You read that right. Roku, the Fire TV’s largest competitor, has just released their own official Roku Channel app in the Amazon appstore. Similar to Amazon’s own IMDb TV service, the Roku Channel houses Roku’s library of over 100,000 ad-supported movies and TV shows, as well as over 100 live TV channels. It’s now all available through any Amazon Fire TV, Fire TV Stick, Fire TV Cube, Fire TV Edition televisions, or Fire TV Edition soundbar.
The Roku Channel first launched The Roku Channel in 2017 and has been expanding its content offerings ever since. The Roku Channel eventually became available on other platforms through a web interface. That made it technically possible to access it on Fire TVs through the Silk browser, but the experience was quite clunky. The Roku Channel was eventually released as a standalone app for Andoird and iOS mobile devices.
Since Roku is now much more of a content and advertising company, than a hardware company, it makes sense that they want to get their app/channel in front of as many people as possible, even if that means bringing it to their largest competitor, the Fire TV. After all, Prime Video is obviously available on Roku devices and IMDb TV’s free ad-supported content is accessible within that app.
You don’t need to create an account or log in to The Roku Channel app to begin watching free content. If you scroll to the very bottom of the app there is the ability to log in, if you’d like, to track and personalize the content recommendations within the app. Logging in also gives you access to any premium subscriptions, which are similar to Prime Video Channels, that you may be subscribed to. You’re not able to subscribe to those channels directly from the app on Fire TV devices.
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Just downloaded. Have not tried this channel in a while, but seemed solid when it first came out.
Wow. This is both quite significant and very indicative of the ever-changing, yet still-evolving, OTT environment. And, of course, as usual, the video consumer is again the beneficiary of the battle for their eyes. Viva la competicia!
Can anyone extract the APK and see if it’s installable on Android TV or not?
Already available at APKMirror.
https://www.apkmirror.com/apk/roku-inc/the-roku-channel/the-roku-channel-1-0-0-457837-release/
Nevermind, that appears to the mobile version. doh.
http://www.mediafire.com/file/q1dhh2gtoqrdlzd/RokuChannelAFTV.apk/file
The app works fine, it even has a Android TV icon. Don’t know why they didn’t upload it for Android TV also.
I’m very impressed. I’m having to use a VPN as I’m in the UK, but it has opened up a huge amount of live channels and on demand content that I wouldn’t of been able to get on my FTV otherwise. I’m pretty sure it has more content than any single, free UK streaming app.
Is Roku free on my amazon fire TV?
Yes, the Roku Channel app is free. Ad supported content.
awesome. i had it on a smart tv in another room but with the bookmark version on fire tv you could never search with remote
Don’t even have to log in. So cool
Confirmed working in the UK, must use a VPN with US location when running it.
APK: http://www.mediafire.com/file/q1dhh2gtoqrdlzd/RokuChannelAFTV.apk/file
VT: https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/d3e92a11eed88c960f5cc386b5ccc043d559ba7d9b4c039c583ce5a51f2b4f72/detection
FYI sideloaded this from my Fire TV to my Android TV and it works perfectly. I do not believe there is an appstore version for Android tv yet (at least I couldn’t find one)
What device are you using? Says unauthorized on all non ATV devices for me
Not available in Canada (yet)
Roku Channel is not available on new firestick 4k. Can anyone help, how to install. Thanks