ZDNET’s key takeaways
- Roku will no longer manufacture or sell smart home gear like cameras, smart plugs, or smart lights.
- Instead, Roku will refocus on its streaming services and related streaming gear.
- Roku will provide continued support and services for existing smart home products.
Roku is stepping back from smart home gear.
In an exclusive first reported by freelance journalist Janko Roettgers via his newsletter, Lowpass, the streaming device maker confirmed it won’t be making any additional smart home products going forward, as its existing home devices run out of stock.
“We’re sharpening our focus on Roku’s core mission: being the top streaming platform,” a Roku spokesperson told Roettgers via email. “As part of that, we plan to wind down sales of smart home hardware and will provide continued support and services for Roku Smart Home products.”
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Smart home, no more
Roku, primarily known for its streaming stick and TV devices that rival competitors like Amazon’s Fire lineup, expanded into the smart home space in 2022 with a series of affordable home security cameras, smart plugs, and lights, developed with white-labeled hardware from Waze. Roku launched its own product lineup with proprietary hardware in 2025.
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In 2024, the company launched TV features connected to its smart home products, including a view that let users cycle through their live camera feeds on their TV and a picture-in-picture feature that pins a feed to your screen while users have another app open. It’s unclear how this change will impact support for these cameras and associated features for those who already own them, but ZDNET has reached out to Roku for comment.
Roettgers said in his newsletter that, based on Roku’s own website, the number of products available for purchase appears to have dwindled. Currently, all but two of Roku’s smart home gear are listed as out of stock.
At other retailers like Home Depot, Amazon, and Walmart, many Roku listings have been removed or marked for clearance, while some retailers are only selling refurbished items.
For Roku, streaming is king
It’s likely, as Roettgers identified in a previous newsletter, that Fox did not see long-term value in smart home gear for Roku, a fact certainly exacerbated by AI-induced hardware cost increases that have hit nearly every tech manufacturer, including Apple.
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The closure of the sale of Roku to Fox also emphasizes the return to streaming as the company’s main priority. Roettgers said the reason for that has been publicly noted in Roku’s financial disclosures, including last week’s 10-Q, where the brand clearly emphasized that smart home gear does not contribute to Roku’s streaming hours or revenue.
