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How I’d set up a Roku for a 90-year-old

Jared Newman   |   July 18, 2025

A couple weeks ago, a reader asked me about the best streaming TV setup for a 90-year-old neighbor who is not tech-savvy.

My mind immediately jumped to Roku, whose smart TVs and streaming players have always emphasized simplicity. But I also know that Roku’s streaming platform has become more complicated in recent years, and its once-basic menu system is not what it used to be.

While I’d still recommend Roku to someone who’s on the lower end of the tech learning curve, our neighbor in this scenario would benefit from some out-of-the-box settings tweaks. Whether you’re setting up a Roku for yourself of someone else, here’s how to make it as easy to use as possible:

Read the full column →

The idea for this week’s column began in my “Tech Buds” forum. Advisorator member Steve M. brought it up, and we’ve been having some great discussions ever since.

We’ve also been chatting about the problem with Roku’s TV business and how I’ve been accidentally getting Paramount+ for free, among other things.

Want to join the community? Become an Advisorator member and you’ll get instant forum access and a bunch of other cool stuff, like this new tool I built to download YouTube videos and a searchable archive of all my cord cutting columns. Hit the button below to try it free:

Weekly rewind

Peacock’s wild price hike: Bold move this week by NBCUniversal, which now seems to think Peacock is worth more per month than HBO Max and Netflix. Starting July 23, the service will cost $11 per month with ads and $17 per month ad-free for new subscribers, and the rate hike will apply to existing customers from August 22 onward. (The ad-supported tiers of HBO Max and Netflix cost $10 per month and $8 per month, respectively.)

As Vulture’s Josef Adelian reports, the price hike is all about sports. NBCU has placed some big bets on sports coverage—it’s paying $2.45 billion per year for a piece of NBA rights alone—and now it needs everyone to chip in if Peacock has any chance of breaking even. While Peacock plans to test an $8 per month “Select” tier without sports, it won’t be marketed much, will exclude Peacock originals such as Poker Face, and may not even stick around.

Good luck with all that. In the meantime, you can still get three months of Peacock for free (affiliate link, use promo code PEA2LOPP7EXU95 if the price doesn’t show $0), and we’ll see what the usual Black Friday sale period brings.

DirecTV’s basic bundle bulks up: DirecTV just added the popular rerun channel MeTV to its $35 per month MyEntertainment bundle. The streaming package already includes Disney+, Hulu, and Max (all with ads), plus the three major cable news networks and about 50 entertainment channels. It’s sneakily becoming a pretty decent deal if you’re not into sports and want a light channel package with DVR and some streaming services on top.

Pete sneaks onto Netflix: I probably shouldn’t read into this too much, but it’s kind of interesting that Sneaky Pete, one of Amazon Prime Video’s first original series, landed on Netflix last week. (It remains on Prime as well.) It’s not often that a major streamer licenses one of its originals to a rival, but times are changing, and streamers care more about profitability than hoarding exclusives, especially ones from a decade ago. Warner Bros. Discovery started licensing old HBO shows to Netflix a couple years ago for similar reasons.

More catch-up

Save more money

While YouTube continues to offer NFL Sunday Ticket for $276 to new subscribers (a $204 discount), Phillip Swann reports that returning subscribers can get a discount as well. Hit the “Get It Now” button on the sign-up page, and the price should be $28 per month or $336 total, which is still $144 off the regular price.

If you don’t see the deal, it might be because you still have an active subscription. You’d need to cancel auto-renewal and sign up again for the discount. Swann also notes that some users are seeing different discounts, so your mileage may vary.

Either way, the Sunday Ticket pre-order deals run through the end of the month.

Other notable deals:

As always, you’ll find a full list of streaming deals here, updated on Fridays.

Thanks for reading!

Got cord cutting questions or comments? Send me an email and I’ll do my best to answer.

Until next week,
Jared