Get ready for more soundbars designed to seamlessly integrate with Roku TVs, with Roku announcing two new manufacturers joining its Roku TV Ready program.
Polk Audio and Westinghouse are the latest to jump onto the Roku TV Ready bandwagon, while manufacturers including Element, JVC, Pheanoo, and Philips are among those who signed on in 2021.
First announced at CES back in 2020 alongside TCL’s Alto 9+ soundbar, Roku TV Ready is a certification program for soundbar makers that allows their products to work seamlessly with Roku TVs, complete with an on-screen setup wizard and the ability to access the soundbar’s settings (including sound modes and treble/bass levels) and controls from a Roku TV’s interface. Roku TV Ready soundbars are also designed to work with the Roku TV remote.
TCL and Denon were among the first soundbar manufacturers to join the Roku TV Ready program, and a steady stream of additional speaker companies have signed on over the past two years, including Bose and Hisense.
Polk Audio has a robust lineup of soundbars, including the budget-priced Polk React (which recently won our Editors’ Choice award) as well as the Polk Audio Signa S4, the manufacturer’s first Dolby Atmos-enabled model.
Westinghouse doesn’t currently have any soundbars in its U.S. portfolio of home A/V products, but it does have a wide selection of 4K and full-HD Roku TVs.
Separately, Roku announced that its operating system was the best-selling TV OS in the U.S. in 2021, according to market research firm NPD, marking the second year in a row that Roku’s TV OS was the stateside chart-topper.