4 ms·

Ask HN: Why Roku? doesn't everyone own smart TVs?

4 points by RocketSyntax 7y ago

Smart TVs are like $200 now. Why does Roku even exist? Their stock is $175 right now.

enz 7y ago
I guess it can be good for people owning a great monitor which is not a TV.
paulrpotts 7y ago
No, not everyone owns smart TVs. I looked long and hard to find the best option for a dumb TV without Wi-Fi, without Alexa, without Siri, without any of that, because I don't actually want to stream anything to it and I don't want my television to be a hackable portal between my home and family and any hacker able to exploit bad firmware. No regrets.
- troydavis 7y ago
  Which model did you choose? I looked for a large, modern (4K, HDR) dumb TV and couldn’t find one. I’d pay a premium for this, or at least for a device that considers “dumb mode” a first-class use case. In addition to trusting Apple (Apple TV) more than any TV or TV OS maker, models and firmware seems to be abandoned quickly. I’d rather decouple the UI upgrade cycle from the hardware upgrade cycle. Roku seems to support devices longer than the other TV OS makers, but they have “features” that I’d pay to not have (like ACR and https://support.roku.com/article/360021142813 https://support.roku.com/article/360021142813).
Finnucane 7y ago
Obviously, not everyone has or wants a tv with Roku built in, or is going to rush out to buy one. Obviously, TV makers don't want you to have much choice in the matter. I was cjust thinking about getting a Roku box for my mother, because for $40 it's way less work and expense than getting her a new tv.
- JoeAltmaier 7y ago
  Add in the cost of educating her in the use of two remotes.
  - Piskvorrr 7y ago
    Doesn't HDMI-CEC solve that?
    - davismwfl 7y ago
      Sort of. The problem being the Roku remote is sadly missing a few key basic functions, like primarily mute. So frustrating when you want to mute something and you can't cause you only have vol up/down on the Roku remote. And it is so easy to hit the ESPN or 3 other "app" buttons on the remote so that can be annoying if you aren't careful picking up the remote or setting it down. But overall yes, HDMI-CEC solves the remote issue overall except for the fact Roku poorly designed the remotes IMO.
      - Finnucane 7y ago
        Do you want to know how much my mother is going to care about any of that?
davismwfl 7y ago
Roku is more than the box. We have Roku boxes and a couple of smart TV's. Roku is also a gateway service IMO, and Roku is adding content all the time. So I think the companies value is in the number of eyes looking at content over just how many boxes/tv's got sold.
justrudd 7y ago
As other have stated - Roku content update cycles are much faster than TVs. But for me (I use AppleTV vs. Roku), it's because TVs are SLOW (IME). Clicking on Netflix takes about 5 to 10 seconds to open. Clicking down on the remote takes 2 to 3 seconds. It's even worse now that Netflix does that live preview when the cursor sits for a spell on a title. And finally Netflix crashed on my TV 3 or 4 times during the week that I tried to use it.
Piskvorrr 7y ago
Smart TVs are anything but. Slow, bloated, and hey look, a bunch of unpatched and actively exploited vulnerabilities with no way to patch, as the anemic computer driving it is already beyond vendor support, but locked down. Yeah. That's exactly what I want: a crypto miner bot in my living room. The only "smart" part of "smart TV" is "hey, we can charge much more if we stick a $5 compute module inside!" /s Personally, I have a RPi running Kodi, plugged into $anytv (quite literally, no idea what the model is, as long as it supports HDMI). TL;DR: because not everybody is you (i.e. has same requirements and preferences). Deal with it.

4 points by RocketSyntax 7y ago

Smart TVs are like $200 now. Why does Roku even exist? Their stock is $175 right now.

enz 7y ago

I guess it can be good for people owning a great monitor which is not a TV.

paulrpotts 7y ago

No, not everyone owns smart TVs. I looked long and hard to find the best option for a dumb TV without Wi-Fi, without Alexa, without Siri, without any of that, because I don't actually want to stream anything to it and I don't want my television to be a hackable portal between my home and family and any hacker able to exploit bad firmware. No regrets.

troydavis 7y ago
Which model did you choose? I looked for a large, modern (4K, HDR) dumb TV and couldn’t find one. I’d pay a premium for this, or at least for a device that considers “dumb mode” a first-class use case. In addition to trusting Apple (Apple TV) more than any TV or TV OS maker, models and firmware seems to be abandoned quickly. I’d rather decouple the UI upgrade cycle from the hardware upgrade cycle. Roku seems to support devices longer than the other TV OS makers, but they have “features” that I’d pay to not have (like ACR and https://support.roku.com/article/360021142813 https://support.roku.com/article/360021142813).

Finnucane 7y ago

Obviously, not everyone has or wants a tv with Roku built in, or is going to rush out to buy one. Obviously, TV makers don't want you to have much choice in the matter. I was cjust thinking about getting a Roku box for my mother, because for $40 it's way less work and expense than getting her a new tv.

JoeAltmaier 7y ago
Add in the cost of educating her in the use of two remotes.
- Piskvorrr 7y ago
  Doesn't HDMI-CEC solve that?
  - davismwfl 7y ago
    Sort of. The problem being the Roku remote is sadly missing a few key basic functions, like primarily mute. So frustrating when you want to mute something and you can't cause you only have vol up/down on the Roku remote. And it is so easy to hit the ESPN or 3 other "app" buttons on the remote so that can be annoying if you aren't careful picking up the remote or setting it down. But overall yes, HDMI-CEC solves the remote issue overall except for the fact Roku poorly designed the remotes IMO.
    - Finnucane 7y ago
      Do you want to know how much my mother is going to care about any of that?

davismwfl 7y ago

Roku is more than the box. We have Roku boxes and a couple of smart TV's. Roku is also a gateway service IMO, and Roku is adding content all the time. So I think the companies value is in the number of eyes looking at content over just how many boxes/tv's got sold.

justrudd 7y ago

As other have stated - Roku content update cycles are much faster than TVs. But for me (I use AppleTV vs. Roku), it's because TVs are SLOW (IME). Clicking on Netflix takes about 5 to 10 seconds to open. Clicking down on the remote takes 2 to 3 seconds. It's even worse now that Netflix does that live preview when the cursor sits for a spell on a title. And finally Netflix crashed on my TV 3 or 4 times during the week that I tried to use it.

Piskvorrr 7y ago

Smart TVs are anything but. Slow, bloated, and hey look, a bunch of unpatched and actively exploited vulnerabilities with no way to patch, as the anemic computer driving it is already beyond vendor support, but locked down. Yeah. That's exactly what I want: a crypto miner bot in my living room. The only "smart" part of "smart TV" is "hey, we can charge much more if we stick a $5 compute module inside!" /s Personally, I have a RPi running Kodi, plugged into $anytv (quite literally, no idea what the model is, as long as it supports HDMI). TL;DR: because not everybody is you (i.e. has same requirements and preferences). Deal with it.