Roku Announces Wireless Speakers for TV

Roku today announced its first step into the smart speaker market with its Roku TV Wireless Speakers. But as its name suggests, this solution addresses a very limited part of that market.

“With Roku TV Wireless Speakers, we’re able to offer our customers a simple and affordable way to further immerse themselves into the TV, movies, and music they love, while providing them with a better whole-home entertainment experience,” Roku CEO Anthony Wood notes in a prepared statement.

Windows Intelligence In Your Inbox

Sign up for our new free newsletter to get three time-saving tips each Friday — and get free copies of Paul Thurrott's Windows 11 and Windows 10 Field Guides (normally $9.99) as a special welcome gift!

"*" indicates required fields

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

What he doesn’t say, at least not very clearly, is that the Roku TV Wireless Speakers only work with Roku TV-branded smart TVs that are sold by a handful of hardware makers. That is, the speakers don’t work with the far more popular Roku set-top boxes, or with most smart TVs.

Looking beyond this limitation, the Roku TV Wireless Speakers appear to work much like other TV-attached soundbars and speakers. They improve on the audio provided by the TV and offer a simplified setup experience. They’re also not very expensive, and are on sale from the get-go: If you order today, you’ll pay just $150, about $50 off from the normal price.

You can learn more about the Roku TV Wireless Speakers from the Roku website.

 

Tagged with

Share post

Please check our Community Guidelines before commenting

Conversation 3 comments

  • Simard57

    16 July, 2018 - 12:08 pm

    <p>how is it possible to sell wireless speakers in 2018 that are proprietary to specific products? </p><p>sounds like a marketing blunder to me.</p><p><br></p>

  • HellcatM

    16 July, 2018 - 12:56 pm

    <p>I thought the box in the picture was a new Roku it would work with. I guess that's a remote? I'm guessing in the future they'll come out with a Roku that the speakers will work with. It would be kind of dumb to just have it for TV's with Roku built in.</p>

  • stmorr82zw5zml

    Premium Member
    16 July, 2018 - 10:37 pm

    <p>Year 2022: You have 14 speakers in front of your TV as you subscribe to 7 different streaming services and they all require their own smart speaker and virtual assistant. There are no open standards because manufacturers want to lock you into their ecosystem. Welcome to AOL TV. </p>

Windows Intelligence In Your Inbox

Sign up for our new free newsletter to get three time-saving tips each Friday

"*" indicates required fields

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Thurrott © 2024 Thurrott LLC