Roku advances comms tech and equality

TV is for everyone—even for pets, according to Roku, manufacturer of devices for streaming programs to your TV.

“According to customer feedback, many of you lean on the TV to help entertain their playful pooch when they’re not at home. For our favorite furry friends, the television viewing experience can be static, and dare we say, unfulfilling…and that’s ruff.

“We recently surveyed our customers and identified a major pet peeve: most dogs can’t operate our remote controls to tune in to their favourite shows on a Roku player or Roku TV. More specifically, 72 percent of Roku owners surveyed believed that their dogs would enjoy TV more if they could use the remote themselves to control what they watch.”

The PressPaws remote for dogs.

Roku says that its Press Paws Remote is designed to make it easy for a dog to tune in to their preferred TV entertainment. The Press Paws Remote includes a number of “paw-friendly” features:

Animal-Themed Shortcut Buttons: Ergonomic shortcut buttons provide a shortcut to a dog’s to favorite shows faster, giving direct access to pet-themed channels including Animal Planet and The Pet Collective on The Roku Channel, where they can watch hours of clips, entertaining memes, and funniest animal videos

Bark Assistant Technology: The Press Paws remote works seamlessly with the Roku player or Roku TV and features “Bark Assistant Technology.” Various commands are at a pet’s disposal, like bark-to-play, bark-to-pause (for emergency bio breaks) and bark-to-mute

Built in Sub-WOOFer: A Sub-WOOFer built into the Press Paws Remote produces very high frequencies, so your hound’s sound is happy in the home.

“In addition, The Roku Channel is getting even more paw-some with a row specifically dedicated to four-legged viewers. Starting on April 1, pets can tune in to some of their favorites,” Roku’s announcement says.

The Roku Press Paws Remote will be available for purchase for $19.99 via Roku.com in the U.S., Canada, U.K. and Mexico starting on April 1, 2019.

Happy Streaming!