It has been a very busy couple of weeks for Roku. The company has announced a slimmer group of streaming players for 2025, eliminating the Roku Express model line and with it the small, underpowered line of sight-dependent model altogether. In the past, those models served as entry-level devices, allowing Roku to offer multiple products with prices that could be a few as 10 dollars different up the line. The company now has paired things down by offering three streaming sticks, starting with the entry-level just called the Roku Streaming Stick for $29.99. There are two other streaming sticks which rise in price again by $10.00 increments, with the $39.00 Roku Streaming Stick Plus and the $49.00 Roku Streaming Stick 4k. The biggest difference between the entry-level stick and the 4k is 4k resolution VS 1080 and audiovisual capabilities like Dolby sound and picture that are more common via extensive sound systems and higher-end TVs. This makes the Roku Ultra the only traditional hockey puck-style player Roku offers. From there it’s only the mini soundbar called the Roku Streambar.
Its smaller lineup means that it will be able to control the overall experience better across the line. While it’s not a stated goal I can imagine it will help the company when it comes to both customer support and public perception of its products. Having low end hardware run the same apps that a top of the line product runs can really lead to a varied experience and frankly can get annoying because people who get the least expensive models will have problems that others do not but it turns into a narrative problem in the market that say Apple with one or two Apple TV models never has to deal with. As far as I’m concerned, it was a smart move.
The biggest recent move the company has made though, was announcement that it plans to buy the streaming service FRNDLY. The service has long been an option for cord-cutters looking for an inexpensive choice packed with a number of general entertainment channels and a number of what people refer to as heartland entertainment like channels featuring TV programming from the 1950s like Make Room For Daddy or TV westerns like Big Valley or Bonanza.
This means Roku has positioned itself as a TV maker, a streaming player maker, and a content distributor while still being the most open operating system with the best search on the market. This is in addition to the Roku channel which is available on multiple platforms and its live TV FAST channels that are built into Roku and Roku powered TVs. How the company handles FRNDLY once (if) the purchase is approved will be interesting to watch.
So will Roku target any other streaming services? Will it try to find its way into any other markets? The company is not sitting still. Keep your eyes on it.
