Lawsuit Accuses Roku, TCL of 'Bricking' TVs with Defective Software Updates
More than 1,387 readers told Tom's Guide they had update problems, while Roku said the claims in the lawsuit are meritless.
- Plaintiff Terri Else filed a class-action lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California on March 27, 2026, accusing Roku Inc. and TTE Technology Inc. of distributing defective software updates.
- The lawsuit claims automatic updates are "repetitively defective," causing screen blackouts and rendering devices inoperable, while allegedly violating express warranties that promise to repair software failures.
- In a Tom's Guide poll of over 2,000 readers, 1,387 users reported experiencing issues with software updates on Roku-powered TCL TVs, while nearly 600 said they had no problems.
- A Roku spokesperson responded that the company believes "the claims are meritless," while TCL North America stated it "doesn't make comments on impending lawsuits."
- Court records show the lawsuit remains open with no hearings scheduled, though Attorney Daniel Karon noted the plaintiff may struggle to prove sufficient scale for class-action status.
17 Articles
17 Articles
Roku and TCL face lawsuit over software updates that allegedly brick smart TVs
The lawsuit alleges that a series of updates pushed to certain Roku-powered TVs introduced recurring issues that, in some cases, rendered the devices unusable. The models named include Roku Select Series and Roku Plus Series sets, along with TCL's 3-, 4-, 5-, and 6-series TVs running Roku OS.Read Entire Article
Proposed class action accuses Roku of bricking users' TVs with bad updates
A couple of major TV brands are now at the center of a class-action lawsuit.A plaintiff named Terri Else proposed a class-action suit in California against TCL and Roku, per CNET. The specific accusation here is that Roku and TCL push software updates to their TVs that make the devices defective without any kind of a fix.Roku has denied the claims in Else's complaint.While Roku is primarily known as a manufacturer of streaming devices, it does m…
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