The company will stop selling video doorbells, its home monitoring system and other products.
Jeff Dunn for Engadget
Roku has confirmed it’s getting out of the smart home market days after Fox completed its $22 billion takeover of the company. “We’re sharpening our focus on Roku’s core mission: being the top streaming platform,” a Roku spokesperson told Lowpass. “As part of that, we plan to wind down sales of smart home hardware and will provide continued support and services for Roku Smart Home products.”
Only two of Roku’s smart home devices remain in stock on the brand’s web store, the Roku Indoor Camera 360° and Video Doorbell & Chime. Products including smart light strips and bulbs, the wireless video doorbell, other cameras, smart plugs and Roku’s home monitoring system are listed as out of stock. Lowpass noted that these devices are no longer available at many third-party retailers either. Amazon, for instance, now only offers refurbished models. The publication added that Roku has been gradually shifting away from its smart home products for the past several months — the company stopped mentioning such devices in its earnings reports earlier this year.
Roku started making a push into the smart home market in 2022 with rebadged versions of Wyze products. It started releasing its own smart home hardware last year.
Refocusing on streaming and associated hardware is a business decision, of course. Earlier this month, Roku posted its final earnings report before joining Fox. It revealed that, while revenue from devices grew by 33 percent year-over-year in the third quarter, its hardware losses more than doubled in that same timeframe, from $22.9 million to $48.6 million. It blamed those losses largely on increased costs of memory components.
The company noted that its device revenue is based on its own players and TVs, and not Roku-branded sets that other companies make. It added that its own TVs “exceeded expectations” last quarter. Since then, Roku has released its first OLED sets.