Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Audio / Video

Westinghouse, Polk Audio join the Roku TV Ready program

By

Roku today announced that it’s adding a couple of new partners to its “TV Ready” certification program, which helps simplify connections between Roku devices and televisions and basically makes them play nicely together. Joining TV Ready in early 2022 are Polk Audio and Westinghouse, which join the likes of Element, JVC, Pheanoo, Philips, Hisense, TCL, and Sound United, for starters.

The TV Ready program “makes it easy for A/V and consumer electronics companies to enhance their audio products to support seamless setup, single remote operations, and easy access to home theater settings on screen when connected to a Roku TV,” Roku said in a press release. Being part of the program gives partners access to a software development kit as well as a faster path to certification.

Recommended Videos

In addition to its low-cost Roku streaming sticks and wireless speakers, Roku partners with other manufacturers to make televisions and soundbars that use the Roku operating system. The TV Ready program helps ensure that non-Roku devices work as well as they can with a Roku-branded device, and that you’ll be able to control everything from a single remote control.

Related

As of November 3, Roku sported some 56.4 million active accounts worldwide, up some 23% from the third quarter of 2020.

“We have been thrilled to see the rapid adoption of Roku TV Ready among leading brands, both in the U.S. and now internationally,” Mark Ely, vice president of Product Strategy at Roku Inc., said in the press release. “Whether you are a soundbar manufacturer interested in providing your customers with a seamless home theater experience or would like to integrate Roku’s wireless audio technology, Roku makes it easy for manufacturers to utilize Roku technology to deliver great easy-to-use products that customers love.”

Editors’ Recommendations

Topics
Phil Nickinson
Phil Nickinson
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Phil spent the 2000s making newspapers with the Pensacola (Fla.) News Journal, the 2010s with Android Central and then the…
Apple TV’s InSight feature is ready to take on Amazon Prime Video’s X-Ray
Apple TV's Insight feature showing character and music information on screen.

We have a new developer beta for tvOS 18 — the software that runs on Apple TV devices — and with it comes our first look at a major new feature. InSight is Apple's answer to Amazon Prime Video's X-Ray, which provides quick and easy access to who's in a scene, and what music may be accompanying it.

Aside from some basic user interface differences like fonts and design elements — InSight definitively looks and feels like Apple, and X-Ray retains Prime Video's less-sleek motif — they basically work the same. While a movie or show is playing, you can pause or press down (the latter takes you straight to the info) to see thumbnails of the actors on-screen, including their real name (or stage name, we suppose), and the character's name. Click through one of the thumbnails and you'll get more information about the actor, and easy links to other films and shows they appear in, as well as roles they have served in some other capacity. Ted Lasso's Brett Goldstein, for example, has movie and series thumbnails, and he also has tiles for producing and writing.

Read more
Roku launches Weekly Trivia game to test your pop culture mettle
Roku Weekly Trivia

Fancy yourself an entertainment trivia nerd? Roku today has announced the launch of a Roku Weekly Trivia feature to add a little bit of fun and family competition to the popular streaming device's platform.

It's available starting today in the U.S. on all Roku devices, such as Roku streaming players, Streaming Sticks, and smart TVs running the Roku operating system. Each Tuesday will see the arrival of a pool of multiple-choice pop-culture questions, and every time a user plays they'll be presented with 10 questions from that pool. The game can be played several times per week from that week's pool of questions. Roku Weekly Trivia can be accessed through the Home Screen menu, as well as through Roku's Search function.

Read more
What is Google TV? Here’s everything you need to know
The Google TV home screen on a Hisense UX.

Google TV is one of the best streaming platforms, and it’s available on a wide range of devices. From smart TVs to plug-and-play HDMI gadgets like the Chromecast with Google TV 4K and HD models, you can do all kinds of cool things with Google TV. Of course, streaming movies and shows from the likes of Netflix, Hulu, and Prime Video is the most basic thing this web-connected OS can do. 

You can also use Google TV to cast content from a mobile device to your TV, and can even call upon Google Assistant to control some of your smart home devices. We love that Google TV keeps tabs on your viewing history, too, in order to curate suggested movies and shows right on the home page. 

Read more