How long does a Roku last?

Luke Bouma at Cord Cutters News tried to answer a difficult question recently. The question was along the line of "how long does a Roku or Roku TV last?"

That's not easy to answer. One reason is that the quality of the devices vary. On overage, the cheapest Roku devices won't last as long as the most expensive ones. However, there are exceptions.

Luke said, in general, that he's not had a problem using one over five years, except for one he thinks he damaged.

In our experience, Roku Players and Roku TVs have good lifespans. Of the over 30 streaming players I have had, only one stopped working, and that was the Roku Stick I used to travel with. As best I can tell, I damaged the power cord one day when I took it out of a TV. That power cord had the WiFi antenna attached to it, and one day the WiFi stopped working. All my other Roku devices have continued to work as the should without issues.

For Roku TVs, we have had 6 of them without issues. Our main TV in the living room that has worked now for over five years without issues.

I agree with his overall assessment. My Roku devices have lasted a good long time.

I do disagree with one area, however. I have found that cheaper Roku TVs, built by third parties, don't last as long. By that I mean that the interface becomes sluggish. Generally, that's because they're underpowered devices that are fine for the current software, but as time passes and the software is updated and requires more horsepower, the older devices perform worse.

The good news is that there is an easy fix to the Roku TV devices that perform poorly: Add a Roku device.

What? Yep, add a Roku to your Roku. The Roku TVs have HDMI ports, and you can plug in a Roku (or Fire TV Stick, Chromecase, or other streaming device) to a port. You would then use it like any other TV. You would use the Roku interface of the new device (Roku Stick, or whatever) and use the beter streaming device.

This is one of the things I don't like about smart TVs. The "smarts" may eventually require more power than the hardware can do. Adding a Roku to a Roku TV is sometimes how you deal with it.

My Streaming Life has included older Roku TVs, and I've run into this very thing. That's how I deal with it.