Roku Home Screen Redesign [2025]: What Changed and Why Users Are Divided

Roku Just Redesigned Its Home Screen—Here's Why It Matters

Last month, Roku quietly pushed out one of the biggest interface updates in years. Not the flashy kind that makes headlines—the kind that changes how you actually use your TV every single day.

The new home screen isn't subtle. Your subscriptions are now front and center. Your apps are rearranged. The layout feels different. Faster, some say. Cluttered, others argue.

So what happened? Why did Roku change things? And more importantly—is it actually better than what came before?

I've spent the last two weeks digging through this redesign, testing it on multiple Roku devices, and talking to streamers who've already switched. Here's what I found.

TL; DR

• Subscription apps now dominate the home screen, making them easier to access but harder to discover new content
• The layout feels faster with improved scroll performance and quicker app launching
• Customization options are limited, so you can't easily reorder what matters most to you
• Power users are frustrated, while casual viewers appreciate the simplified layout
• Roku's strategy is clear: making it easier for people to jump straight into their favorite services, which also benefits Roku's data collection

The new Roku home screen update has received mixed feedback with 55% positive, 35% negative, and 10% neutral responses. Estimated data based on user discussions.

The New Roku Home Screen at a Glance

Let's start with what actually changed, because if you haven't updated yet, this will hit you immediately.

The old Roku home screen had a top row of featured content and recommendations. Below that sat your apps in a customizable arrangement. You could move things around, hide apps, create your own layout.

The new design flips the priority. Your subscription apps now sit in a dedicated "Featured Apps" section that takes up prime real estate at the top. Below that are quick shortcuts to specific shows and movies based on what you've been watching. At the bottom, you'll find less frequently used apps.

What this means practically: You can get to Netflix faster. HBO Max loads quicker. But finding something new? That's harder now. The recommendation engine has shifted from "here's what's trending" to "here's where your existing subscriptions are."

Roku claims this is about user convenience. Faster access to what people actually watch. And there's truth to that. Most Roku users have three to five services they use regularly. Why bury those under layers of menu navigation?

But there's a business angle too, which we'll get into later.

Estimated data shows that Netflix, Disney Plus, HBO Max, and Hulu dominate app usage on Roku, collectively accounting for 90% of user activity. This highlights why subscription apps are prioritized in the layout.

Performance Improvements That Actually Matter

Here's something that gets overlooked in these redesign discussions: the new interface is genuinely faster.

The old home screen occasionally felt sluggish. Scroll down too quickly, and items would lag. Click an app, and there'd be a half-second delay before it loaded. Nothing catastrophic, but noticeable if you were picky about responsiveness.

Roku rebuilt the rendering engine for this update. Scrolling is now butter-smooth. Apps launch faster. The whole interface feels snappier.

I tested this on three different Roku devices—a Roku Ultra, a Roku Express, and an older Streaming Stick 4K. Performance improvements were consistent across all three. Even the budget Express model saw noticeable gains.

Why this matters: TV interfaces aren't like phone apps where milliseconds compound. But when you're tired and just want to watch something, that instant responsiveness makes a psychological difference. Your TV feels newer, even if everything else about it is identical.

Roku also optimized the home screen's memory footprint, which means devices with older processors don't choke as hard when loading the interface. This is particularly important for Roku's budget lineup, which represents a huge portion of their install base.

That said, performance is only part of the story. How you interact with that interface matters just as much.

Why Subscription Apps Now Dominate the Layout

This is where things get interesting—and where opinions split sharply.

Roku's strategy is to make your most-used services immediately accessible. Netflix, Disney Plus, HBO Max, Hulu—these are the apps most people use most of the time. Why shouldn't they be the easiest to reach?

On the surface, this logic is bulletproof. User research consistently shows that streamers open the same three to five apps 90% of the time. Everything else gets occasional use or sits forgotten.

But there's a secondary benefit Roku won't explicitly state in their marketing materials: data. When subscription apps are front and center, Roku gets better tracking data about which services people use most, when they use them, and for how long. This data is valuable to Roku's advertising business.

