Now that Tailscale is available on the Firestick, is there a time frame for being able to add it to my Roku?
Unfortunately Roku does not support VPN apps, so we won’t be able to offer Tailscale for Roku until that changes.
While you can’t directly install a VPN on Roku, you can have a small router or single board computer (like a Raspberry Pi) with Tailscale, that the Roku is connected to and uses as its gateway. For example:
https://www.mattknight.io/blog/routing-roku-tailscale-exit-node
Just replace Roku with a Fire Stick. They’re only $29 and will run the full version of Tailscale for Android instead of having to mess with travel routers or whatever
Can you sideload apps? If so you can grab tailscale from fdroid or pkgs.tailscale.com or the github.
Yes, I know all about using the subnet router to do this. But it makes it difficult when I take my Roku on the road and use it in hotel rooms trying to reach back to my Plex server at home.
No. Too many Rokus already in my house. Plus, I had a Firestick once and didn’t like it.
You can buy a travel router and install Tailscale on it.
You could always ditch the Roku and switch to an Android TV solution. They’ll load the Tailscale app with no issues, AND I’ve found them MUCH easier to get configured on janky hotel captive portals.
And that is what I have done, but that’s just an extra step that I would rather not need to do.
Unfortunately this is a limitation with Roku. You will have to abandon it if you don’t wanna carry around the router. I think there are more benefits carrying the router than not doing it for travels.