Remotes

[Jenstrawn80]

I have two new Roku’s and they just randomly started draining the battery. It also prompts me to repair the remote, too. I used to replace the battery once a year and now it seems like every few days. In the matter of 5 minutes it stated we had 26 percent battery to 2 percent, then back to 3 percent. What is going on?! I’ve used Roku forever and now I’m having a problem. It’s really frustrating. I have a Roku express 4k and the other says model 3941RW2.

[makaiguy]

@Jenstrawn80-

Both of these Rokus come with Roku Voice Remotes, which connect via Wifi and are susceptible to interference in the Wifi channel they are using. If this problem came on suddenly, it maybe that there may be new interference in the Wifi channel being used.

If you have access to your router's setup, try configuring it to use a different WiFi channel to see if this helps the situation. If you are connecting in the crowded 2.4 GHz band, channels 1-11 are supported. Channels 1, 6, and 11 do not overlap each other and so give you the best chance at reducing congestion, so try each in succession, although depending on what channels your neighbors are using, other channels in the 1-11 range may work best. Also, reducing router bandwidth from 40 to 20 kHz may also reduce interference.

Note that optimum channel choice can be a moving target as neighbors bring new routers online in your vicinity, or reconfigure their routers to use different channels. I periodically use a wifi analyzer app on my smart phone that can show me which available wifi channels have the least congestion and I change the channel my router uses accordingly. I don't know if that explains my battery longevity (usually 3 months or more with fairly heavy use) but it's probably worth a try to see if it helps.