The Roku Streaming Stick 4K is the company’s latest media streamer, but it has a sibling. Or rather, it has a bundle: the Streaming Stick 4K+. This package contains a Streaming Stick 4K and a Voice Remote Pro, Roku’s most advanced remote control. At $69.99, it costs $10 less than if the products are purchased separately. We’ve reviewed each item separately, but let’s take a quick look at how they fare together as one package.
The Stick
The Streaming Stick 4K is one of the smallest media streamers we’ve seen. It measures just 3.4 by 0.6 by 0.4 inches (LWD), as narrow as the head of an HDMI cable. A micro USB port on the side supplies power with the included USB cable and wall adapter, and a reset button sits on the opposite side.
The Roku Streaming Stick 4K+ is identical to the Streaming Stick 4K, and can show 4K video with support for high dynamic range (HDR) content in HDR10, HDR10+, and Dolby Vision.
It also features an inline Wi-Fi module built into its included USB cable to improve Wi-Fi range and speed. I ran into a network connection hiccup with the Streaming Stick 4K where it couldn’t connect to my 5GHz network for some reason, despite showing other 5GHz networks in the building. But even connected to my 2.4GHz network, it was fast enough to quickly load and play 4K HDR content at maximum quality.
The Roku platform is very media-centric, with one of the biggest libraries of apps and services available among media streamers. All of the major streaming services are here except for Twitch, along with a number of more targeted channels based on interest, region, and other categorizations.
It also supports Apple AirPlay, so you can mirror your iPad, iPhone, or Mac to the Streaming Stick 4K. If your TV doesn’t already support it, Roku devices are the most affordable way to get AirPlay, since the Apple TV 4K costs $180. You can get AirPlay for even less with the $39.99 Roku Express 4K+, but you lose Dolby Vision and HDR10+ support, and it has a standard Roku Voice Remote instead of a Voice Remote Pro.
The Remote
The Voice Remote Pro looks like a standard Roku remote at first glance. It’s a squat, black plastic wand with a prominent purple plus-shaped navigation pad near the top. The pad is flanked by menu and power buttons above it, and playback controls below it. Two programmable shortcut buttons, unique to the Voice Remote Pro, sit under the playback controls, with dedicated app buttons for Disney+, Hulu, Netflix, and Sling farther down. The right edge of the remote holds a volume rocker and mute button.
The left edge holds a headphone jack and mic mute switch, indicating the two big advantages the Voice Remote Pro has over the Roku Voice Remote you get with the standard Streaming Stick 4K. For starters, the headphone jack lets you plug in any pair of headphones and listen to whatever you’re watching privately. Roku also supports Bluetooth devices, and you can use private listening with the Roku app on your smartphone, but this is a very convenient additional option.
The mic mute switch, meanwhile, is used to enable or disable the remote’s mid-field microphone. Instead of picking up the remote, pressing the voice search button, and speaking into it (which you can still do), you can search for content and control your Roku device just by saying, “OK, Roku.” The remote will pick up your command like a smart speaker.
The remote also features a small speaker that can chime to let you know where it is when you activate the remote finder feature with the Roku app on your smartphone. In addition, it uses an internal rechargeable battery instead of AAs, letting you charge it through the micro USB port on the bottom.
The Experience
Paired together, the Streaming Stick 4K and Voice Remote Pro offer a powerful media streaming experience with the ability to find what you want to watch and control playback using only your voice. However, those functions are about all you can do with voice commands, whether you hold the remote or not.
Roku’s voice search feature is powerful in the context of finding content, but it falls short of being a true voice assistant like Amazon Alexa on the Fire TV Stick 4K or Google Assistant on the Chromecast With Google TV. You can’t ask Roku for information like weather forecasts or sports scores, and you can’t control smart home devices with it. Roku supports Alexa, Google Assistant, and Apple HomeKit, so you can control the Streaming Stick 4K through a smart speaker, but at that point there’s little reason to upgrade to the Streaming Stick 4K+ to get the Voice Remote Pro to begin with.
For watching and listening to whatever you want, though, the Streaming Stick 4K+ is excellent. Both manual menu navigation and voice search are very responsive, and content loads rapidly to the maximum quality available. It’s a powerful media streaming experience, just without the non-media frills offered by Alexa and Google Assistant.
A Strong Streaming Bundle
The Roku Streaming Stick 4K+ is a solid bundle for enjoying streaming media to your TV. At $70, it’s more expensive than the regular Streaming Stick 4K, the Fire TV Stick 4K, and the Chromecast With Google TV, but the extra $20 gets you hands-free voice control. If you don’t already have a smart speaker, the next best option for hands-free media controls is the Amazon Fire TV Cube, which offers the much more powerful Amazon Alexa voice assistant, but costs more at $119.99. If you want a more affordable device that streams media via hands-free voice control, especially if you have an iPad or iPhone to take advantage of Apple AirPlay support, the Streaming Stick 4K+ is the best package available.
