let's talk about hidden gems on your
roku i've got a bunch of channels to
show you that may or may not pique your
interest but more importantly i'm going
to show you in this video how you can
find your own hidden gems so let's dive
in
[Music]
hey everybody thanks for joining me
today if at the end of this video it's
been helpful or interesting in some way
then don't forget to give it a like i'd
much appreciate that all right so let's
get into some roku hidden gems so what
do i mean by a hidden gem maybe let's
talk about that first a hidden gem would
just be a channel that you might not
think of otherwise you know obviously if
i'm looking at my roku right now right
up top i've got netflix and hbo max and
hulu youtube these are all
apps channels that yeah you've heard of
you know about you probably have on your
own roku device i'm talking about the
ones that are a little less obvious now
there used to be something on roku with
hidden channels literally they weren't
on the app store you had to get a code
to download them
and you could get some interesting
results that way but roku did put an end
to that a few months ago so we're not
talking about those either these are
simply the apps that yeah people aren't
necessarily talking about but that
doesn't mean that they're not
potentially very valuable to you or
entertaining or you know time filling
whatever whatever it is you need out of
your roku apps so in this case i'm going
to scroll down past a lot of these you
know really well known really popular
ones and get down to the the list that i
want to get to today now as i'm doing
that let me remind you i will show you
later how i found all these where i
found all these uh so that you can go
hunt down your own hidden gems and let
us know in the comments what you find
but first let me start here with cnet
okay now cnet may be a channel similar
to our own so why am i highlighting it
well because it's good stuff you know
and why not now there are some caveats
that i'll put in there uh as i turn the
volume down
there are some caveats that i'll put in
here
which is that if you're on the cnet app
in the first couple of categories here
they've got the latest videos they've
got tech today then you're going to get
in these categories some of the more
yeah current things that are going on
but if you keep scrolling down you will
get to some categories with out of date
videos
for example let's see just apple okay so
yeah a lot of apple heads out there want
to keep up with the latest news but hang
on a second what's this
top five unanswered questions about
apple tv plus well that was like two and
a half years ago anyway so my point
being just kind of stick up to the top
with the latest videos the tech today if
you want to get some tech news uh then
the cnet app is a pretty good way to do
that on a daily basis next up is now you
know and this is going to fit into a
category with a few of the other apps
that we've got here today and basically
what we have here is uh it's like a
youtube channel turned into a roku app
which you know is kind of an interesting
way to do things you may or may not
prefer this maybe you just want to go on
youtube and go to that channel you can
do that on your roku as well but a few
of the channels that we have here today
um are kind of that sort of idea it's
like a youtube channel just lifted and
all the content put in one place so now
you know is a great example of this this
is kind of just going through a lot of
different weird questions you know some
science questions some history stuff uh
you know things of that sort uh give you
five to ten minute videos on those
subjects not bad i definitely got sucked
into this one what happened after this
plane's roof blew off at 24 000 feet
that was pretty interesting hollywood
classics is exactly what it sounds like
these are old movies old films that have
hit the public domain so anybody can
access them now but now here they are
all gathered in one location there are a
lot of
apps along these lines i've highlighted
one or two before but i do like this one
it gives you some pretty good titles
here
dust is a similar kind of niche network
and i've highlighted this one a bunch of
times there's a couple on this list that
i have highlighted before dust i really
really like if you enjoy sci-fi content
then dust is right up your alley this is
really well produced generally
generally really well produced
interesting sci-fi shorts they do have
some long-form content some full-length
films
but over the years what i've noticed is
yeah they really concentrate on the
short stuff so if you enjoy sci-fi
videos and you think you might like it
in bite-sized chunks like this
eight-minute video uh 11 minutes here
you know this is this is really really
good stuff i can't recommend it highly
enough if you enjoy sci-fi the lego
channel is one that i will keep
highlighting
as long as i can
just because it's been so valuable in
our own house i've got a couple of kids
and they love lego content so when you
log into the lego app you can see
they've got a lot of different
categories that you can go through
or you can skip right past that screen
and just get everything here on the home
screen so it's got people building legos
it's got lego shows it's got lego
animation all sorts of stuff like that
so yeah if your kids love lego content
here you go how about a couple more kid
or family friendly apps we've got
america's funniest videos clips there's
a couple different versions of this you
can get the spanish language version you
can get the kids version you can get the
pets version uh but yeah america's
funniest videos clips is exactly what it
sounds like you log in here they'll ask
you which version you want you know
