I can't promise that this will help everyone, but I promise that this is the solution for some of you because it 100% was for me. I explained it before, but let me try to explain this a little bit better. I know that on the surface it doesn't make sense that the remote would drain batteries FASTER when the Roku is OFF. But in my case that was absolutely what was happening. And the reason seems to be tied to a design flaw in the remote.
A standard infrared remote that we are used to from days past uses absolutely no power when buttons are not being pressed. But they had the drawback of requiring a line of sight with the device they are controlling. So now there are enhanced remotes that create a wireless connection with the device and can be pointed anywhere.
ALL ROKU REMOTES TETHERED TO A STREAMING STICK ARE ENHANCED. This is because usually the stick is placed behind a TV or out of sight. What seems to be happening to some models is that once the remote is tethered to a device, it can go to sleep when it knows where its "home" is but goes into some sort of endless searching loop when it doesn't. So if you have your stick plugged into a TV usb port, or another power source that isn't constant, or perhaps not powerful enough, then the Roku enhanced remote sort of freaks out and continously looks for its tethered device when the stick gets powered down. Once you turn the Roku stick back on, the remote calms down knowing all is well, and it sleeps when it is not in use. But then you turn the TV off and then the Roku powers down, the remote goes back into a search mode and wastes your batteries to nothing!!
Like it or not, the solution for most of you is going to be finding a way to get constant power to your Roku stick. For me, I had to go grab a longer micro USB cord from an old phone charger (you don't have to use the supplied cord). I inconveniently had to plug that into a wall, and the problem vanished immediately. I haven't changed batteries since, and it's been 2 months with only 4% battery drain.
Now there's this whole other subject of Roku support and the fact that they don't seem to want to acknowledge this problem. They are surely well aware of the issue and the design flaw. After a long time on the phone, tech support told me that the remote was faulty (it isn't, it's poorly designed and working exactly how designed) and that they would send me a new remote (they didn't, and it's been two months) .
I created an account specifically because I hoped it would help the droves of people with this issue. If this fixes it for you, please kudo this answer to that more people can see it!!