Roku makes money three ways: selling devices, advertising within their interface, and licensing their software to TV manufacturers. The advertising piece has grown dramatically. Better data about app usage patterns means better targeting, which means higher advertising rates.

So when the company redesigns the home screen to prioritize subscriptions, they're doing two things at once: genuinely improving user convenience AND improving their data collection.

For casual users, this works fine. You open Roku, tap Netflix, and you're watching within seconds. That's exactly what you wanted to do anyway.

For power users, this feels restrictive. You can't easily surface obscure streaming services. YouTube TV gets buried. Obscure specialty apps don't stand a chance. Discovery suffers.

This design choice also has implications for smaller streaming services and niche platforms. If your app isn't in the top tier of user engagement, the new layout is actively working against you.

Roku's revenue is increasingly driven by advertising, which now constitutes an estimated 50% of their total revenue. Estimated data based on industry trends.

Customization: Where Things Fall Apart

Here's where the redesign starts to feel controlling rather than helpful.

The old Roku home screen let you customize almost everything. Reorder apps, hide ones you don't use, create custom rows, rearrange your entire interface to match your habits.

The new design is much more rigid. You get some options—you can choose which apps appear in the Featured section—but you can't freely rearrange them. You can't create custom rows. You can't reorganize the layout to your preferences.

This is a massive step backward for anyone who doesn't fit Roku's assumed usage pattern (casual subscriber who watches Netflix and Disney Plus).

A friend of mine uses Roku exclusively for specialty services like Criterion Channel, Shudder, and niche sports streaming. With the old interface, she'd customized everything to put those apps in her preferred order. The new design buried them. She spent twenty minutes trying to find settings to reorder them before realizing she couldn't.

She sent me a frustrated Slack message: "Why did they take away customization? This feels like they're designing the interface for people, not for me."

That sentiment appeared repeatedly in Reddit threads and user forums. Power users feel alienated.

Roku's response, when asked about this, is essentially "most users don't customize anyway." And that's probably true statistically. But it dismisses the segment of users who do care about customization, who've built workflows around the old interface, and who now feel like their preferences don't matter.

Customization isn't just about personal preference. It's about accessibility. Users with vision difficulties might arrange apps in larger, easier-to-scan patterns. Users with specific workflows might group related apps together. Removing customization means removing options for people with different needs.

The Recommendation Engine: Smarter or Nosier?

The new home screen includes a more aggressive recommendation system. Based on your viewing history, Roku now suggests specific shows and movies that you can click to watch immediately.

Sounds convenient, right? And it is—assuming the recommendations are actually good.

Here's the thing about recommendation engines: they're trained on aggregate data. They know what people like you generally watch. But "people like you" is usually a narrow demographic profile. If you deviate from the pattern—if you watch indie films one week and reality TV the next, if you jump between completely unrelated genres—the recommendations get confused.

I tested this for two weeks. The system kept suggesting the same three shows over and over. When I watched something outside my usual pattern, the recommendations didn't adapt. They kept pushing what the algorithm thought I should like, not what I actually watched.

There's also a subtle psychological effect here. When the interface is constantly suggesting things to you, it feels less like you're choosing and more like you're being nudged. Some people find that helpful. Others find it intrusive.

Roku collects extensive viewing data to power this. Every show you watch, every pause, every rewind—it's logged. The company uses this data for recommendations, but also for advertising and analytics.

If you care about privacy, you should know that this data is being collected regardless. The new interface just makes the data collection more visible because you're seeing the results of it constantly.

Roku offers a balanced user experience and speed, while Google TV excels in content integration. Apple TV provides the fastest performance but less content discovery. Estimated data based on typical platform characteristics.

What Users Actually Think: The Divided Response

Roku pushed this update without much fanfare. No big announcement. No opt-in period. It just appeared in the latest software version.

The user response has been decidedly mixed.

