Roku

With all of the thousands of Alexa skills out there, it's at least a little surprising to realize that Roku has gone all of this time without a skill of its own. That all changes today with the roll out of the new Roku Alexa skill, which will of course allow you to control your Roku devices with voice commands. Alexa is joining Google Assistant and Roku's own voice search, giving users a decent number of options when it comes to voice support.

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TCL, the company perhaps best known for its Roku smart TVs, has announced a new deal involving its massive 75-inch 4K HDR Roku smart TV model and retailer Costco. The model's price has been temporarily slashed to $999.99 as a limited time deal, giving consumers the opportunity to pick up a massive screen for a (relatively speaking) small price.

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Roku has begun adding premium subscriptions to The Roku Channel, offering cord-cutting access to more than 25 partners, though with some big names conspicuously absent. The launch makes content from Start, Showtime, and others available through a Roku streaming device or a Roku TV.

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During CES 2019, TiVo revealed that it will be releasing free streaming apps for popular set-top boxes and smart TVs, including Roku and Fire TV. These streaming apps would allow TiVo DVR owners to access their content on other TVs in the house without buying a separate mini streaming box. That's great news for customers, but it turns out there's a big downside to the upcoming offering.

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Smart TVs and set-top boxes are great...until guests come over, use the system, and mess up your personalization. Depending on the platform and whether parental controls are enabled, guests could potentially purchase and rent content from apps linked to the user's card, mess up the content recommendations on their favorite services, and more. Roku is here with a solution to this problem, and it is called Auto Sign Out Mode.

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Livestreaming TV service Sling TV has launched a free viewing experience for Roku users, enabling them to browse the service as a guest and watch content without paying. The free access is offered to new Sling TV customers who can access the content without creating an account or signing in. In addition to watching content, guests will be able to buy pay-per-view events without subscribing.

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TCL will launch 8K Roku Smart TVs later this year, the two companies have announced. TCL will be the first to license an 8K hardware reference design currently in development at Roku, which already offers a number of smart TVs via TCL. Joining the future 8K TV models will be new 4K and HDR smart TVs that feature voice search/control and far-field microphones.

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Roku is about to launch premium subscriptions through The Roku Channel, the company has announced. The subscriptions will be supported starting later this month -- an exact date wasn't provided -- at which time users will be able to add premium video services like Showtime, Epix, and more. The new support will cover free trials, one-click signup, and other service features.

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Home movie night is about to get louder, with Roku's TV Wireless Speakers set to begin shipping at the end of the week. The company announced its speaker bundle all the way back in July, promising not only better audio quality for your streaming media, but more convenience than rival speakers, too.

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Roku devices got support for Spotify years ago, but lost it in 2017 due to technical issues. That's about to change, though, as Roku pushes out Roku OS 9, which will include Spotify support, according to the release notes. Not all Roku devices will get the support, but the ones that do will be able to access both the free service and Spotify Premium.

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Slowly but surely, Sonos has been attempting to turn its home speaker offerings into attractive buys for IoT enthusiasts. Earlier this year, we saw the launch of the Sonos ONE, a smart speaker capable of working with both Amazon's Alexa and Google Assistant. Not too long ago, Sonos rolled IFTTT support for its smart speakers into beta too. Sonos isn't stopping there, and the next name on its IoT checklist could be a big one indeed: Roku.

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Roku's video streamers are about to get a whole lot smarter, with Roku OS 9 previewed along with Google Assistant integration and new support for streaming music services. The big update isn't quite ready for release - instead, Roku is pushing out Roku OS 8.2 for Roku TVs, complete with support for the recently-announced Roku TV Wireless Speakers, among other things - but it already sounds like it's worth waiting for.

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