Roku Ultra 2019 - $79 at Walmart and Amazon

It releases this Friday (10/11). Walmart and Amazon both have the new 2019 Roku Ultra for $20 off the MSRP of $99.

Gah, might make me pull the trigger. I gotta ditch the Fire TV by November since it wonā€™t support Disney+. Was debating between Roku and Apple TV.

Both are good.Not a fan of the small remote control for the apple tv so I use the app on my ipad but find it difficult to move around. If you purchase the apple tv (or any apple product), you get a free year of Apple tv+.

But must admit I love my roku player.

weā€™re an iphone family, and apple music subsriber, but we donā€™t really use any other apple services. Maybe casting video via AirPlay would be nice? But it would also be nice to have the better Harmony integration. I believe Harmony with Roku lets you launch specific apps as part of an activity.

if you have a newer tv, you might get airplay that way without the need for apple tv

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yes it does

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Have Fire Sticks and Fire TVs all over the place. What do I gain with Roku? Had a 1st Gen and liked the interface but donā€™t really have any beef with the Fire stuff.

Roku ultra worked out great for me when I switched to youtubetvā€¦ I didnā€™t have to ditch my Harmony remote.

I have Hulu, Prime, Netflix, YTTV, and Plex all in one box :slight_smile:

I have three Rokuā€™s (3, 4 and a Premiere) and two Apple TVā€™s (Gen 1ā€™s). Apple TV is nice for the music interface but for overall capabilities and access the Rokuā€™s are better for us. If I could only have one, Iā€™d have the Roku.

For those interested, hereā€™s my A/V diagram:


what a mess :wink:

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Just an FYIā€¦

The lower price has ended on Amazon for the Ultra. The Ultra LT at Walmart is out of stock. The LT is simply the Ultra that is branded specifically for Walmart.

You should see it in person (and in my head!:grin:). It all works very well though. Itā€™s nice having all the equipment in a central closet and not out in the open in each viewing room.

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You " gain " the " advantage " of not being able to load any local apps onto the device and having to rely 100% on Roku cloud interface & the channels they decide to offer.

You can add ā€˜private channelsā€™ with Roku if desired. There are hundreds of private channels out there, but you can find most the best channels in a few places. For example, at The Nowhere Man web site, you can gain access to:

  • Bloomberg News Live
  • John Greenā€™s Crash Course
  • NBC Nightly News and CBS News archives
  • NASA TV and Hubblecast HD
  • Khan Academy learning videos
  • Government-focused channels like C-SPAN, The Pentagon Channel, and White House Press Briefings
  • International news from Al Jazeera (English, American, and Arabic), BBC, and CNN International
  • TED Talks
  • Adult Swim shows
  • PBS
  • Universal Sports Network
  • Live local news for most major areas

See this article for details:

Iā€™ve had Rokus " forever " I know about the unofficial channels. That doesnā€™t change the fact that you canā€™t install any apps locally on the devices.
Which you can do with FireTV.

OK. I guess I havenā€™t had a need for any additional apps, but your point about the lack of local apps is well taken. No additional/local apps. Just additional channels. I only mentioned the Private channels because your post also mentioned, " and having to rely 100% on Roku cloud interface & the channels they decide to offer."

I DO have a FireTV too but I rarely use it because I donā€™t like the Amazon-centric interface as well as I like the Rokuā€™s or Appleā€™s. The voice interface is very nice though.