cleanyour.tv · The prompt · 54 TV lists · 12 built on it · The tweet

Strip the bloatware from any Android TV or Google TV over Wi-Fi, and replace the ad-filled home screen with a clean launcher that looks like an Apple TV. No root, no cable, nothing uninstalled, and a one-line restore if you change your mind.

Vibe coded my parents' TV this afternoon! It was showing a sponsored ad before you could even get to Netflix. Gave Claude Code the model number, it found the TV on wifi, removed 25 Xiaomi packages and wrote a new launcher. Looks like an Apple TV now lol.

@gathint, 17 October 2026. The replies are where most of the TV lists here came from. The repo was called tv-vibehack until the 19th; old links work.

Android TVs have the same debug bridge as Android phones. Switch on USB debugging in the TV's developer options, allow your computer once, and the rest is standard Android tooling:

1. Back up the list of installed packages and settings.
2. Disable the manufacturer's telemetry, ad services, content rows and preloaded junk with pm disable-user. Nothing is uninstalled, so a restore script can undo every step.
3. Install a small native launcher and make it the default home screen.

The bloat differs by brand, so the prompt has your coding assistant discover it on your TV and ask before touching anything you might use.

You need a computer on the same Wi-Fi as the TV and a coding assistant with shell access (Claude Code or similar).

The assistant backs up, debloats, builds and installs the launcher, and checks each step with screenshots pulled from the TV. With this repo as context it takes about fifteen minutes.

• A pitch-black home with a dock of your four favourite apps in a rounded band, where Apple TV puts it.
• A top shelf naming the focused app in large type, with an ambient glow in a colour taken from its artwork.
• The rest of your apps in a grid that slides up when you press Down.
• One floating glass highlight that springs from tile to tile. The focused tile lifts and shows its name.
• Three frosted buttons: Inputs (HDMI ports, AV, Live TV), Wi-Fi or Ethernet with the network name, Settings.
• A greeting, a thin clock and the date in Outfit, and a matching Clock screensaver.
• Themes that change colours, wallpaper, dock and columns without a rebuild, and module cards that let other apps plug a tile in, only with your say-so.

And a TV that stops working against you: no sponsored rows, no "Discover" nags, no analytics phoning home, no apps you never asked for.

Top shelf and ambient glow	Inputs: HDMI with connection state, AV, Live TV
The grid, one glass highlight, the tile's name	Clock screensaver, drifts so nothing burns in
Aurora theme, pushed with tools/theme.sh	Six columns and a six-app dock, same launcher

Anything running Android TV or Google TV. Samsung (Tizen) and LG (webOS) run different systems; see SHOWCASE.md for a webOS port. Fire TV takes the debloat half only, since Fire OS will not hand Home to a third-party launcher. A few China-market TCL sets refuse to install any launcher at all; their lists say so in the header.

Tested lists from contributors, one folder per model in examples/:

Xiaomi 12 · TCL 11 · Sony 8 · CHiQ 2 · Hisense 2 · Philips 2 · Amazon Fire TV Stick · BenQ · Chromecast with Google TV · Hitachi · Insignia Fire TV · NVIDIA Shield · OnePlus · Panasonic · RCA · Redmi · SANYO · Skyworth · Thomson · Toshiba Fire TV · Vu · Stellamore and XGIMI projectors

Your TV not here? The prompt discovers the bloat itself. Add your list afterwards and the next person with your model skips that step: CONTRIBUTING.md.

Everything the assistant does, you can run yourself. The tools need Python 3 and nothing else.

python3 -m venv tools/venv && tools/venv/bin/pip install -r tools/requirements.txt
export TV_HOST=192.168.1.50                                   # your TV's IP address

tools/venv/bin/python -I tools/tv.py --probe                 # model, Android version, firmware
tools/venv/bin/python -I tools/tv.py 'pm list packages'      # one shell command on the TV
tools/disable.sh examples/xiaomi-mi-tv-4a/debloat.txt        # apply a debloat list
tools/restore.sh examples/xiaomi-mi-tv-4a/debloat.txt        # undo it, stock launcher back
TV_HOST=192.168.1.50 launcher/build-and-install.sh           # build the launcher and make it Home
tools/theme.sh themes/aurora                                 # push a theme; --reset removes it

Debloat list paths passed to disable.sh and restore.sh are relative to the directory you run from, so your own lists can live outside the repository. Absolute paths also work.

Every script has a PowerShell twin next to it. On Windows with Android Studio installed nothing else is needed:

python -m venv tools\venv; tools\venv\Scripts\python.exe -m pip install -r tools\requirements.txt
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File launcher\build-and-install.ps1 -TvHost 192.168.1.50
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File tools\disable.ps1 -TvHost 192.168.1.50 examples\xiaomi-mi-tv-4a\debloat.txt

The install scripts ask the TV which launcher owns Home and only disable one they recognise (tvlauncher or launcherx); pass STOCK_LAUNCHER=<package> (-StockLauncher) to override, or none to leave it alone.

A small native Android TV app (com.gathin.tvhome, about 280 KB installed) in plain Java with AndroidX RecyclerView and nothing heavier. Built for sets with 1 GB of RAM: no blur, no video, no network, no background services. It needs JDK 17 and Android SDK platform 34 to build; on macOS, brew install openjdk@17 android-commandlinetools and sdkmanager "platforms;android-34" "build-tools;34.0.0". On Linux the install script finds ~/Android/Sdk and the java on your PATH.

