Roku says the remote can register commands from up to 12 feet away, which held true for me, and it didn’t have trouble picking out the wake phrase while sound played through the TV. Once it hears “Hey Roku,” it lowers the streaming device volume to hear the rest of your command, and the remote had no issues understanding what I was saying even with complex words like
Mandalorian.
Jared Newman / IDG
Saying “Hey Roku” brings up a visual prompt on the TV, just like when you hold the remote’s microphone button.
Similar to Alexa on Fire TV, Siri on Apple TV, or Google Assistant on Google TV, Roku’s hands-free system feels magical when everything works properly. You can ask to play a movie or show, load the Roku Channel guide, turn the volume up or down, play or pause, and rewind or fast forward by a specific amount of time. Saying “Hey Roku, replay” is also useful, as it rewinds the current video by 10 seconds with closed captioning temporarily enabled.
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