Roku finally adding custom screensavers

Roku has dropped a ton of news today, but the most exciting for me is a new feature called Backdrops that lets you upload your photos or art to use as your TV’s screensaver.

This update isn’t rolling out today, but it solves the most significant pain point I’ve had with Roku devices since their inception. Traditionally, they only offered very stock photo screensavers, which evolved into the Roku City, a fun screensaver that doesn’t match most home decor. This gave Amazon and Google a leg up on Roku since both their smart TVs let people customize their screensavers.

Alongside this, Roku is updating its two lower-end streaming sticks. The ‘Roku Streaming Stick’ will replace the Roku Express for people looking for HD content, and the ‘Roku Streaming Stick Plus’ will be for users looking for a cost-effective way to stream in 4K.

That said, the Roku Streaming Stick 4K and the Roku Ultra can both stream Dolby Vision content and have a few other perks, so they still sit above the new products in Roku’s lineup.

While not necessarily coming to Canada right away, Roku is also adding support for projectors, so in the future, we might see some smart projectors start shipping with RokuOS instead of Google TV, which has been the norm for a while. A few new Roku TVs are also getting released in the U.S., but the streaming accessory maker hasn’t brought its first-party TVs to Canada yet.

Overall, as I said above, I think the most exciting aspect of this news brief is that we can finally set custom screensavers. Roku is going to release the new streaming sticks on June 2, so I’d expect they’ll launch with the new software. It still remains to be seen how long it will take to roll out to older Roku TVs and streaming sticks, but in my experience, most updates seem to roll out across most Roku devices at the same time.

Source: Roku, Roku Canada