How to use a Roku without a remote

Roku players have no power button at all, and the pinhole is a reset, not a power switch. What the one button on a Roku TV really does, why the phone needs no pairing code, and the one step a phone genuinely cannot do.

On this page

1. Work out which kind of Roku you have
2. What the one button on a Roku TV actually does
3. The phone path — and Roku asks for nothing
4. The two switches that let something else wake it
5. Inputs behave like apps, which nothing else does
6. Which remote to re-pair, and which one to buy

1. Work out which kind of Roku you have

Roku is two different problems wearing one name. A Roku TV is a television with Roku built in, and it has a physical button. A Roku player — a stick or a small box plugged into someone else's TV — has no power button of any kind. Before you go looking, decide which one is in front of you, because the answers do not overlap.

Device	What is on the device itself
Roku TV (TCL, Hisense, onn, Philips, Sharp, and Roku's own Select and Plus series)	One physical button. Its position is set by whoever built the television, not by Roku: under the bottom-right corner, at the bottom centre, or on the back panel. On most sets it only switches the television on and off.
Roku Streaming Stick and Streaming Stick 4K	Nothing. No power button, no menu button. The stick powers up when the television's HDMI port or USB socket gives it power, and it has no way to be operated by hand.
Roku Express and Premiere	A pinhole on the body. It is a reset, not a power button — see the warning below. There is no manual control of any kind.
Roku Ultra and Streambar	The Ultra has a reset button and, usefully, a button that makes a lost remote beep. A Streambar has real power, volume and input buttons on the bar itself, because it is also a speaker.

The pinhole on a Roku player is not a hidden power button. Hold it down and the device factory-resets: it forgets your Wi-Fi, your accounts and your apps, and comes back on the setup wizard. If you have lost the remote, that is the worst place you can be, because the wizard cannot be driven from a phone. Never press it while you are remote-less.

2. What the one button on a Roku TV actually does

This is where Roku differs from Samsung and LG, and where most advice quietly misleads. On a Samsung or an LG the hidden control is a slow but complete remote: it opens an on-screen menu and you can reach every setting with it. On almost every Roku TV it is not a menu at all.

One press when the set is off — the television turns on. This part always works.
One press when it is on — on most Roku TVs the set turns off again. No menu appears.
Settings, volume and inputs — generally not reachable. A handful of models cycle inputs on a long press, but it is not something to count on.
On a Roku Ultra — the button on the box finds the remote by making it beep. It does not control the television.
On a Streambar — power, volume and input are all there as real buttons, which makes it the one Roku you can genuinely operate by hand.

So on Roku the phone is not a convenience, it is the main route. On a Samsung or an LG you can reach every setting with the hidden control if you are patient; on a Roku TV you cannot, and everything below is about getting the phone working instead.

3. The phone path — and Roku asks for nothing

Roku answers plain web requests on your own network, on a fixed port, with no authentication in front of them. Roku's own app uses that interface and so does every third-party remote app. This is the best thing about Roku remotes and almost nobody mentions it.

Compare what the first connection costs you on each platform:

Roku: nothing at all. No code to type, no permission box to approve on screen, no account to sign into, nothing that expires and has to be done again. The app finds the device and it works.
Samsung and LG: a permission box that has to be approved with a working remote or the hidden control — which is exactly what you do not have.
Android TV and Google TV: a code shown on the television that you type into the phone.
Typing is better on Roku, too. Roku accepts literal characters, so a search box can be filled from the phone's own keyboard instead of pecking letter by letter across an on-screen grid.

Here is the honest limit, and it is the one thing the cheerful guides leave out: all of this needs the Roku to be on your Wi-Fi already. On a brand-new or factory-reset Roku TV the setup wizard asks for your network before anything else, and the single physical button cannot answer it. If the set has an Ethernet socket, a cable gets it onto the network and the phone takes over from there. If it does not, you need a remote once — see the last section for which one.

4. The two switches that let something else wake it

A Roku that has gone to sleep can drop off the network entirely, and then the phone cannot reach it. Two settings fix that, and they are worth turning on while you still have a working remote rather than after you have lost it.

Open Settings → System → Power and turn on Fast TV start. This keeps the network side awake in standby, which is what lets the phone switch the device on. Not every model has it.
Open Settings → System → Control other devices and enable 1-touch play. This is Roku's name for the HDMI-CEC feature other makers call Anynet+ or SIMPLINK.
On a Roku player the same setting lives in the same place, and it is what makes the stick turn the television on when you start watching.
Test both: press a button on a games console to see whether the television wakes, and separately try switching the Roku on from the phone after it has been idle for a while.

Fast TV start costs a little more power in standby. That is the whole trade, and it buys you a device that a phone can wake — which matters a great deal more the day the remote disappears down the side of the sofa.