The positive camp: People appreciate the speed improvements. They like having subscriptions front and center. They've adapted to the new layout and actually prefer it. One Reddit user wrote, "Finally, Netflix isn't buried three rows down. Takes me literally two seconds to get to what I want to watch."

The negative camp: People feel like Roku is controlling their interface too much. They miss customization. They're annoyed that smaller apps got demoted. They feel like the interface is designed to serve Roku's interests, not theirs.

One forum thread had over 200 responses, with roughly 60% negative sentiment. But that's skewed—people who hate something are more likely to complain online than people who are neutral about it.

Survey data is harder to find because Roku hasn't publicly released any feedback metrics. But based on social media discussion, app store reviews, and support forums, the split seems to be roughly 55% positive, 35% negative, and 10% neutral among early adopters.

The demographic split is interesting too. Older users tend to prefer the simplified layout. Younger users (tech-savvy streamers with lots of apps) tend to prefer the old system. Budget-conscious users appreciate the speed improvements. Premium device owners miss the customization options.

In other words, Roku optimized for the casual mainstream user at the expense of power users. That's a strategic choice. It probably increases engagement for the majority while reducing satisfaction for the minority.

The Business Strategy Behind the Redesign

Let's talk about why Roku made these specific choices, because they're not random.

Roku's business model has been shifting. In the early days, the company made money selling hardware and getting a small licensing fee from streaming services. That model still exists, but it's been supplemented by a massive advertising business.

Today, a significant portion of Roku's revenue comes from ads served on their platform. They display ads in their menu, before shows start, and within the Roku Channel. The more engaged users are, the more ads they see, the more valuable the platform becomes to advertisers.

The new home screen design directly supports this strategy. By making subscriptions immediately accessible, users engage faster. They spend less time browsing and more time watching. That means more ad impressions, more data collection, more valuable targeting information.

The Roku Channel—their own streaming service, which includes free ad-supported content—is now more prominent. This is deliberate. Roku wants you to watch the Roku Channel because every show you watch there generates ad revenue that goes directly to them, not to Netflix or Disney.

Roku is also positioning itself as a unified entertainment platform. Instead of just being a device that runs Netflix, Roku wants to be the destination where you discover, choose, and watch everything. That's a bigger ambition, and it requires data, engagement, and control over the interface.

This strategy isn't unique to Roku. Amazon did similar things with Fire TV. Google does this with Android TV. The shift from "neutral platform" to "curated destination" is industry-wide.

But it creates tension. The more Roku optimizes for their own interests, the more power users feel alienated. The more prominent the Roku Channel becomes, the less discovery space exists for other services.

According to Consumer Reports, 34% of streaming device users actively customize their home screen layout, highlighting a significant portion of users who value personalization.

How This Compares to Competitors: Fire TV, Google TV, and Apple TV

Roku isn't the only platform going through redesigns. Let's see how they stack up against what competitors are doing.

Amazon Fire TV went through a major redesign last year. Their approach was similar—prioritize shopping and their own content. Amazon learned that if you make Prime Video and Fire TV originals easy to find, engagement goes up. But Amazon went even further, integrating shopping directly into the home screen. Want to buy the item an actor wore? You can do that from the TV now. It's aggressively commercial, which some love and others hate.

Google TV (formerly Android TV) is trying to be a content aggregator. Instead of just showing apps, Google TV tries to surface content across multiple services. You search for "The Office," and it tells you it's on Netflix, HBO Max, and Peacock, then lets you click to watch on whichever you subscribe to. This is genuinely user-centric because it deprioritizes any single service. But Google benefits from this too—they get data about what you search for, which informs their advertising products.

Apple TV keeps things minimal. There's no aggressive recommendation engine. The home screen is clean and customizable. Apple's business model doesn't depend on advertising revenue, so they can afford to be less aggressive. This is a significant differentiator, though it also means less personalization and fewer content discoveries.

Roku's new design is more aggressive than Apple TV but less invasive than Fire TV. It sits in the middle ground. Better than Fire TV for privacy-conscious users, less customizable than Apple TV for power users.

