avemal Loc: BALTIMORE

Does anyone use this on their TV? If so what do you think about it.,pros & cons. Anything like this better? Thanks in advance! Recommendations grateful/.

delder Loc: Maryland

Have a now 2 year old Samsung 65" Smart TV. We are in a Retirement Community with Enterprise Wi-Fi and found the Roku Express to provide superior service compared to the internal Samsung connection.
Roku can also be extended away from the TV on a HDMI extension cable to better connect with the Access Point.

BigDaddy Loc: Pittsburgh, PA

I have the Roku and Amazon Fire on all my TV's. I like the Firestick better, but primarily because of all the benefits you get when you also have Amazon Prime membership. In other words, from my long experience, if you have Prime, Firestick is the way to go. If not I guess it's a tossup, with a very small edge to Fire. Either are far better than cable TV costing a monthly fortune with less product.

With an interest in photography, Amazon Prime gives you unlimited free storage of photo's, and the Firestick comes with a free PHOTO app that will display your photo's with a click of a button on any TV with a firestick. Roku just added a similar service but It's far behind Fire in all aspects.

avemal Loc: BALTIMORE

Thanks for INFO.

BigDaddy Loc: Pittsburgh, PA

For sure. So people know, Smart TV is NOT needed in the least with Roku or Firestick. They both (like smart TV) get their signals from the cable WiFi box or router.

Linda From Maine Loc: Yakima, Washington

My smart tv (24" circa 2017 Vizio) isn't smart enough to be able to add apps I'd like to have. So I bought a Roku in order to get MLB TV. I like that I could customize Roku's opening page to show just the apps I use + put them in the order I want. My only complaint is the remote doesn't control volume.

DWU2 Loc: Phoenix Arizona area

We've got Rokus on 5 TV's. Although Roku & other sticks provide various content, you would surely want to add a content provider such as Youtube TV for sports, local TV, PBS, TCM, cable news, etc. I say go for it!

avemal Loc: BALTIMORE

Thanks to all!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Fstop12 Loc: Kentucky

Other than the photo viewing capabilities from Firestick is there any other benefit to using Firestick over Roku?

Jack47 Loc: Ontario

I use the earlier Apple box. I have to say it has been great.

Bridges Loc: Memphis, Charleston SC, now Nazareth PA

Roku is a great device and the ability to talk to it rather than push buttons is nice. It also has an ear plug on the side of the controller that allows you to use headphones in case you want to watch a show and not disturb other people in the house.

jaymatt Loc: Alexandria, Indiana

I have had Roku for a few years now and love it--works great. I also have a tv with Firestick, and I think it is much more cumbersome to use than the Roku, so I highly recommend it.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Nothing is perfect. I have a smart TV, and I can get an assortment of streaming channels with that. Roku and the Amazon Firestick work faster, though. With the TV, it takes longer for it to respond to the remote. Occasionally, it will switch back to regular TV.

From my experience, both the Roku and the Firestick are unreliable. I'll use one for a while until it starts misbehaving - not connecting, buffering. Then I'll switch to the other stick. and it will work fine for a month or more. The nice thing is that they are both cheap with no monthly payment. Roku has its own free channels.

BigDaddy Loc: Pittsburgh, PA

I think they are very similar, but besides the excellent photo stuff the Firestick also has Amazon Music, which like photo storage and display is free with the firestick if you have Prime. The voice recognition is a lot better with Fire as well. Also, Volume doesn't work on my TV's with Roku, but works with Fire, including on 2 TV's with sound bars. Programing however, like YouTube, Pluto and all that is about the same. Speed and connectivity are the same, which for me is very reliable although my Fire TV occasionally, about once a month or so needs restarted. Also, unlike Jaymatt, I think the Roku interface is a tad clunkier than Roku. Overall, and I've had Roku for many years, even updated the module, I would recommend Fire over Roku, way over Roku due to the photo apps and music, and just a tad over otherwise.

Since this is a photography forum, I'll expand some on that aspect. Amazon Directory besides being free and unlimited, allows uploading with ease. I have TV folders with favorite jpgs formatted (16x9) for HD TV. With Amazon I can simply drag a file[s], or whole folders to Amazon Drive. Roku allows only 10 files at a time. Also, the Roku photo app sucks compared to Amazons PHOTO app. With Amazon's photo app I can mark and unmark favorites, and display them in a slideshow, or pick out specific folders to display, or show individual files, sort them or mix them up, play amazon music in the background and so on.

In the past I had to copy photo's to a Thumb Drive, then take the thumb drive to ONE TV, and to add/remove files had to take it out of the TV and plug it into my PC, and it was a PIA. Now, I edit my photo's on my PC, open Amazon Drive in my browser, drag and drop the file or files or folder to Amazon Drive, and they immediately are all viewable on ANY of my TV's.

Right now I have around 3500 jpgs in folders and a bunch of those marked as favorites. I look at some of them every day on my bedroom TV when I get up, and every night when I go to bed. If company comes I can show them my pictures on any TV with a few clicks. Also, Amazon gives you 5 gigs of free movie storage which you can also play on any TV. I don't make many movies but I do have 11 movies I made (4.5 gigs) and can "entertain" the heck out of company if I wish.

I know I sound like an Amazon Ad, but trust me, I'm no fan of Bezos, and for me to recommend his product is not easy, but what is good is good, no getting around it.

Just to trash Amazon a bit, I just bought a Hay Rake for $47 with free delivery from Home Depot. A week later I got an Ad from Amazon for the exact same Ames Hay rake, "on Sale" for just $72 (regular price, $80?) You gotta be careful with Amazon.

twowindsbear

My ROKU remote does control the volume of my TV. The volume buttons are kinda hidden on the right side of the remote device. Or does youe TV not respond properly to the remote? YMMV, of course. Good luck.