Hot on the heels of the Roku pico projector announcement, the Roku Streaming Stick ($99) is now available for order and a revised RF Roku remote passed through the FCC today. This accessory looks quite similar to the Bluetooth gaming remote bundled with the Roku 2 XS streaming player, yet appears to feature two minor differences. Instead of dual status lights under the A/B buttons, Roku Streaming Stick marketing material indicates there may be a single LED. Eh, whatev? More interesting are the two new side rocker buttons. While it’s not entirely clear what these are, (programmable) volume control would be welcome. Especially if the remote is made available for purchase to existing Roku 2 owners.
According to our pal Matthew Moskovciak over at CNET the remote does indeed feature a volume rocker, but it seems designed to control devices via that MHL port — meaning while this is suitable for the Roku Streaming Stick, it wouldn’t be of much use to us Roku 2 owners as a universal remote. Also, another interesting tidbit, the remote is not using Bluetooth but rather WiFi Direct – a technology Mari’s been tracking.
Dave, you left out the most important difference – Wifi Direct instead of Bluetooth…
Yah, read the comment above. CNET set me straight … as Roku doesn’t really have much to say to me these days (and most of the FCC filing was confidential). What can I say, I think the Roku Streaming Stick will be a flop (despite four announcements and counting) and have wondered why they’re too cheap to license YouTube.
I don’t see how it’s a flop unless they’re expecting it to widely expand their market beyond pack-ins with other manufacturer devices, which I don’t think is the case.
The pack-ins will be extra revenue for Roku. Until manufacturers realize they’re not seeing a return on their ROI, anyway. But I worry most about regular folks who buy this independently thinking they can plug it into any HDMI-looking port and get Roku on their TVs… And I’d say Roku is heavily banking on this solution given the number of announcements. I expect we’ll see another any day saying you can now order online.
The pico projector does look pretty cool and appeals to the geek in me… but I’m not sure I’m willing to spend $300 for low res, low lumens, and a single speaker novelty.
What I really want is the promised UI refresh and maybe a new few tent pole channels – like ESPN, YouTube, A SlingPlayer client to reenergize the platform (and sales).
I feel like if their hardware could do YouTube (w/ ads) then it would be done already.
Roku PR refuses to answer off script questions, so we’ll never know…
There’s nothing the YouTube client (w/ ads) is doing on other platforms that couldn’t also be done on a Roku2. Take a look at the Roku Vudu channel for an example of how well the platform can perform. Whatever the hold up is, I’m convinced it’s about a business deal, not (lack of) technology capabilities.
You need hardware support for those capabilities, and it’s possible they might not have it, that’s what happened to Popcorn Hour. It’s just a chance, but it’s hard to say what else could be holding up any possible deal except $$$$.