Roku is now one of the top options in today’s market when it comes to smart televisions, streaming devices, and many more. Over the years, it has built a very strong name in the mainstream world, and it has access to many native streaming apps. However, there are still some apps and services that you won’t find on Roku, this is where you have to cast and mirror to Roku from your Android phone.
In this article, I’ll show you how to cast to Roku from your Android phone and also, how to mirror your screen from your Android phone to Roku. With this, you’d be able to use almost all the apps and services that are not available on Roku officially without any issues.
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How to Cast and Mirror to Roku
Below you will see ways to cast and mirror to Roku from your Android phone.
How to Cast to Roku from Your Android Phone
Before showing you how to cast to Roku from your Android phone, we need to talk about casting so you can understand the concept behind it.
Contrary to the common mistakes made, casting and screen mirroring are not the same and they even have some pretty big differences. When you cast from Roku, it is from an app on your phone to the same app on your Roku device.
This works well with YouTube, so you can cast a YouTube video from your phone to the YouTube app on your Roku device. You would be able to control the video from your phone while watching on your television.
When you turn off your phone, the content still keeps on playing on your TV and you would be able to control it from your television now. To cast, the Android app and the Roku app both need to support casting. This keeps a big limitation on what can be shared from your phone to your Roku device.
To cast to Roku from your Android phone, follow the steps below.
Step 1: First, get your Android phone and Roku device on the same network as this is needed before casting can start.
Step 2: Open the app on your phone, and go to watch the content you want to cast, then tap the Cast icon.
Step 3: If more than one Roku device is on the network, you would be asked to select the Roku device you want to cast to.
Step 4: After selecting the device, you are done, and viola, the content from your phone is now being cast on your Roku television.
Casting sometimes can have issues so if your experience with it is not good, I would say you try to mirror to your Roku device from your phone instead.
How to Mirror to Roku from your Android phone
Before showing you how you can mirror to Roku from your Android phone, we first have to know what mirroring is.
When you mirror your screen to your Roku TV, everything on your phone’s screen is going to be displayed as is. This will allow you to display anything on your phone’s screen on the television.
You can use this to share the gameplay of a game you are playing on your phone to your television so everyone can watch it
However, the moment you turn off your phone screen, everything goes away because you can’t mirror a screen that is not on.
To mirror your screen to Roku, follow the steps below.
Step 1: Check if your phone supports this screen mirroring feature. Samsung shows it as Smart View, and Google Pixel and Xiaomi show it as Cast. Once you find it, tap on it.
Step 2: You have to be on the same network as your Roku device, now, on your phone, you will pick the device you want to mirror to if there are multiple devices on the same network.
Step 3: On your Roku screen, a notification will pop up asking you if you want to cast your screen from your phone, select Accept. You can select Always Accept if you would use the same phone to keep screen mirroring later on.
Step 4: Now, your phone’s screen will be mirrored to your Roku device.
With screen mirroring, you can share anything to your Roku device and you don’t need native apps, unlike casting. With screening, you can access apps and services that are not usually available on Roku devices. Apps like Samsung TV Plus, Twitch, and many more can now be viewed on your Roku television thanks to screen mirroring.
Now, we’ve come to the end of this article showing you how to cast and mirror to Roku from your Android phone. You can read our article on how to use Verve card on Google Play Store conveniently.