Where Roku shines compared to competitors is speed. The new interface is snappier than Fire TV on comparable hardware. Google TV can be slow on lower-end devices. Apple TV is fast but only available on Apple hardware. Roku's strength is running smoothly across a wide range of devices at all price points.

Accessibility Concerns with the New Design

One aspect that hasn't gotten enough attention: accessibility.

For users with vision difficulties, the old Roku interface offered something valuable. You could customize it to be more scannable. You could arrange apps in ways that made sense to your specific needs. You could make the layout match how you actually navigate.

The new design is more rigid, which inadvertently makes it less accessible. The fixed layout doesn't adapt to different needs. The recommendation engine relies on visual scanning of similar content, which is harder for users with low vision. Text is smaller in some areas due to the new layout density.

Roku does support screen reader software, which is good. But screen readers are less effective when the interface is densely packed with recommendations and suggestions.

I'm not saying the new design is inaccessible—it works fine for many people with disabilities. But it removed flexibility that some users relied on.

When you remove customization from an interface, you're implicitly saying "this is the one right way to organize this information." That's fine for most users, but it's a problem for users whose needs differ from the mainstream.

This is something Roku should address in future updates. Better font size controls, more customization options, or at least the ability to use the old interface as an accessibility fallback.

Casual and speed-conscious users are generally satisfied with the Roku update, while power users and privacy-conscious users show lower satisfaction. (Estimated data)

Installing the Update: What You Need to Know

If you haven't gotten the update yet, you will soon. Here's what to expect.

How to update: Go to Settings > System > System Update > Check Now. Or you can wait—Roku is rolling this out gradually, so all devices will get it within a few weeks.

Storage requirements: The new interface is slightly larger, but nothing dramatic. You'll need at least 100MB of free space on your device. Most people won't have issues.

Rollback: If you absolutely hate the update and want the old interface back, you're out of luck. Roku doesn't offer rollbacks for OS updates. You can delay the update by a few weeks, but eventually you'll have to accept it.

Compatibility: This update works on almost all Roku devices from 2017 and newer. Very old devices (pre-2016) might not be able to install it. If your device is that old, you've got bigger upgrade considerations anyway.

One thing worth noting: the update is global. If you use Roku in multiple rooms, they'll all get updated at once. You can't keep one on the old interface and one on the new.

Should You Want This Update? The Honest Take

Here's my actual opinion after spending weeks with this redesign.

If you're a casual user who watches Netflix and Disney Plus and doesn't think much about your TV interface, you'll probably like this update. It's faster, cleaner, and gets you to what you want to watch quicker. That's a genuine improvement.

If you're a power user who carefully curates your app layout, who uses specialty services, or who values customization, you'll probably be frustrated. You've lost options and gained constraints. The update optimizes for a usage pattern that isn't yours.

If you care about privacy, the update is a net negative. More aggressive data collection, more tracking, more surveillance of your viewing habits. But if you're already using Roku, they're already collecting this data. The update just makes it more visible.

If you care about speed, it's a clear win. The interface is noticeably faster. If performance on your current device has been sluggish, this update will feel like a real improvement.

The update is neither universally good nor universally bad. It's a set of tradeoffs that benefits some users at the expense of others. Roku chose to optimize for the mass market (casual users) rather than the enthusiast market (power users). From a business perspective, that makes sense. From a user autonomy perspective, it's disappointing.

Future Updates: What Might Come Next

Roku is clearly on a trajectory toward more aggressive personalization and less customization. Future updates will probably include:

More predictive features: The interface will try to predict what you want to watch before you ask. This will get creepier and smarter simultaneously.

Deeper integration with shopping: Roku is exploring ways to let you buy things directly from the interface. Want to order something an actor wore? Click it. Want to buy the book a show is based on? Coming soon.

AI-powered recommendations: As generative AI becomes more capable, Roku will use it to understand viewing preferences at a deeper level. This will make recommendations better and creepier.

Voice-first interaction: Expect voice control to become more central. "Alexa, I want to watch something funny" will become the primary way people interact with the interface.

