Remotes

[Papolytic]

Hi and thanks. I'd already done the identical thing as you and it worked for me as well. I just used a guitar pick to pop the case, then immediately unplugged the battery while figuring out how to remove it. I looked on ebay and saw it'd take a month to get one so I just plugged the battery back into the circuit board, tried charging it and apparently that's all it took. I've been able to charge it normally without having replaced the battery ever since (many months). 

I can't imagine it working for everyone but the LiPo battery being less than a year old in mine made it hard to believe it was already a problem. 

Cheers, P

[Emissary35]

Does this method work if it shows your rechargeable remote is not getting a full charge? Whenever I charge my Voice Remote Pro it says 100% when I go to the battery level in the remote settings, but as soon as I unplug the charger it drops to 96% or lower.

I plug the charger back in and it immediately goes back to 100%, I unplug the charger and it drops to 95% or 96% again and after an hour or so of use it drops close to 91%. The funny thing is if I'm playing a video and I unplug the charger or plug it back in the pop up in the upper right corner of the screen that appears always tells me it is 100% every time.

So I don't know if the battery is never getting a full charge, or if the battery is actually at 100% and I am getting a false reading when I check the battery level in the remote settings on the Home Screen. It's very annoying and frustrating.

I'd like to try this method of opening up the remote and unplugging the rechargeable battery from the circuit board and plugging it back in to fix it, but I'm afraid if I try to open up the remote I'll break the outer casing and damage the remote. I'm sure if I damaged the remote myself trying to do this Roku wouldn't want to send me a replacement.

[Papolytic]

Mind was only charging to 72-74% and it'd change when I pulled the plug out, but it never got over 74%. After I did the plug-out and in procedure, it charged up to 100% and stayed there.

I did notice before this happened that charges to 100% only stayed at 100% for awhile if I'd let it charge overnight. I don't know if it's worth worrying about if your charge level is in the 90's. I guess it's worth a try but it's good to have experience first with using picks or spudgers to remove the case. You could easily break it probably. 

I think the thing you're seeing might be common to the two I have. The only new thing for me was when it wouldn't charge anymore. I don't generally trust the readings from the Roku but it's pretty well all we have to go on.

Also, there's a few menu's of 'special commands' you can get to via keypresses on the remote if you google them. Maybe one of those tells you more. 

[Discon]

Nice! Thanks for passing on this info. I appreciate seeing that this same simple tactic worked for someone else and that it wasn't just a fluke.

[Discon]

Honestly, I'm not sure it this method would help in your situation. My symptoms were different. By the time I opened up the remote it was not charging at all. It had gone from working to unuseable in just a few days. First I started getting screen messages that the remote was at 0%. I charged it for a few hours and when the charging light was solid, I assumed it was fully charged. Wrong! When I used it, I started getting the 0% messages again immediately and it then stopped working.

After that, no matter how long I charged it, the charging light never went solid. (I never did check the charge in on-screen settings, though.) At that point I figured I had nothing to lose, so I opened it up. I was going to buy a new battery, but luckily, the unplugging trick worked. If you are uncomfortabe opening it up and your remote is still under warranty, then maybe go for a replacement from Roku. Just know that opening it was pretty easy. There were a few tiny plastic dings in it when I put it back together, where I had used the spudger to open it, but I was able to smooth them out with my thumbnailand it's like new now.

Good luck!

[Lilah]

Ordered off of eBay as unplugging from board and replugging it seems to work but figured I’d get spare batteries just in case.  

[Ron2-0]

I had the same problem, seemed the remote pro was dead. I managed to remove the cover using a butter knife and some plastic dental pics. Once I started trying to remove the cover, the remote started working and the Roku was responding to random button presses during the 'surgery' procedure. I completed the disconnect anyways, then plugged the usb power into the remote. It was already at 100%. After closing up the cover, I checked the Roku settings and it confirmed the 100% level. Thanks for the repair suggestion. I have an older remote (not pro) that still worked, but it's nice to have the voice control and ability to use headphones from the remote. My wife loves to run around the house jacked in, listening to her documentaries, lol

[Ron2-0]

FYI, I am a retired IT professional. I used to use spudgers in my work, but left them when I retired 🙂

[Papolytic]

I ordered the battery before I even tried and got the remote to work by unplugging, but on the bright side, it got here from China in about 3 weeks so I've got a spare should I need it. The battery looks exactly right too. I think the link here was for one with the slightly wrong connector but the same Chinese seller had the right one as well. I'll post the number -- Okay this is it.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/394782158371

[Discon]

I’m just the opposite. I am only an IT amateur. And I didn’t learn about spudgers until after I retired. Just the word makes my wife laugh. Glad I can amuse her. LOL.