Roku’s Biggest Home Screen Redesign in 10 Years Adds New Features — and a Permanent Ad

Roku has rolled out its most significant home screen redesign in over a decade across all Roku TVs and streaming sticks in the United States, with a rollout to other countries planned for the coming months. The update brings a set of new content-discovery features — and, as per the Roku Newsroom press release, replaces a section of the screen previously occupied by content tiles with a large, permanent advertising panel that users cannot remove.

The redesigned interface replaces the old left-side navigation menu — which had menu items for “What to Watch,” “Live,” and “Search” along the left and a row of recommended content tiles filling the right — with a more dynamic layout. New additions include Quick Access, a row of frequently used apps that tracks viewing habits and adjusts over time; a “Top Picks for You” section driven by Roku’s personalisation models; genre-based content hubs built around categories like drama, sport, and comedy; and a Subscriptions view that gathers content from all a viewer’s paid streaming services in one place. “Your Daily Scoop” is a new daily-refreshed row surfacing trending shows. Search is embedded at more points throughout the interface, and the main navigation menu is now collapsible to get out of the way when not needed.

Roku CEO Anthony Wood said the redesign came from extensive user research and testing. “We talked to the viewers, we tested extensively, and we pushed until the design and the data lined up for a meaningful update,” Wood said in the company’s announcement. Roku cited its own data showing 82 per cent of streamers say they want to see what they want to watch right when they turn on the TV. The company says its models will select from “billions of combinations” to build each viewer a personalised home screen layout.

What Roku’s announcement did not foreground — but Ars Technica’s review of the update flagged — is that a prominent section of the new home screen is occupied by a large, static ad unit. Before the redesign, that space was used for content recommendations. Per a CordCuttersNews report, there is a partial way to adjust the new layout, but no straightforward setting to remove the ad panel entirely. Roku’s business model has always mixed device sales with advertising revenue, but moving ad inventory from within content rows to a fixed position on the home screen itself is a step further than the platform had previously taken.

Roku is on hundreds of millions of TVs and streaming devices globally. For users, the redesign offers genuinely useful additions — Quick Access and better subscription browsing in particular — but the non-removable ad placement means those gains come with a home screen that is now partly an advertising surface, not just an entertainment one. The update is live now in the US.

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