5. Inputs behave like apps, which nothing else does

On a Roku TV the HDMI sockets are listed on the home screen beside Netflix and YouTube, under whatever names you gave them. The control interface treats them the same way, so a phone can jump straight to a named input in one tap instead of stepping through sources one at a time.

Two consequences worth knowing, both of them measured on real hardware rather than taken from a manual:

A named input is one tap away. Because inputs are listed like apps, a phone can go directly to the HDMI socket your console is on. Televisions that only expose a source key have to cycle through every input in turn and hope.
The names come from the television. Rename an input on the Roku and the phone shows the new name. If the list looks wrong, fix it on the television rather than in the app.
A Roku player cannot switch the television's inputs. A stick is a guest on somebody else's HDMI socket; it can turn the set on through 1-touch play, but choosing between HDMI 1 and HDMI 2 is the television's job, not the stick's.

6. Which remote to re-pair, and which one to buy

Roku ships two quite different remotes and the fix depends on which one you have. Look at it before you do anything: a simple remote has no microphone and no pairing button; a voice remote has both.

A simple Roku remote is infrared and has nothing to pair. If it has stopped working, it is batteries, line of sight or the remote itself — there is no pairing to lose.
A voice remote connects over the air and can lose its pairing. Open the battery door, hold the pairing button for about five seconds and wait for the light to flash. If no light appears, unplug the Roku for a few seconds, plug it back in, wait for the home screen and hold the pairing button again.
If you are buying your way back in, buy the simple infrared one. It needs no pairing, which means it works before the device is on Wi-Fi — and it is cross-brand, so a Roku infrared remote drives a TCL, a Hisense or an onn Roku TV alike.

That last point is the practical heart of this page. A phone cannot complete setup on a factory-reset Roku TV, and a voice remote has to be paired through a screen you cannot reach. The cheap infrared remote is the only one that works from a cold start, which makes it the thing to keep in a drawer.

FAQ

Questions, answered

Where is the button on a Roku TV?

There is one physical button, and its position is decided by the company that built the television rather than by Roku. Look under the bottom-right corner first, then the bottom centre, then the back panel. On most sets it only switches the television on and off — unlike a Samsung or an LG, it does not open a menu you can navigate.

Do Roku streaming sticks have a power button?

No. A Streaming Stick has no buttons at all and powers up when the television's HDMI or USB socket feeds it. An Express or Premiere has a pinhole, but that is a reset: hold it and the device forgets your Wi-Fi and accounts and returns to the setup wizard, which cannot be driven from a phone. If you have lost your remote, leave it alone.

How do I control a Roku without a remote?

With a phone on the same Wi-Fi. Roku is unusually easy here because it asks for nothing: no code to type, no permission box on screen, no account. Samsung and LG both make you approve a box with a remote you do not have, and Android TV shows a code you have to read off the screen. On Roku the app finds the device and works.

Can I set up a brand-new Roku TV without a remote?

Generally no, and this is the honest answer the shorter guides skip. The setup wizard asks for your Wi-Fi before anything else, and the single physical button cannot answer it. Two ways out: if the set has an Ethernet socket, a cable puts it on the network and the phone can take over; otherwise you need a remote once, and the cheap infrared one is the right purchase because it needs no pairing.

What is Fast TV start and do I need it?

It is a setting under Settings → System → Power that keeps the network side of the device awake while it is in standby. Without it a sleeping Roku can drop off the network, and a phone then has nothing to talk to. With it on, the phone can switch the device on. The cost is a little more standby power. Turn it on while you still have a working remote.

How do I re-pair a Roku voice remote?

Open the battery door, hold the pairing button for about five seconds and watch for the pairing light to flash. If nothing happens, unplug the Roku from power for a few seconds, plug it back in, wait until the home screen appears and hold the pairing button again. A simple Roku remote has no pairing button at all, because it is infrared — if that one has stopped working, the cause is batteries, line of sight or the remote itself.

Which replacement remote works with my Roku TV?

A simple Roku infrared remote works across brands: the same one drives a TCL, a Hisense, an onn or a Roku-branded set. It needs no pairing, which is why it is the right choice when you are locked out — it works before the device is on Wi-Fi, which a voice remote and a phone both do not. A universal infrared remote also covers power, volume and input on a Roku TV.

Does the phone remote need an internet connection?

No. Roku answers plain requests inside your own network, so the phone and the device only have to be on the same Wi-Fi. Nothing is sent to a Roku server to press a button, which is why the remote keeps working on a day when the line is down but the router is still running.

Using your phone instead

On a Roku TV or a Roku player, Zap turns an iPhone or iPad into a full remote over Wi-Fi with nothing to pair — no code, no permission box. Your HDMI inputs appear by the names you gave them, so you can jump to a console in one tap, and the phone keyboard fills Roku search boxes directly instead of letter by letter. The remote itself is free.

Download on theApp Store