Roku Boxes Will Let You Know When It’s Cheaper To Stream New Movies

If you’re willing to wait out the initial on-demand release of a new movie, you’ll likely be rewarded with a price drop. But it can be annoying to remember to check to see whether it still costs $6.99 to rent that video. The folks at Roku are hoping that a new price-tracking feature will ease that particular pain.

Dubbed the ‘Roku Feed,’ the new feature on the Roku 2 and Roku 3 players allows users to “follow” popular theatrical releases so that you can not only access the selected titles as soon as they’re released, but you can track the rental price to determine whether you want to spend that much for the movie.

Roku says that users will get alerts through their players for price drops, and when followed titles are available on different streaming services.

Though Roku is still currently the market leader for streaming devices, it has been losing significant ground to newer contraptions like Chromecast and Amazon’s Fire TV and Fire TV Stick.

In addition to the Feed tracking feature, Roku is adding voice search to both the Roku 2 and 3. The Roku 2 voice search will need to be done through a Roku app on a wireless device, but new Roku 3 boxes will include a remote with a microphone.

by Chris Morran via Consumerist