On Wednesday, Roku revealed two new streaming gadgets at an occasion in New York. The corporate says its Streaming Stick and Streaming Stick Plus are probably the most compact in the marketplace, measuring 35 p.c smaller than different manufacturers’ fashions. Nevertheless, Roku says there is not any compromise on efficiency regardless of the small measurement.
The entry-level Streaming Stick is $30 and it knocks the Roku Express out of the corporate’s lineup. It has most of the options you’d count on from Roku, resembling customized suggestions, entry to 1000’s of streaming channels, a voice distant and Backdrops — a method to show artwork and photographs in your TV while you’re not streaming something.
The $40 Streaming Stick Plus, in the meantime, replaces the Roku Specific 4K+. Naturally, this has the entire options of the Streaming Stick in addition to help for 4K and HDR streaming. Roku notes the small measurement of each sticks makes it simple to deliver both with you while you journey, so you possibly can plug one right into a TV at your lodge or trip rental and maintain watching your exhibits.
The Roku Streaming Stick and Streaming Stick Plus is coming to the US, Canada, Mexico, the UK, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Panama. US pre-orders are open right this moment and the sticks will develop into obtainable from Roku straight and main retailers on Could 6.
Elsewhere, the corporate previewed new TVs with “distinctive {hardware} improvements” and “under-the-hood enhancements.” Roku is promising richer and extra vivid visuals, together with improved audio high quality and quicker app launches in its 2025 lineup. The corporate pledged to ship customized manufacturing unit calibration for the brand new Roku Professional Sequence fashions.
Plus Sequence TVs are getting a characteristic known as Roku Good Image Max, which mechanically adjusts image settings on a scene-by-scene foundation that can assist you keep away from fiddling in menus greater than you want to. The Plus Sequence will now have mini-LED backlighting with the goal of enhancing image high quality with out rising costs. These fashions can even have the built-in distant finder button and built-in cable administration that have been launched on Professional Sequence items. Going ahead, all Roku TVs can have a Bluetooth headphone possibility too.
Roku additionally introduced software program updates, which it claims will make streaming on Roku OS “smoother and extra customized.” In the meantime, revamped content material discovery options embody customized sports activities highlights and a “Coming quickly to theaters” row for motion pictures. (Hey, cinemas want all the help they can get.) On high of that, the Backdrops characteristic is coming to all Roku TVs and streaming gadgets in Canada beginning right this moment.
