Roku announced earlier today, April 5th, the release of a new streaming device: The Roku Streaming Stick. It is the third generation of its streaming service of lower cost which will be released later this month.
It is a similar device to Google’s Chromecast and Amazon’s Fire TV Stick. The price of the Roku device will be $ 49.99, being $ 10 more than the Amazon’s streaming stick and $ 15 more than the Chromecast.
This new piece of hardware is smaller, just a little bit larger than a flash drive, and thinner, and it can be plugged into an HDMI port on the side of a TV. It includes a quad-core processor making it faster to move from one screen to another, than previous devices from Roku.
The device will come with more channels, more power, and a remote controller, being this a huge difference with the Chromecast.
The function to cast is included and people can still use their phones to play content and then cast it to the TV. And with the TV interface and the controller, users can directly select and play shows and movies on their TV screen if they choose to.
In addition to the release of a new stick, the company also announced the release of Roku OS 7.1. This update has more and better features that will allow users to see trending movies and TV shows, and with the mobile application update, people can privately listen to the audio directly from their phones, instead of the remote, like it was done before.
According to Lloyd Klarke, an author at The Official Roku Blog, the new Roku Stick will replace current sticks people might have already. He says “Yes. We introduced the stick form factor in 2012, and this will be our third stick. It’s smaller than our current-generation stick and smaller than Amazon and Chromecast’s sticks, so it’s easy to take on the road or room to room. This has eight times the processing power of our current-generation stick and more than our competitors.”
Even though this new stick will replace the current Roku stick, other Roku’s device will still be available in the market, especially the Roku 1, since is the only one that connects to older televisions.
The Roku Streaming Stick is available today and people can start ordering it, but it will only start shipping towards the end of the month.
Source: Tech Crunch