# If your TV remote has preprogrammed buttons for streaming services, how many of them do you use?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-your-tv-remote-has-preprogrammed-buttons-for-streaming-services-how-many-of-them-do-you-use/1031820
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Tags:** netflix
**Created:** [July 20, 2026, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-your-tv-remote-has-preprogrammed-buttons-for-streaming-services-how-many-of-them-do-you-use/1031820 "2026-07-20T22:51:38Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Nars\_Glinley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nars_Glinley)
#### Post date: [July 20, 2026, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-your-tv-remote-has-preprogrammed-buttons-for-streaming-services-how-many-of-them-do-you-use/1031820/1 "2026-07-20T22:51:38Z")
My Vizio remote has Vudu, Netflix, Amazon, Xumo, Crackle, and I Heart Radio. I use Netflix and Amazon. I have no idea what Vudu, Xumo, and Crackle are. I never use I Heart Radio.
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### Author:  [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)
#### Post date: [July 20, 2026, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-your-tv-remote-has-preprogrammed-buttons-for-streaming-services-how-many-of-them-do-you-use/1031820/2 "2026-07-20T23:02:55Z")
Until recently, only two: Amazon and Netflix. Last week we tried to watch Netflix and it claims our TV is no longer compatible. Worked fine last time. Fuckers!
Fortunately we have a computer with a browser hooked up to the TV.
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### Author:  [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)
#### Post date: [July 20, 2026, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-your-tv-remote-has-preprogrammed-buttons-for-streaming-services-how-many-of-them-do-you-use/1031820/3 "2026-07-20T23:05:16Z")
None.
I navigate from the tiles on the screen.
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### Author:  [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)
#### Post date: [July 20, 2026, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-your-tv-remote-has-preprogrammed-buttons-for-streaming-services-how-many-of-them-do-you-use/1031820/4 "2026-07-20T23:12:29Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#):
>
> I navigate from the tiles on the screen.
Same here. The remote has Netflix, Prime, Disney, and whatever “LG Channels” are. Also several buttons the function of which is a mystery to me. Four of them are red, green, yellow and blue with an ascending numbers of dots on them. Also a button with colored bubbles.
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### Author:  [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)
#### Post date: [July 20, 2026, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-your-tv-remote-has-preprogrammed-buttons-for-streaming-services-how-many-of-them-do-you-use/1031820/5 "2026-07-20T23:40:09Z")
Mine has Netflix and Amazon buttons. I don’t subscribe to either right now. I don’t know why the buttons can’t be changed to work for another service.
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### Author:  [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)
#### Post date: [July 20, 2026, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-your-tv-remote-has-preprogrammed-buttons-for-streaming-services-how-many-of-them-do-you-use/1031820/6 "2026-07-20T23:40:45Z")
I think one of those colored buttons is an eject button of sorts…like the transporter in Star Trek (TOS). When you push it, your molecules are separated and flung to some distant part of the galaxy and reassembled, one hopes in something like the correct order on at least a class M planet.
But I don’t know which button, so best to avoid all of them.
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### Author:  [@filmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmore)
#### Post date: [July 20, 2026, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-your-tv-remote-has-preprogrammed-buttons-for-streaming-services-how-many-of-them-do-you-use/1031820/7 "2026-07-20T23:51:14Z")
I have a Roku which comes with 4 pre-programmed buttons. I use none. I wish it had none all. What invariably happens is while I’m watching a streaming channel, the remote falls on the floor, one of the preprogrammed buttons gets pressed, and the Roku switches to that app. After it happened the umpteenth time, I shaved the buttons off with an xacto knife.
I’ve heard that Roku makes a lot of money from those buttons. Streaming companies pay $1 per remote sold in order to have their app be on one of the preprogrammed buttons.
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### Author:  [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)
#### Post date: [July 20, 2026, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-your-tv-remote-has-preprogrammed-buttons-for-streaming-services-how-many-of-them-do-you-use/1031820/8 "2026-07-20T23:59:11Z")
2-3.
Mine has Prime Video, Prime Music, Netflix and Disney+.
I _occasionally_ use the first three, but mostly I’ll use tiles, because it’s only “saving” me the step of selecting the Apps before I start navigating. So, less than a second. And of the three, the last, Amazon Music, I’m much more likely to just use the Echo near my desk with voice commands.
They’re… nice, but really, only in the same way that you might arrange your most common apps on the landing screen of your smartphone, rather than having to swipe to the side once to your next tier.
It might be a bit more useful for an add-on streaming stick option, rather than a purpose built smart TV though.
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### Author:  [@Nars\_Glinley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nars_Glinley)
#### Post date: [July 21, 2026, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-your-tv-remote-has-preprogrammed-buttons-for-streaming-services-how-many-of-them-do-you-use/1031820/9 "2026-07-21T00:21:22Z")
I’m most likely to use mine if the TV is turned off because it will turn the TV on and launch the app. It appeals to the sloth in me.
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### Author:  [@Ponch8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponch8)
#### Post date: [July 21, 2026, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-your-tv-remote-has-preprogrammed-buttons-for-streaming-services-how-many-of-them-do-you-use/1031820/10 "2026-07-21T00:30:03Z")
I’ve used zero of the six buttons. I like my TV to remain dumb, and I can’t be assed to connect it to my wifi.
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### Author:  [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)
#### Post date: [July 21, 2026, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-your-tv-remote-has-preprogrammed-buttons-for-streaming-services-how-many-of-them-do-you-use/1031820/11 "2026-07-21T01:16:19Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#):
>
> Mine has Netflix and Amazon buttons. I don’t subscribe to either right now. I don’t know why the buttons can’t be changed to work for another service.
