Does anyone bring Roku on vacation with them? I'm thinking that it would be nice to plug it into the hotel tv and use the room wifi? Thoughts?

I brought mine on my most recent vacation and while I did get it to work, I never had a good enough connection to do much besides stream Pandora and even that was a bit spotty.

I suppose it makes sense to have it and if it works, great......just don't count on it.

It can work, but hotel wifi is often not up to streaming.

I always take mine. It works very well at the beach houses we stay in each summer. I have not had much luck in hotels, though, due to really poor network connectivity. I have better luck watching movies on my iPad when I'm in a hotel.

If you take your Roku, don't forget to take your infrared remote control. You may find yourself in a position where even a 3rd party external remote control app won't work. See the sections entitled "DON’T THROW AWAY YOUR ROKU INFRARED REMOTE CONTROL !!!" and "BUT WHAT IF I CAN’T USE MY ROKU INFRARED REMOTE CONTROL ???" on my DVPRemote support web site (http://claytongrafix.com/pirey4/apps/DVPRemote_-_Support.html) for more information on this.

Brining the Roku is not recommended. The salt water is bad for the electronics.

On a more serious note, many hotels have a login page that you have to fill out before you can access the network. Such setups won't work easily with the Roku.

--Mark

RokuMarkn wrote:

Brining the Roku is not recommended. The salt water is bad for the electronics.

On a more serious note, many hotels have a login page that you have to fill out before you can access the network. Such setups won't work easily with the Roku.

--Mark

Yeah, you're right. The hotel we always stay at in Lake Placid, NY has a login page. I think that bringing my iPad and hooking that to the TV might be a better solution.

RokuMarkn wrote:

Brining the Roku is not recommended. The salt water is bad for the electronics.

On a more serious note, many hotels have a login page that you have to fill out before you can access the network. Such setups won't work easily with the Roku.

--Mark

I get around the login page problem by carrying a portable WRT54GC router with me. I connect the router directly to the hotel network, connect my Macbook Pro to to the router, and then fill out the log-in page using my Macbook Pro.
I use the router to create my own wireless network in my room where I can use my Roku, iPad, iPhone, Macbook Pro, etc. Since I already logged into the network with the Macbook Pro (using the Router's MAC address), I don't get another login page. On networks where I'm forced to login the next day, I use one of the devices on my wireless network to fill out the page and then I'm good for another day. This is also handy where they charge per MAC address connected to their network. I travel quite a bit and stay in a lot of hotels.

RokuMarkn wrote:

Brining the Roku is not recommended. The salt water is bad for the electronics.

On a more serious note, many hotels have a login page that you have to fill out before you can access the network. Such setups won't work easily with the Roku.

--Mark

Is there any plan to somehow accommodate this (with some sort of login screen, perhaps)?

I've thought about this, but I've also wondered if you'd still need a laptop with you or something to use Netflix, Amazon, or any of the other channels tied to an account.

I took mine to the beach last summer, but we were staying in a rental house that had a router. It took a little fiddling to get it to hook up to the router (mainly because the router was located in a locked closet and had an iffy signal - our notebooks had the same problem), but once it connected, I didn't have any problems watching Netflix movies using the Roku.

Hotel WiFi is often terribly slow. Sometimes the performance isn't even up to dial-up speeds.

janel wrote:

I took mine to the beach last summer, but we were staying in a rental house that had a router. It took a little fiddling to get it to hook up to the router (mainly because the router was located in a locked closet and had an iffy signal - our notebooks had the same problem), but once it connected, I didn't have any problems watching Netflix movies using the Roku.

But you did have to log into Netfilx with a laptop, etc. to enter the device code right?

SuetyStanes wrote:

janel wrote:

I took mine to the beach last summer, but we were staying in a rental house that had a router. It took a little fiddling to get it to hook up to the router (mainly because the router was located in a locked closet and had an iffy signal - our notebooks had the same problem), but once it connected, I didn't have any problems watching Netflix movies using the Roku.

But you did have to log into Netfilx with a laptop, etc. to enter the device code right?

Once the box is activated with Netflix (or another provider) by entering the code on the website, the box remembers the activation details. It should not be necessary to re-activate it when switching between wifi networks, or between wifi and ethernet. I've seen reports that after a firmware update some people have had to re-activate, and obviously a factory reset would require re-activation. But that's a different matter than switching networks.

tobarefeet wrote:

RokuMarkn wrote:

Brining the Roku is not recommended. The salt water is bad for the electronics.

On a more serious note, many hotels have a login page that you have to fill out before you can access the network. Such setups won't work easily with the Roku.

--Mark

Yeah, you're right. The hotel we always stay at in Lake Placid, NY has a login page. I think that bringing my iPad and hooking that to the TV might be a better solution.

By any chance the Crowne Plaza?

I was going to bring the ROKU but forgot. When I saw the login I thought didn't matter anyway. Speed is certainly fine but how to get past that login?

Most Hotel guest wireless networks use the MAC address off of the Network card to determine if someone has logged in. You could use a MAC-spoofing application to change the MAC address on your laptop to the one on the ROKU, then log-in to the hotel wireless, then you should be able to use the ROKU. You want to make sure that you don't have the MAC address spoofed on your laptop at the same time that the ROKU is turned on tho, or it will cause problems.