Roku is one among the most important TV platforms within the US with an honest portion of its success coming from a bare-bones, simple offering. Now, with Roku OS v9.3, the platform is adding wide support for voice commands, something Google’s Android TV has offered for years.
In a handout in the week , Roku reveals what’s new in v9.3 of its platform. This update is heavily centric on voice commands for Roku devices, something the platform has lacked for quite while while other platforms have offered the feature.
What can Roku’s voice commands do?
In both English and Spanish — starting within the US and Mexico — Roku can look for content, start shows or movies in select apps, and even look for actors and actresses with a replacement visual search interface. Using voice, Roku users also can say “play the news” to launch streams of their preferred news channels.
With these new voice command features, Roku finally closes the gap on Google’s Android TV during this area. With the mixing of Google Assistant on the platform since 2017, Android TV has been ready to offer almost identical voice commands to what Roku is offering in OS v9.3, but with more functions like controlling smart home devices. Notably, Amazon’s Fire TV platform has also offered similar voice functions using Alexa.
Beyond the new commands, Roku is additionally updating its mobile app with this update, expanding Google Assistant and Alexa integration to more countries and expanding “Roku Voice” to Canada, Ireland, and therefore the UK.
