I'm an engineer but a total newbie to the TV remote scene. We have Spectrum cable service and it would be helpful to add voice control so we don't need to use search, we aren't very interested in streaming. I first thought of Amazon Alexa and Echo or Fire TV stick or cube ($99), I guess without cube you also need a hub at $80 (or in some cases you need an IR device too), that seems expensive when you add it up, but then I read this setup doesn't work correctly with Spectrum. The same folks said that some Roku products WILL work with Spectrum but I'm not clear that this is actually as a controller specifically for the cable channels. I'm confused, is this Roku using the Alexa software or their own software? Which Roku product would I be looking at and how many "accessories" are also required to actually make this work? Why does finding information on what actually works seem so much like trying to find a needle in a haystack? Is anyone actually using this configuration to do what I'm asking about?
Roku's are just streaming devices. For a cable system, it would typically use an app that turns the Roku itself into a sort-of cable box. That said, if you look at other posts, it seems as if the Spectrum app is no longer available on Roku for some reason, probably involving $$$.