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Drop that remote! You can talk to the Roku 3

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If you’ve been waiting on picking up a Roku and aren’t interested in one of the new Roku TVs from TCL that went on sale last month, now might be a good time to look into a new purchase. Two models of the Roku have received hardware updates, making each of them an even better buy than they already were.

Amazon’s Fire TV is mainly great if you’re heavily invested in Amazon Instant Video, but its voice search was cool enough to sway those who were on the fence about which streaming box to buy. Roku’s flagship device, the Roku 3, has now added that feature as well. Voice search is activated via a new dedicated button on the remote and allows users to search by title, actor, or director.

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The Roku 2 — essentially the middle child of the Roku family — has received a major upgrade. While the box and remote still look the same, the internals are now identical to the internals of the Roku 3. The only feature it’s missing is the new voice-capable remote, but voice search can also be initiated using the Roku app for smartphones, so even this shouldn’t be a problem.

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In addition to the hardware upgrades, a software update today introduces a new feature: “My Feed.” As of now, this feed will show users when movies currently in theaters will be coming to services like Netflix or Amazon Instant video, and more features will be added in the future, according to The Verge. Add a movie to your feed, and your Roku will notify you when it’s available to stream.

At the time of this writing, the Roku Feed wasn’t available on an older model Roku 3, nor was a software update found. Presumably the feature will eventually come to older hardware.

Both of the updated Roku models are available as of today.

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Kris Wouk
Kris Wouk
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Kris Wouk is a tech writer, gadget reviewer, blogger, and whatever it's called when someone makes videos for the web. In his…
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