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ZDNET Highlights
- Roku OS 15.1 adds a subscription hub for your paid services.
- New additions make it easy to find the latest movies or shows.
- The subscription also includes continued watching, popular and trending titles.
Roku is good at making small updates, frequent changes to Roku City, home screen, and more. Sometimes they’re so subtle I barely notice them, and sometimes they’re really useful, like its latest software release.
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Roku OS 15.1 Quietly rolling out now, following 15.0 from a few months ago. The biggest change is a menu item called Subscriptions. I’ll admit that I’ve ignored half of Roku’s menu options, but this is one option I know I’ll continue to use. It’s a new hub for all the streaming services I pay for, the shows I’m currently watching, and what’s new available across all my subscriptions.
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As someone who subscribes to everything including Netflix, Disney+, HBO Max, Paramount+, Hulu, and Peacock, it can be tiring to keep track of what’s new or worth watching. I’ve spent many nights scrolling, jumping between apps, trying to find anything to watch. It looks like subscriptions could make that process a lot less frustrating.
How to Find Roku’s Subscription Menu
You should find Subscriptions above Settings on the left side of the home screen. This is where I watched it on my Roku. Once you open it, you’ll see that it pulls together a number of useful categories across all the services you’re subscribed to, including:
- Trending and popular selections from your subscription
- Keep watching, so you can go back to what you left unfinished
- Newly added, which looks great for finding the latest movies and shows
- Your Roku Saves list, where your bookmarked titles are stored
- What’s included in your subscriptions, broken down by service
The new addition is the best category, without a doubt
As soon as I tried the subscription, I knew I would love Newly Add.
It shows what’s come up recently from services I’ve already paid for, so I don’t have to open an app, find its new section, view the titles, close it, and then repeat in another app. This is saving a lot of clicking, scrolling and time.
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It also scratches that itch where I feel like there’s something new out there, but I don’t know where to look, or I check everything to make sure I’m not missing something. Now, Roku serves it, reducing my streaming fatigue rather than increasing it.
I also like the popular and trending categories shown for each app. Sometimes I want to see what everyone else is seeing. Now, instead of Googling for suggestions or messaging friends, I can turn to subscriptions.
Roku actually shows All Your streaming subscriptions
I really like that Roku’s subscription menu recognizes all my paid streaming services, even if I don’t subscribe to them through Roku. I pay for Disney+ outside of Roku, and yet it shows up, to see what’s new, popular, and trending.
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Roku can also check all my subscriptions to populate the Continue Watching category in the Subscriptions menu. It pulls the last few things I’ve viewed on my apps into one place. Selecting a title launches the correct app and playback begins where I left off.
How to get the new subscription menu
Roku OS updates are released slowly, so you may not have it today. If Roku OS 15.1 is available for your device, it should install automatically. But you can always check manually on your Roku by going here:
- Go to Settings.
- Select System.
- Select Software Update.