I assume because they are paid to advertise those channels.
I do subscribe to Netflix, and have a button for it on the remote, but i never remember to use it. I also navigate from the tiles.
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### Author:  [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)
#### Post date: [July 21, 2026, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-your-tv-remote-has-preprogrammed-buttons-for-streaming-services-how-many-of-them-do-you-use/1031820/12 "2026-07-21T02:24:15Z")
> [@filmore](#):
>
> After it happened the umpteenth time, I shaved the buttons off with an xacto knife.
Whoa! I like the cut of your jib, sir!
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### Author:  [@JohnGalt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnGalt)
#### Post date: [July 21, 2026, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-your-tv-remote-has-preprogrammed-buttons-for-streaming-services-how-many-of-them-do-you-use/1031820/13 "2026-07-21T03:27:31Z")
> [@Nars\_Glinley](#):
>
> I’m most likely to use mine if the TV is turned off because it will turn the TV on and launch the app. It appeals to the sloth in me.
I showed that _turns the TV on and launch the app_ capability to my daughter, and her jaw dropped: “Wow! Mine doesn’t do that.”
Then she went home and called me back immediately. It works on her TV as well. My TV is an LG, and hers is TCL, so this may be an industry-wide capability. I like it.
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### Author:  [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)
#### Post date: [July 21, 2026, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-your-tv-remote-has-preprogrammed-buttons-for-streaming-services-how-many-of-them-do-you-use/1031820/14 "2026-07-21T03:32:52Z")
I have to admit, being a geek, I use my voice to turn mine on. I mean, I went out of my way to register my Firetv’s name as “Viewscreen”. Anytime I want, I bark “Viewscreen, on!” to have it go active.
I am a child at times.
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### Author:  [@filmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmore)
#### Post date: [July 21, 2026, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-your-tv-remote-has-preprogrammed-buttons-for-streaming-services-how-many-of-them-do-you-use/1031820/15 "2026-07-21T04:57:30Z")
> [@JohnGalt](#):
>
> Then she went home and called me back immediately. It works on her TV as well. My TV is an LG, and hers is TCL, so this may be an industry-wide capability. I like it.
Yes, it is an industry standard. It’s called HDMI-CEC. Most HDMI TVs can do it. Sometimes you have to go into settings to enable it. Look for CEC or a setting to control other devices in the settings pages of your TV and external devices.
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### Author:  [@Clawdio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clawdio)
#### Post date: [July 21, 2026, 8:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-your-tv-remote-has-preprogrammed-buttons-for-streaming-services-how-many-of-them-do-you-use/1031820/16 "2026-07-21T08:41:55Z")
The Netflix button is the only one i ever use. We also have an Amazon button but we only ever watched less than a handful of things on Amazon.
As a side tangent, i can’t understand why the UI on every smart TV i’ve ever seen is so unintuitive and awkward to use. The main incentive to use the preprogramed buttons is to avoid dealing the mess of a UI on my smart TV. This was never more apparent than recently when it was time for my mother & father in-law to get a new TV. They are 78 & 82 and trying to explain to them “First push this “Home” button, then if you look REALLY closely, you can kind of tell that one random thing on the screen is highlighted, but if you click the different directions on this weird circle button, your “curser” kind of moves around to another thing that you can barely tell is highlighted, when you find the thing you want, click this other unlabled button in the middle of the circle…” was just a nightmare.
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### Author:  [@zbuzz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zbuzz)
#### Post date: [July 21, 2026, 9:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-your-tv-remote-has-preprogrammed-buttons-for-streaming-services-how-many-of-them-do-you-use/1031820/17 "2026-07-21T09:20:44Z")
> [@Clawdio](#):
>
> As a side tangent, i can’t understand why the UI on every smart TV i’ve ever seen is so unintuitive and awkward to use.
Good UI design is difficult and more expensive and TV manufacturers are cheap. They aren’t going to pay for expert UI designers because the profit margin on TV hardware is already very low. These days, TV manufactures generally make their profits from selling your personal viewing data. That fact means they also have an incentive to make the UI confusing enough that you can’t easily turn off all the tracking.
Since the industry knows they all suck at UIs making for some nice market equilibrium, and since the average consumer is only going to buy a new set every 10 years (or whatever), there isn’t much market pressure for any of them to stand out of the crowd.
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### Author:  [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)
#### Post date: [July 21, 2026, 9:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-your-tv-remote-has-preprogrammed-buttons-for-streaming-services-how-many-of-them-do-you-use/1031820/18 "2026-07-21T09:21:57Z")
> [@ParallelLines](#):
>
> Mine has Prime Video, Prime Music, Netflix and Disney+.
Same. We must have the same remote. I use the buttons quite a lot, but not exclusively.
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### Author:  [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mean_Mr.Mustard)
#### Post date: [July 21, 2026, 9:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-your-tv-remote-has-preprogrammed-buttons-for-streaming-services-how-many-of-them-do-you-use/1031820/19 "2026-07-21T09:49:47Z")
I not only don’t use those buttons, I don’t use that remote. It’s tucked away in the sofa console, retrieved only when something glitchy is going on.
Firestick remote for me.
mmm
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### Author:  [@ZonexandScout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZonexandScout)
#### Post date: [July 21, 2026, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-your-tv-remote-has-preprogrammed-buttons-for-streaming-services-how-many-of-them-do-you-use/1031820/20 "2026-07-21T11:16:30Z")
My Samsung TV remote (BT) has four: Netflix, Samsung TV Plus, Prime Video, and YouTube. I don’t use any of those because I use an external Roku device to stream. My Roku remote (IR) does not have any preprogrammed buttons.
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