• Configure in config.xml: dock order, hidden apps, the Live TV package, columns (tiles shrink from 5 up), rows under the dock, an optional VPN app for the network pill, and reduced_motion for TVs whose GPU cannot keep up.
• Themes set the same keys plus a background colour and a wallpaper from a config.json pushed to the TV, no rebuild. Three ship in themes/, documented there.
• Language follows the TV: English, German, Spanish, Catalan, French, Russian, Serbian (Latin), Polish, Arabic, Simplified Chinese, Thai, Turkish. Android 13+ can set it for the launcher alone: tools/tv.py 'cmd locale set-app-locales com.gathin.tvhome --locales ca'. Russian includes the module-card approval and management screens and the VPN-off badge.
• Module cards let any TV app declare its own tile (label, caption, glow). The launcher asks you once per app, Keep hidden by default, and remembers the answer for that app's signing key and card name. Hold OK on Settings to change your mind. How to make one: docs/modules.md; the contract: docs/specs/card.md.
• Clock screensaver: a drifting clock over the glow, so nothing burns in. Pick "Clock" in the TV's screensaver settings, or over ADB: tools/tv.py 'settings put secure screensaver_components com.gathin.tvhome/.ClockDream; settings put secure screensaver_enabled 1'
• Remote keys: an optional accessibility service keeps the remote's Input button working on Google TV (INPUT_KEY_SERVICE=1 at install), another fixes sticks whose Home key sends ALL_APPS and opens Settings from the remote's gear button, even one Android does not map (HOME_KEY_SERVICE=1, scancodes in config.xml).
• Navigation is deliberate: Up and Down move one row, the top buttons never fall through to tiles and Down from them returns to the dock tile you came from, the last focused app is remembered, and installing or removing an app refreshes the tiles while Home is open.
• Artwork: app banners load at xhdpi or better, so low-density TV UIs do not downsample them before the focus zoom.

Keep the list you applied. The restore script re-enables exactly those packages, puts the stock launcher back as Home and resets the animation scales:

TV_HOST=192.168.1.50 tools/restore.sh examples/<your tv>/debloat.txt                                    # Android TV
TV_HOST=192.168.1.50 tools/restore.sh examples/<your tv>/debloat.txt com.google.android.apps.tv.launcherx  # Google TV

It leaves the new launcher installed (remove it from the TV's Settings → Apps if you want it gone) and does not know about packages you disabled outside the list. To switch back later, run the install script again; it works out which launcher to disable even when Home has fallen back to Android's chooser. If the TV is unreachable, its own Settings → Apps page can re-enable packages too.

The full list of things that bit us is in docs/TROUBLESHOOTING.md. The three that matter most:

• macOS blocks adb connect ("No route to host") under Local Network privacy. tools/tv.py avoids the binary.
• Disable the stock launcher only after the new one is installed and running, or Home lands on a factory test app. The install script orders this for you.
• On Google TV the setup wizard (com.google.android.tungsten.setupwraith) can take Home and crash-loop the system after the stock launcher is disabled. Disable it too, and list it in your debloat.txt so restore brings it back. Stuck already? tools/tv.py 'pm enable --user 0 com.google.android.apps.tv.launcherx'.

Is this safe? Can it brick the TV? Nothing is flashed, rooted or deleted; packages are disabled in the user profile. The risk is disabling something the TV leans on, which is why lists are applied in small batches with a restore script ready. The TV's own Settings → Apps page can re-enable packages even without the tools.

What about firmware updates? Most lists disable the update service, so updates arrive only when you re-enable it. If one lands, the worst case is a package coming back and you re-run the script.

Won't the apps break? Streaming apps still update through the Play Store, which is left alone. The launcher just lists what is installed and launches it with intents that have been stable for a decade.

Isn't ADB access a security hole? It is one explicit "allow this computer" tap on the TV, the same as developing an Android app. Switch USB debugging off afterwards; the launcher keeps working.

Can it block ads inside apps too? Partly, with Android's Private DNS (Android 9 and newer). Point it at an ad-blocking resolver such as AdGuard DNS and every app's ad and tracker domains stop resolving, system-wide, surviving reboots. The trade-off: that resolver then sees every DNS query the TV makes.

tools/tv.py 'settings put global private_dns_specifier dns.adguard-dns.com'
tools/tv.py 'settings put global private_dns_mode hostname'

It does not remove YouTube ads, which come from the same servers as the videos. If an app stops playing or the TV reports "No internet" (the resolver is down or unreachable), switch back with tools/tv.py 'settings put global private_dns_mode opportunistic'.

AirPlay? Not from this repo. Chromecast built-in stays for Android phones. For iPhones, jqssun/android-airplay-server works; an install script for it is in PR #84.

Can I just download the APK? Build it with the one-line script; it takes a minute and you control what goes on your TV. No prebuilt binaries.

The most useful contribution is your TV's debloat list, so the next person with that model does not have to rediscover it. Launcher improvements and sharper prompt wording are welcome too. CONTRIBUTING.md has the format and the testing we ask for. Built something on top, a launcher, a port, a theme? Add it to SHOWCASE.md, where eleven projects already live: a webOS port for LG, a Stremio shelf, a Hisense restyle, Fire TV launchers, an AirPlay installer.

The people whose work is in this repo:

MIT, see LICENSE. The Outfit typeface is under the SIL Open Font License, see launcher/FONT-LICENSE-OFL.txt.