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Drat
Newbie

Roku remote only turns off TV, not Roku

Why does the power button on the Roku remote not turn off the Roku?  When I press the power button it only turns off the TV but the Roku continues to stream HD, wasting my bandwidth.  How do I fix this?

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3 REPLIES 3
Strega2
Roku Guru

Re: Roku remote only turns off TV, not Roku

Yes, the power button is for the TV.

You press the home button on the Roku to stop it from streaming.  You probably also want to make sure to leave the bandwidth saver turned on (I believe it is on by default) which will stop streaming after four hours of inactivity.  (Just as a backup.)

Banned but back. Because why not?
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Drat
Newbie

Re: Roku remote only turns off TV, not Roku

There is ZERO chance I can train the people in my house to remember to press the home button before turning it off.  And why should they have to?  Why would it ever continue to stream after you press the button to turn it off?  Surely this wasn't intended functionality. 

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Strega2
Roku Guru

Re: Roku remote only turns off TV, not Roku

Yes that’s how it’s designed.  Early Roku models had no TV controls at all, and thus no power button.  Even today, the most basic models come without a power button.  Perhaps one of those remotes would work better for you since it would avoid confusion?

As for myself, I routinely put a virtual radio station on, and then turn off the TV (it still plays through the AVR speakers) so I wouldn’t really think of it being any other way.

This reminds me of when my parents were forced to move from analog cable to digital and the cable company “helped them out” by giving them a cable box remote with a power button that turned both the TV and cable box on and off.  But, of course, the power button for 99% of consumer A/V devices is just a toggle, so it took 2 weeks until my parents got them “out of sync” – ie: they could only turn one on at a time, and the other would go off.  And no matter how many times I told them to just take the TV remote out of the drawer and press power, they would not – because the cable guy told them to never touch that remote ever again!

So eventually, they called the cable company and a tech came and “fixed it”. And it stayed fixed for two more weeks.  Repeat.

Then I visited and showed them how it happens and how to recover.  But it was amazing, because they kept arguing: but the cable guy says to never use the TV remote again!!!?!?!?!?!? And all I could say was: Well if you want to call the cable company every two weeks, you can follow their directions, or if you don’t, you can follow mine!  I really think pressing this button is A LOT quicker than calling the cable company!

Definitely make sure you have the bandwidth saver turned on.  (Like I said, I think it is by default.)

Banned but back. Because why not?
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