The Roku sensible TV platform is an accessible strategy to watch your favourite streaming content material in a centralized location – both built-in to TVs, or by including reasonably priced dongles or set-top containers to older televisions. Nonetheless, a standard frustration for any sensible TV or streaming service person is that among the finest reveals and flicks are inaccessible resulting from geo-restrictions.
Utilizing a VPN is a standard strategy to deal with this challenge, however in contrast to Hearth TV, Apple TV and different rivals, Roku programs don’t have native VPN assist. However that’s not the tip of the story: You’ll be able to nonetheless use a VPN to entry a wider vary of programming by way of a Roku — you simply want to make use of a workaround. We’ll present you the way.
The advantages of utilizing a VPN
In relation to streaming, a VPN has one predominant profit: altering your IP tackle. A VPN tunnels your connection by way of its servers to obfuscate your IP, making it seem to be you’re watching from elsewhere. Consequently, a service like Netflix will see your location as, say, the UK versus the US. You’ll then have entry to a unique set of programming. For instance, the TV present Associates is out there on Max within the US, but it surely’s solely out there on Netflix within the UK.
VPNs have a number of different advantages associated to privateness and safety. VPN servers have military-grade AES 256-bit encryption, that means they’re safer than connecting to the Web usually. So, because you’re shopping the Web by tunneling by way of the VPN, your Web service supplier can’t see all your shopping locations (and promote your viewing habits to knowledge brokers).
The best manner to make use of a VPN on Roku
Though Roku doesn’t natively assist VPNs, there are a number of workarounds. You’ll be able to, as an illustration, arrange a VPN on your property’s router. That permits you to defend the entire community and each gadget that connects to it, holding everybody in your family nameless on-line. However it may possibly additionally trigger confusion if you need to entry native providers — and it requires a really high-level of technical information, and solely works with sure routers.
As a substitute, we suggest a far simpler methodology: connecting a VPN to your Roku by way of AirPlay or screencast. To do that, subscribe to a VPN and set up it in your smartphone or laptop computer. Then, stream content material on that gadget and AirPlay or screencast it to your Roku TV. The icon to do that ought to appear like a TV with Wi-Fi rays.
We choose this methodology as a result of it’s less complicated general. You’ll be able to entry any geo-blocked content material in your smartphone or laptop computer first after which forged it in your sensible TV.
You may make positive your Roku mannequin is AirPlay-compatible by checking this useful resource on Roku’s website. If it isn’t, you possibly can all the time simply immediately patch your cellphone or laptop computer to the TV utilizing an HDMI cable or an applicable dongle.