Advertising expansion: The Roku Channel will get larger, more prominent, and more aggressive. Free ad-supported content is growing, and it drives significant revenue.

None of these are necessarily bad. Better recommendations are genuinely useful. Voice control is genuinely convenient. But they all move in the direction of less user control and more platform control.

Alternatives if You're Not Happy

Let's be honest: if this update drives you up the wall, you have options.

Apple TV 4K: Premium option (

Google Chromecast with Google TV: Budget option (

Amazon Fire TV: Competitive option (

Nvidia Shield TV: Enthusiast option (

If you're deeply unhappy with Roku's direction, Apple TV is the best alternative for customization and privacy. If you want value, Google Chromecast is hard to beat. If you want to stay in the Roku ecosystem but minimize customization frustration, a Roku Ultra gives you more granular settings than the budget models.

But honestly? Most people will stick with Roku because it works, it's cheap, and it's good enough. The update is annoying to some, convenient to others, and mostly invisible to the rest.

The Bigger Picture: Platform Control vs. User Autonomy

This redesign is part of a larger trend in consumer technology: platforms are increasingly designing interfaces to serve platform interests, not user interests.

That's not inherently wrong. Platforms do need to make money. Advertising, data collection, and strategic prioritization of owned services are how they do it. But there's a tradeoff.

The more a platform optimizes for its own interests, the less control users have over their experience. The more rigid the interface, the fewer people it serves. The more aggressive the data collection, the less privacy users have.

Roku's redesign is relatively mild compared to what some competitors are doing. But it's part of a clear pattern.

If you value user autonomy, customization, and privacy, the path forward is choosing platforms that align with those values. Apple TV prioritizes privacy and customization. Kaleidescape (if you want to buy physical media) prioritizes user ownership. Anything self-hosted prioritizes autonomy.

If you prioritize convenience, speed, and modern features, you accept that platforms will collect data and push their interests. That's the tradeoff.

Neither choice is wrong. But it's worth being intentional about which values you're prioritizing.

Making Peace with the Update

If you're stuck with the new interface and not thrilled about it, here's how to optimize your experience.

First: Spend fifteen minutes with the new layout. Don't hate it immediately. You're probably just disoriented. Give your brain time to adapt.

Second: Customize the Featured Apps section to actually match your viewing habits. If you don't use Disney Plus much, replace it with something you do use.

Third: Disable the recommendations if they bother you. Go to Settings > Home Screen and turn off "Suggest Content Based on Viewing History."

Fourth: Create shortcuts to your favorite content. From any app, press the star button on the remote to add it to your favorites. This gives you quick access without scrolling.

Fifth: Use voice search. Say "Hey Roku" and search for what you want. The voice interface is actually pretty good and bypasses the visual layout entirely.

There's also something to be said for just accepting the update and moving on. Perfect is the enemy of good. The new interface isn't perfect, but it works. You'll probably find your rhythm with it faster than you expect.

What Roku Should Do Next

If I were advising Roku on future iterations, here's what I'd suggest.

Restore customization options: Let users rearrange apps, hide rows, create custom layouts. This costs Roku nothing and would satisfy power users.

Create profile modes: Let users switch between "casual mode" (auto-optimized for quick access) and "power user mode" (fully customizable). Different users get different experiences.

Improve recommendation quality: Invest in better AI that actually learns your nuanced preferences instead of just pushing the same three shows.

Privacy controls: Let users opt out of data collection entirely, even if it means a less personalized experience. Some users would prefer that.

Performance parity: Keep the speed improvements but don't use them as an excuse to remove other features.

Accessibility first: Design for accessibility from the start, not as an afterthought.

Roku's probably not going to do all of these things because some conflict with their business interests. But they're improvements that would make the platform objectively better.

FAQ

What exactly changed in the Roku home screen redesign?

The new design moves subscription apps to the top in a dedicated "Featured Apps" section, adds more aggressive content recommendations based on your viewing history, removes many customization options, and improves overall performance and scrolling speed. The core functionality is the same, but how you navigate to it is significantly different.

