Roku offers an ever-expanding portfolio of free live TV channels on its platform. Whether it’s a supported smart TV or one of the company’s various streaming devices, Live TV Guide unlocks a plethora of free live TV options for Roku users.
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While this service is pretty decent on its own and lets you filter channels by categories (entertainment, news, sports, etc.) or based on what you’ve recently watched, a conventional search option was missing.
Thankfully, Roku has rectified this shortcoming, with Live TV Guide picking up a dedicated search option that gives users more control over what they want to watch. Roku first announced this feature as part of its fall update, but it has only begun rolling out in the past week.
The search feature is located on the left side of the screen, alongside categories, according to Cord Cutters News (via ZDNet). In addition to typing out the name of the live TV channel, users will be able to search by related keywords or genres. Voice typing will also be supported with this search function, provided you have the required hardware.
With this addition, Roku users should finally be able to avoid constant scrolling to find their desired live TV channel from the list. While the platform’s existing features let you quickly return to recently watched channels, there was no way to switch to a channel you’ve never used before without scrolling continuously through the feed or filtering by category. This inclusion eliminates that common frustration from the user experience.
However, we still can’t help but wonder why it has taken so long to implement this basic software feature. But it’s better late than never, and the search function couldn’t have come at a better time, given that the number of free live TV channels on the platform continues to rise.
Roku has witnessed a few major milestones in 2025, including the release of an ad-free streaming service and its first-ever smart projector. However, the company wasn’t immune to controversy last year, as evidenced by the rollout of ads on the pause screen. Roku later confirmed that the ad format wasn’t part of a temporary test or a glitch and that it was here to stay.
Meanwhile, the aforementioned fall update also introduced an AI-focused upgrade to Roku Voice, the default voice assistant, enabling natural-language queries about movies and TV shows. Search is a relatively simpler feature compared to some of the more advanced inclusions we saw in 2025, which makes its omission all the more surprising.
