For the first time, the Roku remote will have motion-activated backlit buttons, USB-C charging, and a customizable shortcut button to access a favorite show or channel quickly. 

The Roku Voice Remote Pro 2 will also be easy to find, as Pro Series TVs will come with a dedicated remote finder button on the side of the TV that triggers a chime on the remote. Thanks to its hands-free voice commands, users can also say, "Hey Roku, where's the remote?" to trigger the chime. 

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Though it is included with all Roku Pro Series TVs, Roku will sell the Roku Voice Remote Pro 2 separately for$30 at Roku.com before bringing it to major retailers in the coming months. 

If you've ever seen a Roku TV or device, you're probably familiar with Roku City: a digital rendering of a magenta and purple city with fun characters and buildings and full of movie references. 

Roku City is a screensaver for Roku devices that the company updates periodically, depending on the season. Now, Roku City is getting vehicles as a dynamic addition to add some fun to your screen, serving as an income opportunity through advertisements. Roku explained that vehicles will always change and will add short-term advertisements to its new cars to promote digital content, like a 007 James Bond vehicle. 

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Backdrops

Roku is also rolling out a new feature that displays digital artwork on idle TVs. You can choose from free artwork, including classic works, museum collections, and abstract designs, or upload digital art or photos. This and other software updates will be available in the coming months through OS 13.

Roku Smart Picture update

Roku is improving picture quality by automatically adjusting the backlighting, uniformity, and colors based on the apps streaming and the type of TV. Roku Smart Picture uses metadata from channel partners to adjust picture modes before the content starts to play automatically. 

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The biggest difference between Roku Smart Picture and the Roku Pro Series' Roku Smart Picture Max is that the latter uses AI, powered by the TV's NPU, to refine color, contrast, and sharpness in real-time. 

This update will be available to all Roku TV models. Customers buying a Roku TV in Spring 2024 onward will have the Roku Smart Picture feature enabled by default, while the rest of the Roku TV models purchased before will need to enable it in the picture settings option. 

Make it easy to pick something to watch

Roku is adding IMDb ratings to title trailers across the platform and new badge updates on TV shows in your Save List when prices drop, or new episodes are available. Much like checking reviews before buying a product, many users rely on ratings to choose a new show or movie to watch, so Roku is including IMDb ratings on title detail pages and adding a new "What to Watch" row with highly rated IMDb titles.

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Updates to the Roku app

The Roku mobile app is getting a new navigation bar with five tabs: Home, Search, Remote, Devices, and Account. It's also getting a "Top Searched TV and Movies" row showing daily searched TV shows and movies across the platform.