Roku Voice Remote Pro (2nd edition) review: A solid upgrade

Price When Reviewed

$29.99

Best Prices Today: Roku Voice Remote Pro (2nd edition)

For $30, the second-generation Roku Voice Remote Pro fixes almost everything you might find irksome about Roku’s other remotes.

This optional upgrade for Roku streaming players and smart TVs includes backlit buttons, a customizable quick-launch key, hands-free “Hey Roku” voice controls, and a lost remote finder function. It’s also the first rechargeable Roku remote with a USB-C charging port instead of the obsolete Micro-USB standard.

None of this is revolutionary. Amazon’s Alexa Voice Remote Pro offers a few of those same features for Fire TV devices, and the new Walmart Onn Google TV 4K Pro streaming box comes with many of the same capabilities. Roku’s remote also isn’t perfect—hands-free voice control is a bust in particular—but if you’re a Roku diehard stuck with a less-capable remote, the Voice Remote Pro is a sensible upgrade.

Easy pairing

Roku did a nice job with the pairing process for the Voice Remote Pro. Using your current remote, you can navigate to Settings > Remotes & Devices > Remote > Add New Remote. An on-screen setup process then instructs you to hold the home and back button for five seconds, after which the pairing is complete. The other remote will still work as a secondary control option, which is kind of nifty for couples who want equal input over the evening’s TV entertainment.

For Roku’s least-expensive players and smart TVs, this new Voice Remote Pro will be a major upgrade.

You can then optionally set up the remote to control your TV’s volume and power. Like most other Roku remotes, the Voice Remote Pro has an infrared emitter for TV controls, and it can control soundbars and A/V systems over HDMI-CEC.

This review is part of TechHive’s in-depth coverage of the best media streamers.

The remote cannot, however, control external sound systems over IR. If your soundbar or A/V system connects to the TV over optical audio or a 3.5mm cable instead of HDMI-ARC, you’ll need a separate remote for volume control. This applies to all Roku remotes, and it remains a notable downside versus other streaming platforms such as Fire TV and Google TV.

Firsts for Roku: Backlighting and USB-C charging

As of this writing, the Roku Voice Remote Pro is Roku’s only remote with backlit buttons, which light up automatically when you lift the remote or press a button. The backlighting can’t be disabled, but I’ve not used the remote long enough to say whether this has an adverse affect on battery life.

On a related note, this is also the only Roku remote with a USB-C port for charging. If you have an iPhone 15, a 10th-gen or better iPad, an Android phone, or a laptop with a USB-C charging cable, that means you can use the same power cord to charge up the Voice Remote Pro’s internal battery. Too many streaming devices still use the 14-year-old Micro-USB standard, whose one-way design is harder to plug in and is incompatible with a growing number of devices, so it’s nice to see Roku finally move on.

Shifting shortcut keys

Roku’s original Voice Remote Pro included two customizable shortcut buttons, labeled 1 and 2. Long-pressing either button would let you map it to a specific app, voice command, or section of the Roku home screen.

On the second-gen Voice Remote Pro, Roku has replaced one of the shortcut buttons with a “Guide” shortcut, which jumps directly to Roku’s live TV guide and cannot be changed. The other shortcut button—represented as a launching rocket—brings up a quick-launch menu with two customizable functions and a link to the search menu.

Launching your shortcuts therefore requires an extra step, but it’s an overall improvement in usability, as the on-screen menu ensures that you never forget which shortcuts you’d set up. You can open the quick-launch menu from inside any app, and it’ll appear as an overlay at the bottom.

Still, I wonder why Roku stopped with just two shortcuts. Now that you can pick them from an on-screen menu, why not let users set up three shortcuts or more, or provide a row of recently used apps? Maybe Roku doesn’t want you to easily bypass the home screen, which now has more ads than ever; but giving users more shortcuts would help justify the new remote’s “Pro” designation.

No more headphone jack

The other big change from Roku’s previous premium remotes is the absence of a built-in 3.5mm headphone jack. That means you’re down to a couple of options for private listening, neither of which technically require the new remote:

• Some Roku players and smart TVs have Bluetooth audio support, so you can pair a set of wireless headphones or earbuds.
• All modern Roku devices can route audio through your phone using Roku’s official iPhone or Android apps. You can then pair a set of wireless headphones or earbuds with the phone or plug in a set of wired headphones, though you’ll need an adapter for the latter if your phone doesn’t have a headphone jack built in.

This shouldn’t be a dealbreaker for most folks, but certainly Roku has lost some simplicity in the transition, and it’d be easier to accept if more Roku players supported Bluetooth audio.

Hands-free voice control

Like Roku’s previous Voice Remote Pro, the second-gen model supports hands-free voice commands, so you can say “Hey Roku” instead of pressing the remote’s microphone button. You can also disable hands-free control through a switch on the remote’s left side.

I wouldn’t upgrade for this feature alone, however; in my experience, the remote failed to understand the “Hey Roku” wake phrase roughly half the time, and even when it understood requests for a specific movie or show, Roku wouldn’t actually launch the content. Instead, it would bring up a menu displaying the movie or show, and from there I’d need to either click the remote’s OK button or say “Hey Roku, select.” That defeats the purpose of using hands-free control in the first place. For true hands-free control over your TV, Amazon’s Fire TV Cube remains unparalleled.

Lost remote finder

Both the first- and second-gen Roku Voice Remote Pro include a remote-finder function. When paired with a Roku Ultra, you can press a button on the side of the streaming box, and the remote will play a chime to help you track it down.

The remote finder also works without a Roku Ultra, albeit with some extra hassle. You can either yell “Hey Roku, find my remote” and hope the remote can hear you from under the couch cushions, or you can open Roku’s mobile app, tap the “…” button next to your device in the Devices tab, then tap ” Ping remote.” It’d be nice if the app listed this function more prominently.

Is Roku’s Voice Remote Pro worth the upgrade?

Whether you should buy the second-gen Roku Voice Remote Pro depends on which Roku device you have now.

Owners of the latest Roku Ultra and Roku Plus Series TVs won’t get much for their money. Those devices still include the first-gen Voice Remote Pro, which lacks backlighting and USB-C charging but otherwise has many of the same features. Roku’s new Pro Series TVs, meanwhile, already include the second-gen Voice Remote Pro in the box.

On the lowest-tier streaming players and smart TVs, the Voice Remote Pro will be a major upgrade, if only because the cheapest TVs lack a mic for voice search, and the cheapest streaming players don’t even have TV volume and power controls. With mid-tier Roku players such as the Roku Streaming Stick 4K, the addition of remote-finding, an integrated battery, and backlight are still substantial. If you’re not planning to replace your Roku player or smart TV anytime soon, a nicer remote is one way to make it feel new again.

Best Prices Today: Roku Voice Remote Pro (2nd edition)