TCL and Roku sued for allegedly bricking TVs with updates

A number of TV owners have filed a class action lawsuit against TCL and Roku, claiming a software update broke their TVs.

The suit alleges that both companies knowingly sold TVs with software defects, which would slowly make the TV impossible to use correctly. According to the suit, neither company disclosed the problems, and instead claimed that software updates would make the TVs even better to use.

Suit centers around cheaper Roku and TCL TVs

The lawsuit, titled Else v. Roku, Inc., et al., has been filed in California, and it accuses the pair of companies of essentially cutting corners and failing to make sure updates were of sufficient quality before shipping them out.

"Roku’s software updates are repetitively defective, materially impairing the functionality of Roku products, rendering many consumers’ televisions either entirely unusable (‘bricked’), blacked out or otherwise substantially degraded in terms of device performance," a lawyer acting on behalf of the claimant said.

According to the dates of purchase specified in the lawsuit, the TVs in question were not very old, with the purchase dates being between December 16, 2024 and today. That means they aren't claiming much older TVs don't have the oomph to go the distance.

The TV's falling under this class action lawsuit include the Roku Select Series, Roku Plus Series and TCL 3/4/5/6 Series Roku TVs. On the whole, it seems to be the cheaper end of the market, so it's clear the claimants believe TCL and Roku cut corners in order to be profitable.

At the moment, it seems as if the suit isn't asking for the world. It just wants the money back for the sold TVs, and for there to be a solution in place to ensure this doesn't happen again.

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Claims that software updates have broken devices is nothing new, but it's less rare to see a lawsuit going after a company for doing so. In fairness, it's more usual to see this sort of claim happen to a device that's reaching the end of its lifespan, rather than year-old TVs, so it's easy to see why people might be more likely to point at this as an issue.