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ROXi Premium might be the cheapest way to get karaoke and a microphone in your living room. The mic isn’t particularly powerful and the game selection is limited, but there’s an extensive catalogue of songs and music videos and, with more than 140,000 karaoke tracks to sing along to, you’ll be sure to find a tune you like.
Open social media when Spotify Wrapped and Apple Music Replay drop at the end of each year and you’ll see just how many people subscribe to the music streaming giants. But, there’s one feature these apps are missing: karaoke.
That’s where ROXi comes in. It launched its new ROXi app for smart TVs, packed with playlists, music videos, a game and, most importantly, 140,000 sing-along tracks. It even comes with a free microphone so you belt out your favourite tunes in your living room.
But, is it worth the £6.99 a month to go Premium? And, what’s so special about Karaoke With The Stars?
There are two ways to access ROXi. If your TV is compatible with the app, you can download it from an app store – I tested it out on an Amazon Fire TV Stick and received the free ROXi Karaoke Mic for review. If you don’t have a compatible TV, you’ll need to pick up a ROXi Music Console. Once the app is installed, it’s incredibly easy to navigate.
The interface is dark with headers across each tab, album and playlists. On the left side are tabs such as Playing, Search, Home, Channels, My Music, Karaoke and Games.
The majority of these are self-explanatory, such as Playing, Search, Karaoke and Games. Home offers suggested music videos and channels, while Channels contains generated playlists arranged around specific artists and themes, such as Taylor Swift or ‘Best of the 60s’. My Music, meanwhile, is where you can find your playlists and favourited songs.
As far as navigation is concerned, I found it to be very intuitive and easy to find everything, though I can’t necessarily see myself getting use out of all the tabs, such as the Games tab.
As far as controls go, you can favourite tracks to add them to the My Music tab or add them to a specific playlist by hovering over them with your remote and press and holding the ‘OK’ button.
This button will also show you variations of a particular song, with popular tracks like Bohemian Rhapsody available in a range of different versions. You can also press and hold ‘OK’ over a channel to view all of the songs contained in that playlist.
Finally, there’s the Search tab, which can be used to seek out specific songs, albums and karaoke tracks. ROXi offers voice search too, so you can use it to search for content hands-free. I used voice search with the Fire TV Stick and found the results to be faster than typing and generally very accurate.
ROXi Premium offers a number of upgrades over a standard ROXi subscription, including no ads, unlimited on-demand searches and skips, extended music games – and an extended karaoke catalogue.
One of the biggest selling points for ROXi is its built-in karaoke service. The app allows you to search from an expansive catalogue of 140,000 songs and sing along with the ROXi Karaoke Mic.
Once you select a track, you’ll be faced with a default background with red curtains and bright flared lights and a warning to ‘Get Ready…’. The lyrics will appear, scrolling up the screen with the line you should be singing in the centre, larger and bolder than the rest.
There are two types of karaoke on ROXi – Karaoke With The Stars and what ROXi calls “Classic Karaoke”. Classic Karaoke is the kind you’d find at your local pub, with a huge catalogue of tracks going back a number of decades slapped with the familiar Sunfly logo at the beginning.
Karaoke With The Stars is ROXi’s own attempt at converting songs into karaoke tracks, advertised as a way to duet with your favourite artists. While it does a great job of including some of the most popular hits out now and getting them karaoke-ready, the duet angle essentially allows ROXi to get away with uploading scrolling lyrics without having to bother stripping the original vocals from the backing track.
While this isn’t necessarily a bad thing – especially if you have trouble timing your words – it does seem somewhat lazy. It also leaves the feature pretty much on par with Spotify’s own lyrics mode.
That said, Classic Karaoke offers something more unique and even encompasses different languages – I searched up BTS and found there were a large number of tracks transcribed in Hangul, which is a nice addition.
Another party feature available on ROXi is the Games category – Name That Song. I highlight this not because its the best game, but because it’s the only one I could actually find.
The concept behind the game is simple. You hear a song and select the title you think is playing – if you get it wrong you lose one of your three lives. There are a wide range genres to choose from for Name That Song, meaning you can pick the music style you enjoy most and test your knowledge or choose one you’re less familiar with to challenge yourself.
It can be tough to tell which album you’re selecting as all four images flash as you play the game, which can lead to silly mistakes. However, its a simple and fun party game and the inclusion of a scoreboard means you can challenge friends and family to claim the top spot on your account.
One feature that sets ROXi apart from other music apps (and makes the service feel more like actual karaoke) is the ROXi Karaoke Mic. You can get the microphone free with a ROXi subscription while stocks last.
The mic is wireless and includes a built-in amplifier and speaker so there’s no need to pair it with your TV or any other smart device. This also means you can use multiple mics at a time for duets or group performances. Those will cost you an additional £29.99 a pop (£14.99 if you buy them alongside the trial), and they don’t feel worth that sum for a number of reasons.
It’s not the most powerful microphone. You need to speak directly into the top to get any real effect as it’s relatively quiet. The mic is loud enough to use if you keep the TV volume at a reasonable level, but crank the volume up and there’s the risk of getting drowned out by the backing track.
For this reason, I wouldn’t recommended the mic for anything loud like a party. However, it should suffice for a chill karaoke session with your family at home.
The mic has an echo effect built-in, along with a small slider to adjust it. At its strongest you’ll hear yourself back around ten times and at its weakest it sounds like the mic is hardly working at all. I’d recommend setting it at around 25% in.
The battery in the mic can run for 2.5 hours with a micro USB charger in the box, so don’t expect it to last you a full night.
Overall, the ROXi Karaoke Mic is definitely more of a novelty than a practical addition to ROXi’s karaoke feature. It’s fun to use as a prop and I enjoyed messing around with the echo, but don’t expect it to carry your voice in a crowded room or to last you the whole night.
But, again, your first one is free so it’s difficult to complain with that in mind.
You want a cheap and easy way to get thousands of karaoke tracks on your TV: Not only can you use ROXi to listen to music and watch videos, but the app is also an affordable way to access more than 140,000 karaoke tracks with a Premium subscription priced at just £6.99 a month.
You’re looking to open your own karaoke bar: Many of the newer tracks are Karaoke With The Stars songs, so they aren’t really backing tracks. The free karaoke mic also isn’t nearly strong enough to be heard in a crowded room.
ROXi’s music streaming service delivers on one feature you won’t find from the likes of Spotify and Apple Music – karaoke.
While the ROXi Karaoke Mic isn’t the most powerful microphone on the market, it’s supported by a massive catalogue of karaoke tracks, along with an even more expansive selection of songs, music videos and themed Channels.
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Tested each feature on the ROXi app, including music videos and games
Tried both types of karaoke available through ROXi
Used the free ROXi Karaoke Mic
ROXi is supported on Sky Q, Amazon Fire TV, Android TV, Google TV, Sony Bravia, Panasonic, Philips and NVIDIA Shield, as well as any TV with the ROXi Music Console.
A standard subscription is free, but you can get ROXi Premium for £6.99/month.
You can buy extra microphones from ROXi for £29.99 each, or £14.99 with the trial. Your first mic is free.
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
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