Features, settings & updates

[Joshua1]

Audio Guide is a text-to-speech screen reader that assists Roku customers with navigation of the Roku® user interface and on-screen menus. When activated, Audio Guide will read out text, menu items and other on-screen items.

During the setup of your Roku streaming player or Roku TV, Audio Guide will be available on the Language screen, which is the first screen you will see after you connect your Roku device. To turn on Audio Guide on this screen, press the Options button on your remote four times. If you have an Enhanced "point anywhere" remote, you must first pair your remote to connect the remote to your Roku player. To learn how to do if you are having problems with your remote, click here.

Audio Guide can be turned on or off by pressing the Options button on your remote four times quickly. The Options button is located below and to the right of the directional pad on the Roku remote. The directional pad is plus-shaped and is in the center of the remote.

When Audio Guide is turned on, it will read the name of the current screen, your location on the screen, identify prime actionable elements, and describe options available to you. For example, on the home screen, if the readout is “In Main Menu, Home, button, 1 of 8”, it means that you are on the home screen, the highlighted item is Home, and it is identified as a button because it is an actionable item. 1 of 8 indicates Home is in position 1 of 8 items in a list. 

You can navigate through this menu by clicking up or down. Clicking the OK button on your remote will take you into the Home screen. The OK button is situated at the center of the directional pad on your remote.

Please note, there are a few instances when items are arranged in a grid; e.g. in Home, the channels that you have installed are arranged in a grid with three channels in a row. In that case, Audio Guide will read out “In Home, Netflix, button, 1 of 15, in a grid”. You can navigate using the right and left buttons on the directional pad of your remote. These channels are arranged in the order in which they were installed. To learn how to arrange the order of the channels, click here.

You can customize your Audio Guide experience by going to Settings, then Accessibility, and then Audio Guide. The various configurations available to you are as follows:

Audio Guide On/Off

• Turn Audio Guide on or off. This is the same as pressing the Options button four times.

Speech Rate

• Speech rate allows you to customize the speed at which Audio Guide reads out text. There are four speech rate settings – Slow, Normal, Fast, Very Fast. When you navigate to a particular setting, Audio Guide will give you a sample of how it will sound at that speed. To select a specific speech rate, click the OK button on your Roku remote.

Volume

• Volume allows you to change the volume of Audio Guide with respect to the TV volume.

Shortcut

• When the Audio Guide shortcut is enabled, you can quickly press the star button four times to turn Audio Guide on or off from any screen. When the shortcut is disabled, pressing the star button on your remote four times will no longer turn on Audio Guide.

[Ryntan · Accepted solution]

Hi, does the audio guide work for apps? So would it read through Netflix etc? Or is it solely for the home screen navigation (as is the case with an Amazon firestick)?

Any info would be appreciated!

[renojim]

I believe it works everywhere - just reading the text on the screen.

[Heyechan]

Suddenly my screen reader will randomly turn on. It has awakened me in the middle of the night and just started talking during the daytime when I'm not even in the room.  I hear a voice talking and when I'm asleep or alone in the house, it freaks me out.  I don't even know what it is reading!  I can't find anything about it in the forum.  Reboot didn't help. 

[RokuDanny-R]

@Heyechan

Thanks for the post.

Can you please provide more information about the issue you are experiencing? What Roku model device are you using? Is your TV screen on when this issue occurs? What are the steps to reproduce the issue?

With more detailed information, we will be able to assist you further.

Thanks,
Danny

[Heyechan]

I am using a Roku Express.  The television is on when this happens but a Roku screensaver is activated.  It's random.  Suddenly I just hear the screen reader voice and it's reading something. It doesn't last long.   I never catch it if I'm out of the room but when it wakes me up from sleeping, the screen shows the regular Roku home page with the apps, Netflix, Hulu, etc.  The first couple times I didn't even understand that it was the screen reader because I was dead asleep and barely heard it. Upon investigation, I found the screen reader had been activated and so had to be turned back off again.  I've also noticed that the Roku has started crashing in the middle of a show I'm watching.  It doesn't matter which show and it resets itself but the frequency has picked up.  I'm not expecting there to be an answer, I was just curious had anyone else experienced this.  Thank you. 

[renojim]

What's the software version shown under Settings->System->About?  It sounds like it's related to the new 10.5 bug where the screensaver gets exited unexpectedly.  If you have the Audio Guide enabled then it's reading the Home Screen whenever the screensaver exits.  If you disable the Audio Guide in the Accessibility settings make sure  you also disable the shortcut.

As for the crashing, that's probably a different problem.  I'd first ensure that you're using the supplied power adapter and not your TV's USB port.

[Rasmuspa]

Mine was doing this as well. I realized that in the Roku Streambar settings that the screen reader was on. 

[Norm211]

Audio guide does not work in Canada , why is that ? My blind friend would like use it, he does not have cable. Thanks..

[renojim]

@Norm211, "Audio guide" was renamed "Screen reader" located under the Accessibility settings?  Does that not exist in Canada?  And since you mention Canada, I don't know if it's only available in English or not.