Dear Roku, you ruined my TV

Roku has made my TV unusable.

On June 6th, my TCL TV’s Roku OS was updated to mentation 13.0.0. Ever since, connected everything I watch, determination is question smoothing — a TV and movie purists’ deepest nightmare. There is nary mode to crook it off.

In the updated OS, Roku added a diagnostic called Roku Smart Picture, which, according to its release notes, “automatically improves representation prime dynamically arsenic users stream.” While Roku doesn’t explicitly notation question smoothing, oregon what Roku calls “action smoothing,” the update has made it truthful that I and galore others with Roku TVs see question smoothing, careless of whether the representation mounting is Roku Smart Picture oregon not. My TV didn’t adjacent enactment question smoothing earlier this. Now, I can’t marque it spell away.

If you’re idiosyncratic who doesn’t announcement question smoothing oregon doesn’t peculiarly attraction astir it, ideate if, suddenly, your ebook updated truthful each the fonts were 3 times arsenic large. Or if your telephone decided each video and audio would beryllium played astatine 2x. Some folks mightiness similar that, but it should beryllium a choice. Forcing a instrumentality to alteration however a idiosyncratic experiences contented that is antithetic than what is expected, with nary means to revert oregon disable the change, is bad. That should beryllium obvious.

Not agelong aft the update rolled out, different Roku TV owners (mainly TCL, but Hisense, too) began posting astir the contented successful Roku’s assemblage forum and connected Reddit. Since I enactment astatine The Verge, I told our squad astir my issue. We reached retired to Roku for remark and got nary response. We wrote astir the problem. Commenters connected that station agreed: it sucks. Still, determination was vigor soundlessness from Roku.

Shipping bundle tin beryllium challenging, particularly if you’re shipping updates to a multitude of antithetic devices. QA should drawback issues, but sometimes they don’t, and a bug is shipped. It happens! So, successful moments similar these, it’s important to person beardown lawsuit enactment and to beryllium responsive and communicative. What you astir apt should debar is weeks of customers flagging the aforesaid contented with nary meaningful feedback oregon updates. Possibly adjacent much important, your enactment infrastructure shouldn’t beryllium hard to navigate oregon person their ain bugs that hinder their use. In this case, there’s both.

Unlike my TV’s caller representation setting, Roku’s lawsuit enactment acquisition has been thing but smooth. I ran into method issues sending a assemblage moderator my information. The DM fastener was missing and past magically appeared the adjacent day. Then, I couldn’t nonstop a message, getting an mistake that my connection contained invalid HTML (it did not). I was adjacent told I had “reached the bounds for fig of backstage messages that you tin send” adjacent though I was ne'er capable to nonstop a connection to statesman with. When I did yet get through, the effect I got offered nary solution — and hardly made immoderate sense.

This full acquisition strikes maine arsenic thing genuinely wild. If you’re successful the concern of making a merchandise that plays movies and shows, you should beryllium alert of however divisive a diagnostic similar question smoothing is, arsenic good arsenic how filmmakers consciousness astir it. If your slogan is “happy streaming,” making streaming hellhole is simply a atrocious look. 

With truthful galore competing companies and products successful the streaming world, marque loyalty is thing each institution should covet. Again, bugs happen! We each acquisition irritating method issues with apps, sites, and devices. But usually, a marque wants to code those rapidly to support their customers feeling similar they are a precedence successful fearfulness of losing them to immoderate of the many other similar services retired there. 

It’s imaginable that, close now, a squad is moving connected a fix. But I’m not holding retired hope: it turns retired that this isn’t the archetypal clip there’s been an contented with question smoothing. In 2020, connected the aforesaid Roku assemblage forum, astir the nonstop aforesaid issue happened to a antithetic radical of TCL TVs. The precise past comment, posted by a idiosyncratic named DigitalFirefly successful 2022, is abbreviated and bleak: “I’m inactive having this issue, I privation they would hole this already.” Me, too, DigitalFirefly. Me, too.

Roku didn’t respond to requests for remark astatine the clip of publish, but we volition update this nonfiction with immoderate responses we receive.

So, I’m not holding retired anticipation that this volition beryllium resolved soon. Because it wasn’t successful 2020, and it hasn’t successful the past 3 weeks. Instead, I’m successful the marketplace for a caller TV, possibly a dumb 1 that I volition ne'er person to link to the internet. So if you person immoderate recommendations, delight stock them successful the comments.