Like your average American family we have a few TVs in the house. Of course we have DVDs and Bluerays, and the players to go with them. But today its all about going digital, right? So over the last few years we have made the push to go digital and away from discs. Enter Roku. We have a few Rokus, a Roku 1 and two Roku sticks.
Let me start by saying I love our Rokus. It is a great device (overall). Sure there are a few things I would have done differently but we are happy with them. Then lets bring in the remote. The Roku 1 remote works flawlessly. Zero issues with the IR remote. The two other Roku Stick remotes however, are a piece of fucking shit. Both of them equally. The sticks were purchased about a year apart so they are not the same batch either. The remotes are even slightly different from one another. The original is fat and glossy while the newer one is slim and matte. Both of them however, never fucking work. We consistently have to re-pair them to the Roku. About. Every. Single. Day. No joke, and because the remote doesn’t work we have to use a phone to do it. Or power cycle the entire thing, cause thats a quick thing to do. I have found a quicker way to get the damn thing to work – removing a battery for a second seems to wake it back up, most of the time.
Yeah, i know i can use my phone as a remote and you know what – that is completely unfucking acceptable. If i wanted to be stuck tethered to my phone I would have saved money and bought a Chromecast. But I didn’t because I wanted a Roku, and specifically i wanted the physical remote. I guess asking for the remote to actually work was a bit much.
The little bit of research i have done leads me to believe that it is an issue with the remote itself not the Roku. It seems that remote goes to sleep. How stupid is that. Lets make a remote that sleeps so it doesn’t work. Genius right there. Not sure if it is Bluetooth or RF, and I really don’t care. Although I’m guessing some sort of RF otherwise we could pair the phone and not rely on wifi.
The design is so poor that the remote will actually cease to function right in the middle of using the damn thing. Great sleep function Roku, really awesome, lovin’ it. On top of all that, the thing eats through AAA batteries like they’re going out of style.
Stay away from the Roku streaming stick and their craptactular RF remotes. I am all for Roku (1, 2 or 3), but these sticks can go in the fucking garbage. Not to mention TV USB ports don’t supply enough power so you still need cables and dongles. Whats the fucking point of the stick again? If you get the MHL stick version you dont even get a remote (they make you rely on your TV remote), yeah cause everyone still actually uses it – anyone with cable TV has 3″ of dust on their actual TV remote (because we cant use them). Manufacturers need to get their shit together.
And Roku, fix your shitty remotes.
