- I've been talking on my live streams lately
about setting up the ultimate Roku experience.
I've got the Roku TV, the wireless speakers, the subwoofer.
It's a really nice setup,
but I thought to myself,
hmm, I wonder if I could add to this.
Okay and then in those same live streams
we were talking about the Roku Stream Bar Pro
being on a pretty significant sale at the time.
So I bought one.
Turns out it's a freaking brick
and I'll tell you why.
Let's dive in.
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Thanks for joining me today everybody.
Don't forget to join me on those Friday live streams,
every Friday at 2:00 PM.
We're talking about streaming issues,
we're talking about other tech issues,
we hanging out having a good time,
doing lots of Q&A, hope you'll be there.
Okay so let's talk about why I'm so disappointed
with Roku right now.
If you've been watching this channel for a while
then you know that I'm something of a Roku fanboy
historically, maybe not as much now as it used to be,
but still I love Roku.
So the idea was to make a video
about the ultimate Roku experience.
What if I could get
all of their gears and gadgets and gizmos
and put them all together
for the ultimate cinematic,
home cinematic Roku experience.
So like I said, I've already got the TV.
It's a TCL 6-Series Roku Smart TV
that I bought a couple of years ago.
I've got the wireless speakers set up next to it.
And I got the subwoofer a month or two ago
to go with all of that.
Frankly, I've been really, really impressed
with the sound on those.
I've really loved the experience.
And that's what I wanted to expand on.
Enter the Stream Bar Pro.
Everywhere you look,
when you look at the marketing material
for the Stream Bar Pro
you see that it talks about the potential
for surround sound setup.
The idea behind this thing is that it's a soundbar
but it's also a Roku streaming device,
it's kind of built right in.
Well obviously I've already got the Roku TV
so I didn't necessarily need the streaming device,
but hey, I thought it would be good to get the soundbar
to start the process of setting up that surround system.
And frankly, the device itself is good.
This video isn't about the Roku Stream Bar Pro being bad.
It's good.
The sound quality on this isn't quite what you would get
from the wireless speakers,
but it's still pretty decent for a soundbar at this price.
So I hooked it up to the TV
and immediately started running into problems.
As I was trying to pair it with my TV,
my TV gave me the warning
that well, I can only pair a wireless speaker set
or a wireless soundbar, not both of them.
It's a little bit weird
that I can't pair my Roku device with my Roku TV,
but okay, whatever.
The solution I thought
would be to plug this in as a stream bar
and use this as the streaming device
instead of the TV's inbuilt software
as the streaming device.
So I would go in through one of the inputs
and then pair my wireless speakers
and the subwoofer with the stream bar.
I know I can do that.
Well after hours,
and I do mean hours
of trying every possible combination,
unplugging every cord, hitting every reset button,
doing everything that I could to make this work
I gave up and I called customer service.
I called Roku and I said, what is going on?
Here's the setup I'm trying to go with.
Here's what I'm trying to do.
And bless her heart,
the woman on the other end, she was great.
This is not a complaint about Roku's customer service.
So let's not go there.
She was great.
But she essentially said, yeah that's never going to happen.
What I was told is that the software
within the Stream Bar Pro
and the software within the TV
are conflicting with each other.
And I cannot pair the speakers to the soundbar
when it's plugged into a Roku TV.
Are you freaking kidding me?
So, because I have a Roku TV,
I cannot then use a Roku Stream Bar Pro
to set up surround sound.
Now, if I tried to go just with the TV
as my primary setup,
well you can go into the settings there and connect speakers
but then once you've got a single pair of speakers
and a subwoofer, it'll tell you that's the max.
You can't add anything more to this system.
While the Stream Bar Pro promises on the website
that it can take all of those things.
It can take up to four speakers
and it can take the subwoofer.
Great, but then I can't use that on a Roku TV.
So again, I ask you, are you freaking kidding me?
So bottom line is if I want a surround sound system
I have to get a different TV
and that's not gonna happen.
I just bought this TV a year or two ago.
It's still in great condition.
I have no desire to switch to a different brand.
But that's exactly what I would have to do.
I would either have to get a different TV
or I would have to get a different sound system set up,
something that is not Roku branded.
Now, Roku has been trying for a few years now
to set up their own little Roku ecosystem
with the sound devices, with the TV,
with the hey Roku abilities
that they're building into their software.
But compatibility across your own device,
kind of a big deal.
Now, if it seems like I'm frustrated
it's only because I am.
Okay, I spent a decent chunk of change on this
even though it was on sale.
And now I'm gonna have to either send it back
or I don't know, do a giveaway on the channel or something.
Let me know if that would interest you.
It's still a good soundbar,
just not with a Roku TV.
So this video is all about me warning you
not to try what I tried.
And it's a warning to Roku
that this is a giant gaping hole
in your supposed ecosystem.
So if you do have a Roku TV
and you're looking to get just one device to add to it,
you could get either the Stream Bar Pro
or the wireless speakers,
please for the love of God, get the wireless speakers.
There's so much better.
So pair those, the subwoofer
and you'll have a very good setup.
I would like for mine to be even better
but apparently that's not going to happen right now.
All right, everybody thanks for watching my bitter rant.
If you enjoyed this video,
then go ahead and give it a like, subscribe,
and let me know in the comments
if I missed anything.
Was there a solution that I didn't know about?
Let me know before I packed this up and sent it back.
All right, I'll see you guys next time.