english or spanish
and once you're in there
yeah lots and lots of stuff for you to
uh to take a look at i've watched a bit
of afv now and i have yet to run into a
commercial which is nice a lot of these
things are going to be commercial
supported because they're free
roku apps
but not all of them seem to be okay now
we're going to get into a few channels
here that i want to highlight not for
the specific channel but for the way
that you can hunt around for them and
the way that you can find stuff like
this so we have one here called called
aaron's animals all right now i clicked
on this one just kind of at random like
okay let's see what they got it's kind
of animal related skits that this guy
does uh you know again this is one of
those youtube channels turned into a
roku channel uh you know this one
obviously is ad supported but the point
being yeah it's uh it's a little funny
it's a little cheesy it's you know your
kids might love it but maybe you don't
okay so what if you don't i'm gonna show
you how you can get stuff like this okay
so let's go back to our home screen
and
over here on the left now i come down to
streaming channels
and once i go to streaming channels
you'll see if i scroll down just a bit
there's all these different genres that
i can go through so i just went to
animals and pets hey what's in here and
yeah there it is aaron's animals there's
the america's funniest videos animals
etc there is so much animal content on
on roku you guys it's incredible so if
you enjoy animal content you can hunt
around here for your own hidden gem uh
something that you
really enjoy i'm a starcraft player and
that is a picture right out of starcraft
so you know kind of grabs my attention
right and i love cats so
similarly with these other ones okay so
we've got the crochet channel and chess
school uh yeah we can go in here and
take a look at you know what's actually
on these channels fine but you know this
is just basically how to
uh with crochet this grabbed my
attention because uh you can't see it
right above me but i got into cross
stitch a few years ago got really into
cross stitch did a bunch of cross
stitching um and so crocheting it kind
of uh you know grabbed my attention
as you know one of the needle arts right
um or there's chess school okay so this
is basically a guy who breaks down
classic historical chess games um and
kind of does uh
chess coaching so if you're really into
chess there's this okay so maybe you
don't really care about these two
channels well that's okay
my point here is how i got them or how i
found them again i go to streaming
channels come down to here to i think it
was educational
um
and you can find all sorts of stuff
there uh you know obviously you've got
smithsonian channel and ted talks master
class that sort of thing uh but if you
keep going down this is where you're
gonna find a lot of these hidden gems
you keep scrolling down
until you find something that you are
interested in if you know if you're
homeschooling your kids or
if you uh you want to learn french that
would definitely grab my attention learn
the guitar you know you'll see that a
lot of these have pretty low ratings and
so this is the kind of thing where you
have to hunt through and find
uh
you know there's a lot that's hidden but
what are the gems the two that i'm
highlighting here
with the crochet channel and chess
school i'll leave it up to you whether
they are gems or not right that's going
to be up to each individual person but
they're certainly kind of buried in that
list and you got to go hunting for them
so definitely go hunting and let me know
what you find
but the last one i want to highlight for
you is this one cairo 7 seattle this is
a local news channel you may not have
known this but there are hundreds of
local news stations that have their own
roku channels their roku apps and so you
can look around for your own you can
even search for one so if you have your
own local channel that you want to look
for you can come in here and and see if
uh if they happen to have something
let's see if i do my local fox affiliate
fox
13
memphis
uh yeah so yeah there's one in memphis
okay that's not mine but yeah you can
scroll down here there's all sorts of
hey there it is fox 13 news utah yeah
they most of these local channels seem
to have an app like this when you go
into one of those apps
it's going to have live feeds former
feeds you know so if you missed the six
o'clock news this morning you can pop in
and watch
what they aired at six o'clock that sort
of thing popular clips all that and
again to find that i just came over to
streaming channels went to uh news and
weather
and yeah once you're in here there's all
the kind of the national ones the the
bigger ones broader ones i should say
but once you get down here yeah there's
a whole bunch of these local stations so
there you go some hidden gems hopefully
something on that list jumped out and
grabbed your attention maybe an app that
you could enjoy on your roku
but more importantly i hope you figured
out that yeah there's a lot of stuff out
there you just need to go kind of scroll
through and pass some of the bigger name
stuff
to find those other channels these
hidden channels and who knows maybe
you'll find some gems yourself so hit
the comments let me know what you find
some of the hidden gems that you enjoy
that you think other roku viewers would
enjoy as well on your way down there
don't forget to give this video a like
don't forget to subscribe if you enjoy
stuff like this because we do this all
the time so thanks for joining me today
everybody and i will see you every
friday at 2 p.m for the live streams
that we do on this channel have fun see
you there