Roku ‘hands free’ trick lets you control TV without tapping buttons – try secret code but check if you’re eligible first

A CLEVER Roku trick lets you control your TV without touching any buttons at all.

You don’t even need to hold a microphone button down on your remote control for this special feature.

Roku

It’s called Roku Hands-Free Voice, and is designed to let you issue spoken commands without having to touch anything.

But it’s only available on the Roku Voice Remote Pro – the second edition version.

Roku explains: “In addition to push-to-talk voice, your Roku Voice Remote Pro (2nd Edition) supports hands-free voice.

“Which listens for your commands without the need for you to push a button or even handle your remote.”

To get it to work, there’s a little bit of preparation that you need to do.

HOW TO USE HANDS-FREE CONTROL ON ROKU

Once you’ve made sure that you have the correct remote, you can get started.

You’ll need to activate hands-free voice by moving the slider on the side of the remote.

It needs to be in the on position, which will show up as green (versus the regular black).

Then you can say “Hey Roku…” and issue a command, which the remote should pick up.

You don’t need to press it – simply having it toggle on is enough.

Once that’s done, Roku suggests trying:

• “Hey Roku, pause”
• “Hey Roku, turn up the volume”
• “Hey Roku, show me the news”
• “Hey Roku, turn captions on”
• “Hey Roku, play classic rock”

Any command that would normally work with push-to-talk will also work with hands-free.

The only catch is that you absolutely must say “Hey Roku” at the start of a command or it won’t work.

Roku voice commands – the official list

Here are some voice commands to try with your Roku mobile app, as revealed by the TV giant itself...

• Find a specific movie or show
  “Harry Potter”
  “find Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire”
  “show me episodes of Silicon Valley”
  
• Search for your favorite actors or directors
  “Halle Berry”
  “search for comedy movies with Will Farrell”
  “find all Martin Scorsese films”
  
• Browse popular genres
  “show me comedies”
  “find thriller movies”
  
• Find content in a genre on a channel
  “show documentary films on Sky Store”

• Launch a streaming channel
  “go to YouTube”
  “launch Prime Video”
  “BBC iPlayer”

• Playback commands
  “fast forward”
  “rewind”
  “pause”
  “stop”
  “resume”
  “continue”
  “skip”
  “next”
  “replay”
  
• Closed captioning commands
  “turn on closed captioning”
  “hide the captions”
  “show captions during replay”
  “turn on captions during mute”
  “what’s my captions setting?”

• Move forward a specific amount of time
  “forward 15 minutes”
  “skip 5 minutes”
  “fast forward 3 minutes”
  “go forward 10 minutes”
  
• Move backward (or rewind) a specific amount of time
  “go back half an hour”
  “rewind 30 minutes”
  
• Restart video from beginning
  “start over”

• Search for content
  “play Taylor Swift”
  “play Daft Punk on Spotify”
  “play S-Town on TuneIn”
• Interact with your streaming service
  “thumbs up/down”
  “like/dislike”
  “what song is this?”

• Switch devices
  “switch the input to HDMI 3”
  “switch to antenna TV”
  “switch to Blu-ray player”
• Change over-the-air broadcast channels
  “channel up”
  “channel down”
  “tune to NBC”
  “find channel 7.1″
  “previous channel”
  
• Launch or hide Live TV Channel Guide
  “open live tv guide”
  “open channel guide
  “hide channel guide”
  
• Adjust volume levels
  “turn the volume up”
  “volume down”
  “mute”
  “set volume to 50%”
  “set volume to 5”

If you’re struggling to get the feature to work, you may need to adjust how you talk.

Roku suggests: “For the best hands-free experience, try using a conversational tone at normal volume.

“Do not speak slower or louder than normal and do not overpronounce syllables or words. Speak naturally with a clear and direct ‘Hey Roku…'”

Remember to talk in the direction of the remote and not the TV.

Roku

And ensure that the remote is closer to you than the TV for the best experience – otherwise audio may interfere with your commands.

It’s also important to generally keep the remote closer to you: Roku recommends having it no further than 10 to 12 feet away.

If you’ve lost your remote, you can still access voice controls (albeit with a push, not hands-free) using the Roku mobile app.

This is a great replacement if you can’t find your remote but still want to use voice features.

Roku