Enlarge /. The 2017 Roku Ultra, which continues to be supported by the latest Hulu app.
Several older Roku devices will lose access to the latest Hulu app on June 24, 2020. The subscription-based streaming service announced this with an update of its support pages. According to the Hulu documentation, users of the affected devices see messages such as "Hulu is no longer supported on this device" or simply "Your user session has expired".
Affected devices are the Roku Streaming Stick models 3420 or earlier and the Roku Streaming Player models 2400 to 3100. Owners of Roku devices can navigate in the Info area under Settings in the Roku user interface to determine which model they have.
The sticks and players were already limited to using the "classic" Hulu app instead of the modern one. The classic app has a number of limitations, particularly the lack of live TV support. With this change, however, it appears that users of these models will no longer be able to access Hulu after the end of the support date.
Neither Roku nor Hulu has this problem at the end of the street. HBO recently announced that it will discontinue support for older Apple TVs. However, the company postponed the date amid the COVID-19 pandemic when affected users complained that it was a sub-optimal time to get them to buy a new device to enjoy home entertainment.
The affected Roku players were introduced in 2012 and earlier and have not been sold for a long time. According to the Hulu documentation, these were the only Roku devices that weren't supported by the modern app. Therefore, Roku is likely to end software support for this version of the classic app. Hulu is currently listing the following devices as those supported by the modern app. Users can therefore assume that they will continue to be supported for a while:
- Roku Ultra
- Roku Premiere and Premiere +
- Roku Express and Express +
- Roku 3 and 4
- Roku 2 (model 4210)
- Roku Streaming Stick (model 3500 or higher)
- Roku TV
- 4K Roku TV
In December, Hulu announced that newer Roku devices are getting 4K and 5.1 audio, so modern devices like the Roku Ultra and Roku TVs will continue to be actively supported – although it's worth noting that the newly added 4K support comes after a long and frustrating saga for Roku came to users.
