra model 4802 doesn't turn off for several minutes after using its power button to turn off the TV prior to sleep. The unit's "auto power savings" option is off (unchecked). This is extremely annoying as the light is very bright and lights up an otherwise dark room. All sleep experts strongly advise against having any light on in the bedroom while sleeping. There is absolutely no useful purpose to having this light remain on for any length of time once the user turns off the TV.

[Strega2]

I would suggest a small black piece of electrical tape.  (By the way sleep experts typically recommend not watching TV before bed and not having a TV in the bedroom, but the tape is an easy first step.)

[RWEE]

I'm a retired electrical engineer and have designed and built many electronic circuits over the years with the necessary power supplies and power indicators. With commercial products such as Roku, I've had to use your tape suggestion numerous times on many devices in my bedroom such as surge protection outlet strips, desktop computers, Ethernet switches, etc. This issue became much more of a problem in recent years as contemporary designers began using blue and white LED's as power indicators once they became available. These are particularly objectionable in a dark room. My comment was meant as a criticism of Roku's poor power indicator circuit design with its needless power-off time delay. Unfortunately, there was no appropriate category for this type of feedback.

[Strega2]

The power button on a Roku remote has always been for the TV.  In some configurations it does seem like Roku can tell when a TV is off, in other cases, not.  The definition of what the LED means seems to change over time too, in some cases having to do with whether the Roku is at the home screen or in a screen saver.  I stopped paying attention to Roku LEDs years ago because of that.

I do agree that the world is overly white/Blue LED happy.  It seems that because they were exotic and expensive in the 90s, people still use them to give that impression.  I have blue LEDs taped over on my USB hubs and KVM switches too.

Some of my PCs have RGB power LEDs.  I usually set them to white when on, but dim pulsing (snoring) red when asleep.  But I'd be fine if they were just red all the time.

[renojim]

The LED is supposed to go off when the screensaver kicks in or it's in low power mode, but it's become less and less reliable as an indicator of anything.  It does not indicate that the Roku device is off since they never turn off.  Tape is a far better solution than waiting for Roku to get it to work as people would like.

[RWEE]

Thanks for your comments. It motivated me to try experimenting more with the Roku Power button, Home Screen button and my LG OLED TV power button. It appears that the Roku front panel light is only on when either a Roku app is streaming or the Screensaver Start Time timer is timing. This timer starts when the home button has been pressed and one of the various menu options is selected (Home, Settings, etc.) as long as none of the menu navigation and selection buttons are being operated. Once the timer times out, the screen saver display comes on and the Roku front panel light goes off. If a Home Screen option is displayed (no app streaming) and the Roku (or TV) power button is pressed before the timer times out, the TV shuts off and the Roku front panel light stays on until after the Screensaver Start Time timer times out. However, I have also seen the light turn off after only a brief 5 to 8 sec. delay. This behavior is entirely unpredictable and I’ve not been able to consistently reproduce it.

All of this indicates a software bug since, most likely, the front panel LED is controlled by both the Roku's hardware circuit design and the system operating software. Having written numerous large electrical power generation system control programs, I'm well aware of the likely symptoms of software programming errors. In the past few years, I've had to deal with all sorts of software errors with various commercial software, especially Microsoft's Office 2016 and 2021. Their software developers are constantly breaking the spreadsheet program Excel with their perpetual updates, causing major malfunctions which require a great deal of time and research to find work-arounds. I've been using Microsoft Excel since the late 1980's and this never used to happen. Their software developers must never make comprehensive use of the product because these issues are never fixed.

I strongly suspect that we have a similar situation with the Roku Ultra but this peculiar indicating light behavior is a subtle problem. It's obvious that the folks who produce the Ultra's instruction manual have no clue as to how the front panel light is supposed to work since it's never mentioned in any of Roku's literature. The circuit and software designers are the only ones who might know but they are unlikely to be aware of this issue.

[RWEE · Accepted solution]

A much easier solution is to simply set the screen saver start time to one minute and accept the 60 second or so delay before the indicating light goes off at night. It's irrelevant to me whether or not the screen saver is prematurely active at other times since I can simply press the Home button to return to normal use.

[RWEE]

For most normal electronic equipment and devices, a prominent panel light is provided as a power indicator. Not so with the Roku Ultra's front white indicating LED for which no operational description is provided by Roku. After experimentation, it appears that the Ultra's front panel light is only on when either a Roku app is streaming or the Screensaver Start Time timer is timing. This timer starts and runs when the home button has been pressed as long as none of the Home screen menu navigation or selection buttons are operated which resets it to start timing again from zero. Once the timer times out, the screen saver display comes on and the Roku front panel light goes off. If a Home Screen option is displayed (no app streaming) and the Roku (or TV) power button is used to turn off the TV before the timer times out, the TV shuts off and the Roku front panel light stays on until after the Screensaver start timer times out. However, I have also seen the light turn off after only a brief 5 to 8 sec. delay. This behavior is entirely unpredictable and I’ve not been able to consistently reproduce it. Since having this light stay on (e.g. at night) can be annoying, the easiest solution is to simply set the screen saver start time to one minute and accept the 60 second or so delay before the indicating light goes off. It's irrelevant whether or not the screen saver is prematurely active at other times since one can simply press the Home button to return to normal use.

[makaiguy]

Something I have done with other devices when I found their LED indicator lights were too bright but I still wanted to be able to view them:

Instead of opaque black tape, place clear or translucent tape over the LED then color it with a black marker.  It may take several applications to dim the light to an acceptable level.