And there's a neat new remote
Roku’s got a plan for your TV audio and it’s not a Sonos Beam-rivalling soundbar. No, it’s this TV Wireless Speakers setup, which comes with a pair of speakers, a regular Roku voice control remote and a new Roku Touch tabletop remote.
They’re black and boxy-looking, so not much of note on the design front. The whole bundle costs $200 and will start shipping on 16 November, though Roku is selling it at a discount for $150 from 18 November until 26 November – otherwise known as Cyber Monday – if you can wait a couple of days.
Read this: The best smart speakers
The speakers are wireless, apart from the power cable, but they will only work with TCL Roku powered TVs (not even its own very good Roku streaming sticks and boxes) over Wi-Fi – for everything else you gots to use Bluetooth. Curious.
Still, a pair of affordable bookshelf speakers with stereo sound for its TVs is a start, and it looks like Roku will be making more of a push into home audio in the future including, potentially, a soundbar in the centre and cheaper rear surround speakers.
The Roku Touch remote looks pretty cool – it has a button in the center to tap for Roku’s own voice controls as well as play/pause and volume buttons. And it’s designed to slot into the top of the TV Wireless Speakers so it has a place to live in the lounge.
Roku’s voice platform is pretty accurate – when it picks you up, we’ve found on our voice remote that it sometimes takes a few tries and proper smart speakers and devices with far-field mics look great in comparison.
There’s no word on international availability yet but we’ll update this story if/when there is.
