Your Roku home screen could look very different soon

In a new move, Roku appears to be quietly testing out a new home screen layout within its Roku OS operating system, which is the software platform that powers the company’s smart TV sets, set-top boxes, and streaming sticks.

Based on reporting from Cord Cutters News, a small subset of Roku users “on select devices” are experiencing this home screen spruce-up, which places more prominent Live TV Guide and The Roku Channel shortcut buttons at the very top of the Picked for You interface tab.

Underneath these enlarged buttons, the familiar grid of apps is still available and in an unchanged state, which will be a relief for users that have spent time organizing their shortcuts to their liking. For those opposed to change, there is also reportedly a toggle within the Roku OS home screen settings page that lets you revert to the classic layout.

This new home screen interface appears to be experimental, with it only appearing for a small sample group of users running the latest software release on their Roku device. The company hasn’t commented on the change, and there’s no word on if and when it might roll out to a larger group of users.

Roku-powered programming hits the center stage

A subtle interface tweak that could pay off in a big way

In today’s market, subscription services are just as, if not more important than hardware when it comes to profitability. Within this context, it would make a lot of sense for Roku to place extra emphasis on its own in-house content experiences. The Live TV Guide is a portal for accessing Roku’s catalog of free ad-supported channel programming, while The Roku Channel features free, on-demand access to both original and third-party shows and films. If there were ever two buttons worth placing front and center within Roku OS, they’d be the aforementioned ones.

That being said, if and when this home screen change does land on users’ Roku devices more broadly, I hope to see the option to revert to the previous layout remain intact. Even though Roku’s offerings don’t require a recurring subscription fee, it’s important to give users the option to tailor their streaming service launcher to their liking. If anything, I’d love to see Roku add in the option to designate any two apps as the larger ones near the top, which would serve as a convenient ‘dock’ of sorts for apps and services of my choosing.

Pocket-lint has reached out to Roku for comment and will update this story if they respond.