Mediaboss Marketing

Roku announced major upgrades to its popular media streamers on Tuesday. The flagship Roku 3 ($100) gets an all-new remote control with an integrated mic that can be used for voice searches, and the new Roku 2 ($70) is now based on the same hardware as its more-expensive sibling.

The new Roku 2s remote, however, doesnt support voice search, and it loses the headphone jack that it currently has (the Roku 3s remote retains this feature, which is useful for private listening). The Roku 1 and the Roku Streaming Stick ($50 each) remain the same, apart from new software features that will be common to the entire lineup (and all other Roku players manufactured since 2011).

Why this matters:Roku is slugging it out withAmazon,Apple, andGoogleto lead the media-streaming space, and consumers are reaping the benefits from this healthy competition. It's unfortunate to see a productlosea featureI'm referring to the headphone jack on the Roku 2's remote, in this casebut the faster hardware under the hood should more than make up for that.

We focused on two key areas, Roku chief marketing office Matthew Anderson told me in a briefing last week, the next stage of search and discovery, and hardware enhancements to the Roku 2 and the Roku 3.

To use voice search on the Roku 3s remote, you hold down the search button and speak.A circled-mic icon in the user interface pulses with each word until you release the button, to provide visual feedback that your search terms have been acknowledged.

You can search by title, actor, or director. The Roku will respond by listing all the content available on Roku that matches your criteria. After the primary search term, search results are listed in reverse order of cost, so that free content is listed first.

The new Roku 2 will no longer have a headphone jack in its remote control. And while the hardware can support the voice-search feature that comes with the Roku 3's remote, Roku doesn't plan to sell that remote solo.

The Roku 3's new voice-search remote is compatible with the new Roku 2 (the cheaper box is built using the same hardware as the Roku 3, after all), but Anderson said the company currently has no plans to sell the new remote separately. Well look at offering the remote separately if the market demands it, he said. The new remote will not work with the Roku 1 or the Roku Streaming Stick.

All four Roku models will get software updates, including the new search functionality (apart from voice recognition). Another new software feature, Roku Feed, lets you follow new movies that are currently in theaters but not yet available on Roku. Movies garner the most attention while theyre in theaters (and shortly before), so this feature lets you track as many films as youd like and be notified as soon as they become available on one of Rokus channels.

"Follow" a movie and you'll receive as soon as it becomes available for streaming on a Roku channel.

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Major Roku upgrades include voice search for $100 Roku 3, new hardware for $70 Roku 2