Last night Roku informed developers that more Roku Channels will soon need to support voice commands from Alexa, Google Assistant, and Roku.
According to Roku, effective March 31, 2020, subscription video on-demand Roku Channels that average 10 million hours of streaming in three months must support Roku Voice Commands. This means that soon more Roku Channels will let you give voice commands like rewind, pause, resume, start over, and replay.
Here is how Roku described the new rule to developers:
4.12 Channels that have streamed more than an average of 10 million hours over the last three months must implement transport controls to handle all voice commands that are supported on the Roku platform.
Transport controls enable your channel to handle voice commands from the Roku remote control, Roku mobile app, or a virtual assistant such as Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant. With transport controls, your channel can respond to voice commands such as “rewind,” “pause,” “resume,” “start over,” or “replay.” This makes it easy for your customers to control the playback of your content with the convenience of voice commands, which enhances the overall user experience of your channel.
Roku also announced that starting on September 30, 2020, all Roku Channels that offer subscriptions must allow customers to upgrade or downgrade their subscription from inside the Roku Channel.
Why the wait? Why not implement these rules now? Roku says they always try to give their developers six-month’s notice when a new requirement goes into effect. This allows developers time to build the new features into their Roku Channels.
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