US$229 Roku TV from Hisense and TCL – Control your TV with your smartphone as Smartphone Apps Control Streaming Television Glimpse of the Future

Roku hit 10 million devices sold in September 2014 as reported in my blog article entitled “10 million Roku Streaming Devices sold - Roku still King of Streaming as Google, Amazon and Apple unable to beat Baked in Surprise”

But on Monday August 18^th 2014, Roku announced the ultimate deal to beat its competitors by tag teaming with Hisense and TCL, makers of budget Flat screen TV to make what was essentially a Roku TV as reported officially on their blog post “Introducing Roku TV – a simplified Smart TV for everyone”, published August 19, 2014 by Anthony, Roku blog.

Basically Roku has baked their Streaming Technology into cheap Television sets made by Hisense and TCL as per the analysis in the articles “Roku TVs From TCL And Hisense Start Shipping Soon”, published Aug 18, 2014 by Ryan Lawler, TechCrunch and “Hisense and TCL get ready to ship their Roku TVs, suggested retail prices starting at $229”, published AUG. 18, 2014 - 9:00 PM PDT by Janko Roettgers, GigaOM.

This is a follow-on, West Indies cricket style, on the promise Roku made in January 2014 at the CES 2014 (Computer Electronics Show) to partner with Hisense and TCL on just such a venture as reported in the article “Roku TV unveiled: Television sets with Roku streaming built-in”, published January 5, 2014 9:00 PM PST by Matthew Moskovciak, CNET News.

Roku TV from Hisense and TCL – Control your TV with your smartphone

Now that this deal is final, expect the following Television sets from Hisense and TCL by Christmas 2014, albeit the TCL version of the Roku TV made its debt on the Ellen Degeneres Show on Thursday October 2^th 2014 as stated in their Roku Blog article “Roku TV on The Ellen DeGeneres Show!”, published October 9, 2014 by Melissa Morell, Roku blog.

Folks I need to add the Ellen DeGeneres Show to my list of YouTube Channels that I subscribe to as listed in my blog article entitled “ YouTube and the Lyrics Videos Trend - How Lyrics Videos ride the Streaming Trend as Musicians Cash in on Sing-Along Craze”.

 For Hisense, we have the following models sans the pricing:

1.      40” Model

2.      48” Model

3.      50” Model

4.      55” Model

No price for the Hisense TV, but TCL was a little more forthcoming:

1.      US$229 32” Model

2.      US$329 40” Model

3.      US$499 48” Model

4.      US$649 55” Model

Whether the Television is made by Hisense or TCL, the interface will be the same traditional Roku Interface Americans have come to love. The Channel store, now called the Streaming Channels so that viewers used to Cable TV don't get them confused with Cable Channels while maintaining the Roku Tradition of referring to their 1,700 Apps as Channels.

These “Channels” are really Smart TV Apps representing 200,000 movies and episodes on offer from Streaming Service Providers like Netflix and Hulu. Thanks to this simplified and unified design across the two Television sets, searching for content is as easy as using the Universal Search to find content without having to know which Streaming Service Providers provides the Series, movies or even episodes you're looking for .....just like regular Cable TV!

Roku TV has no remote – Smartphone Apps to control a Streaming Television that’s a glimpse of the future

That's another thing; there's no remote, or at least, you don't really need one. While both Hisense and TCL will provide a Roku-like remote with that cool 3.5mm headphone Jack to allow personal listening while you watch, in reality you can Channel surf using the Roku Mobile Apps for iOS, Android, or Windows devices. 

The Roku TV isn't a Streaming Box and a Gaming Console with Twitch like its competitor the Amazon Fire TV as described in my blog article entitled “The E-Sport Phenomenon and Amazon's Twitch Aquisition - How Amazon’s Twitch creates Video Gaming Celebrities and jumpstarts Jamaican Game Development”.

But the Roku TV will make it easier to locate your connected devices such as your Blu-Ray player, XBox One, PlayStation 4 or Nintento WiiU by identifying them as Apps on your menu screen, with mouse over previews to make switching between a Stream and a Video Game as easy as tapping an App.

And no doubt this partnership will not end here; other low-end Smart TV makers will join, as Streaming built in makes their Television sets sell faster. Roku’s strategy can be seen as a roughly equivalent to PC makers selling more low-cost Chromebooks thanks to Google Chrome as explained in my blog article entitled “Chromebooks Sales to Triple by 2017 – How Rapid Sales Heaven for PC Makers means Apple iPad and Microsoft Surface Pro 3 under attack”.

Jamaicans especially will love their relatives this Christmas if they can send down one of those US$229 32” Model Roku TV as they can use a Proxy or VPN as describe in my blog article entitled “Surfing the Internet Anonymously using VPN - How to use Streaming Set Top Boxes over VPN” and Stream American Programming!

Expect these ultra Cheap Streaming TV to be fully available by the time Black Friday on Thursday November 27^th 2014 rolls around in time for Shipping by Christmas 2014.

Roku Remote on the Apple iTunes Store

Roku Remote on the Google Play Store

Roku Remote on the Windows Phone