Roku 3 introduces built in private listening, faster hardware

For many people, Roku was the first piece of hardware to use a simple UI to bring the web to your TV. Now that we’ve sort of reached critical mass, where nearly everything we connect to the TV has at least one service that tries to do the same, Roku has released the third generation of their hardware with an improved UI and some interesting new features.

The world of web connected set top boxes grows more cluttered by the day. Game consoles now double as streaming STBs, while many companies try to release home theater plugins to offer their attempt at bringing the web to your TV. Roku was one of the first on the scene, and they have worked hard to be one of the best at what they do, without feeling the need to bolt on a bunch of extra stuff.

Despite the desires of the tech enthusiast, Roku doesn’t have a web browser, for example. Their focus is specifically on delivering streaming content in an inexpensive package, and they do that really well. The Roku 3 plans to hit shelves with very few external changes, but a lot of little updates on the inside.

While the shape of the Roku 3 box is a little different, it still maintains that basic tiny cube shape with an incredibly simple remote control. The new remote features a headphone jack for private listening, so anything you are streaming through the Roku 3 you can choose to listen to with just the remote. Syncing the audio and video this way will be a neat trick, something we’ve seen already with the Wii U. While Roku doesn’t explicitly describe how this works, it’s likely that we’re not far from a teardown that will expose the feature a little more.

Roku’s user interface is being adjusted to support the volume of channels that the service has gained over the years. The current UI places everything in a straight line and becomes tedious to use if you have more then 10 or 15 channels installed. A grid UI will take its place, making it easier to navigate across a larger set of channels. The faster hardware in the Roku 3 promises to make this experience nice and fluid as well. A software update will be available for existing Roku $14.98 at Diapers.comowners that will update their units to this new experience.

For $99, it’s still pretty hard to find something better than the Roku setup. As Smart TVs try to add features that replicate the simple interface of the Roku service, there’s still very little out there that compares. Roku plans to make their latest hardware available to everyone online and on shelves in April.