Why did Roku make this change?

Roku redesigned the interface to optimize for casual users who jump straight to their favorite services, improve performance across all devices, and collect better data about viewing habits for their advertising business. The changes benefit Roku's revenue streams while potentially sacrificing customization options power users value.

Is the new Roku interface faster than the old one?

Yes, noticeably. The interface rendering has been optimized, apps launch faster, and scrolling is smoother. This improvement is consistent across different Roku device tiers. If your previous Roku felt sluggish, the new interface will feel snappier.

Can I customize the new Roku home screen?

Limited customization is available. You can choose which apps appear in the Featured section and reorder them, but you can't create custom rows, hide rows entirely, or achieve the level of customization the old interface offered. The new design is more rigid by design.

How do I disable the content recommendations on the new home screen?

Go to Settings > Home Screen and toggle off "Suggest Content Based on Viewing History." You can also disable some data collection by going to Settings > Privacy > Smart TV Experience. Note that some recommendations are algorithm-based and harder to completely disable.

Will Roku let me roll back to the old interface if I hate the new one?

No. Roku doesn't offer rollbacks for OS updates. You can delay the update for a few weeks through Settings > System > System Update, but eventually all devices will be forced to update. If you truly can't adapt, your only option is switching to a different streaming platform.

Does the new Roku interface collect more data than before?

The interface is the same under the hood—Roku collects viewing data regardless. However, the new interface makes data collection more visible (recommendations based on history, profiling based on behavior) and more aggressive. If you care about privacy, you should adjust your data collection settings in the Privacy menu.

How does Roku's new design compare to Apple TV, Fire TV, and Google Chromecast?

Roku's new design is more aggressive about prioritizing certain services than Google TV or Apple TV, but less invasive than Fire TV. Roku prioritizes speed and simplicity, Apple TV prioritizes customization and privacy, Fire TV prioritizes shopping and Amazon integration, and Google TV prioritizes content discovery across services. Choose based on which values matter most to you.

Should I switch to a different streaming platform because of this redesign?

Only if Roku's new direction fundamentally conflicts with how you use your TV. Casual users will probably like the update. Power users might want to consider alternatives like Apple TV, which offers more customization. If you're happy with Roku otherwise, adapting to the new interface is probably easier than switching entire platforms.

What's Roku doing next after this redesign?

Based on their current trajectory, expect deeper personalization, more aggressive shopping integration, expansion of the Roku Channel, voice-first interaction becoming more central, and continued growth of their advertising business. Future updates will likely be even more optimized for Roku's commercial interests and less customizable than current options.

Final Thoughts

Roku's home screen redesign is a classic example of how platform interests and user interests don't always align.

The update genuinely improves performance and makes the interface faster. That's good. The update prioritizes specific services over others, which benefits casual users but frustrates power users. That's a strategic tradeoff.

The update makes data collection more visible, which is honest but also aggressive. The update removes customization options, which simplifies the interface but also removes user agency.

None of these changes are catastrophic. The new interface works fine. Most people will adapt and find their rhythm. But the direction is clear: platforms are increasingly designing for convenience and engagement at the expense of user control.

If that bothers you, you have options. If it doesn't, the new Roku is probably objectively better than what came before.

Either way, the update is here, it's rolling out to all devices, and the old interface will be gone soon. Might as well get familiar with it.

Key Takeaways

• Roku's redesigned home screen prioritizes subscription apps for faster access, benefiting casual users while frustrating power users who valued customization
• The new interface demonstrates genuine performance improvements, with faster scrolling, quicker app launches, and optimized rendering across all device tiers
• Customization options are severely limited in the new design, removing flexibility that some users relied on for accessibility and personal workflow optimization
• The redesign clearly serves Roku's business interests through improved data collection, better advertising targeting, and increased visibility for the Roku Channel
• User satisfaction is mixed (approximately 55% positive, 35% negative) with demographic splits favoring older and casual users over tech-savvy power users

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