Homestead 1.6.14

Three tiles that did nothing now help, a duplicate Prime Video tile is gone, and Debloat no longer switches Prime Video off.

• Fire TV Profile and Amazon Kids: Fire OS only lets its own apps open these screens, so the tiles did nothing. They now open your TV's Settings and briefly show where to go: Account & Profile Settings, then Profiles or Kids Settings.
• What Should I Watch: there is no screen to open for this one, so the tile now shows a short hint to ask Alexa instead.
• A second Prime Video tile named "FireTV Player" did nothing when pressed. It is a helper app Amazon installs alongside Prime Video, with no screen of its own, so Homestead now leaves it off the home screen whenever the Prime Video app is there.
• Debloat listed Prime Video's package (com.amazon.firebat) as a diagnostic test harness and marked it safe, so "Switch off everything marked safe" and the first-run cleanup could switch Prime Video off. It is now listed as Prime Video, under Extras, and marked caution. If Prime Video stopped opening after using Debloat, switch it back on from its row in Debloat.

New to Homestead? See the 1.0 release for install steps and what has been tested.

SHA-256 of homestead.apk: b90dd10b2441443bfbb28f7e880974272d065a352492319ebc3f2379c77274e1

Homestead 1.6.13

The AirPlay tile now opens your TV's Settings.

• Fire OS only lets its own Settings open the AirPlay screen, so the AirPlay tile couldn't launch it directly and did nothing. It now opens your TV's Settings and briefly shows where to go: Display & Sounds, then Apple AirPlay and HomeKit.

Tested on an Insignia Fire TV Edition (Fire OS 7): the tile opens Settings and the hint appears.

New to Homestead? See the 1.0 release for install steps and what has been tested.

SHA-256 of homestead.apk: 127d10ce5958267d7522ba026a06a9beb2f97d4c00856e32ac14d23dc1f6152c

Homestead 1.6.12

A fix for the name under a focused banner.

• The name shown under a focused TV app banner no longer ends up hidden behind the row below it after moving around the home screen, which happened most often after moving up.

Thanks to Reaper8351 for reporting it, with a video.

Tested on an Insignia Fire TV Edition (Fire OS 7): moving down, back up and down again, the name stays on top every time.

New to Homestead? See the 1.0 release for install steps and what has been tested.

SHA-256 of homestead.apk: 777d41b63cf405f21566598012fe4e27747ea14afb2147ee1b59931d61ba3c38

Homestead 1.6.11

Amazon's launcher can be switched off, and TV Health leaves your screensaver alone.

• Debloat can now switch off Amazon's launcher itself, on TVs where Home would then come straight to Homestead. It is marked risky, takes two presses, and is never part of the one-press buttons or Simple mode. On Fire OS 7 the row stays locked, because Home would otherwise open nothing. Switch it back on before you uninstall Homestead.
• A firmware update can switch packages back on. With "Warn if the system undoes Debloat" on (Settings, under System, off by default), the home screen shows a tile for ten seconds offering to switch them off again.
• TV Health keeps a screensaver you picked. Only Amazon's ad screensaver is flagged, and "Apply all" no longer rewrites settings that are already fine.
• TV Health now wants the animator duration at 1. Below 1, the Amazon home menu's Settings and Inputs stop working on Fire OS 8. A TV already at 0.5 is flagged, and pressing the row sets it to 1.
• Pressing a single TV Health row no longer leaves it stuck on "working...".

Thanks to johndu30160 and giu-napoletano29.

Tested on an Insignia Fire TV Edition (Fire OS 7): the TV Health animator row, and the restore tile (appears, slides out after ten seconds, OK switches the package off again). Switching Amazon's launcher off and back on, with Home going straight to Homestead after a reboot, was tested by a contributor on a TCL Fire TV (Fire OS 14).

New to Homestead? See the 1.0 release for install steps and what has been tested.

SHA-256 of homestead.apk: ff827c3d46226dc6ebaeffc7517602d5dc51dfce017f70282500f8260d55da0e

Homestead 1.6.10

A small fix for the new greeting and date.

• With the greeting or the date switched on (Settings → Home screen), the rows now scroll underneath them instead of drawing over them. With both off, nothing changes.

Thanks to the contributor who found and fixed it.

Tested on an Insignia Fire TV Edition (Fire OS 7): with the greeting and date on and off, scrolled to the bottom and back, and that settings are kept after updating.

New to Homestead? See the 1.0 release for install steps and what has been tested.

SHA-256 of homestead.apk: f7e991fa3cd0a528a64a492d006df8f5af926243b9ea4f433147248f586f7f3d

Homestead 1.6.9

New backgrounds, a few optional home screen extras, and smoother movement.

• Three new backgrounds: Ember and Deep sea, dark with a soft glow, and Night, a flat dark navy. Find them in Settings → Background. Your current background doesn't change.
• Optional extras on the Settings → Home screen page, all off until you switch them on:
  • a greeting ("Good morning", "Good afternoon" or "Good evening") at the top left
  • the date under it, as the weekday and month or in short numbers, in your TV's language
  • non-TV apps as wide tiles, the way Fire TV's own home shows them
  • Fire TV's own icons for the Amazon Home, Settings and TV Health tiles
• Smoother focus: the selected tile now grows smoothly instead of jumping, and a TV app's name appears under its banner while it is selected.
• With Live TV first on, the large Live TV tile now shows the antenna icon too.

Thanks to the contributors who sent most of these in.

Tested on an Insignia Fire TV Edition (Fire OS 7): every new option switched on and off, the new backgrounds, and that your settings are kept after updating.

New to Homestead? See the 1.0 release for install steps and what has been tested.

SHA-256 of homestead.apk: 7f45771d94fedef4e7e758d3b7588b95d1dc21cb7fae350423afe73a3610c4ef

Homestead 1.6.8

A nicer way to choose the background.

• The Background page (Settings → Background) now lists every colour and the photo option, each with a small sample, and marks the one in use. Pick one and it applies right away, instead of pressing through the options one at a time.
• The background is now remembered by name. This is groundwork so new colours can be added later without changing the background you already picked. Your current background and the default are unchanged.

Tested on an Insignia Fire TV Edition (Fire OS 7): presets, the photo option, and that an existing choice is kept after updating.

New to Homestead? See the 1.0 release for install steps and what has been tested.

SHA-256 of homestead.apk: 5fba4bbdbe07c1a1e7430fb8315fa04434011d13dd24d08e8b35d728942d19c7

Homestead 1.6.7

A small home-screen touch for TV inputs, contributed by johndu30160. Thank you!

• Each input card now shows a line icon above its name (an antenna for Live TV, a plug for HDMI, the right one for composite), and a "connected" tag appears under the name when a device is switched on and connected to that input. The tag follows a cable being plugged in or out without leaving the home screen.

Tested on an Insignia Fire TV Edition (Fire OS 7) and a Xiaomi Fire TV Edition (Fire OS 8).

New to Homestead? See the 1.0 release for install steps and what has been tested.

SHA-256 of homestead.apk: c80739894509f6f435ecd55989cb65b100d232fd1c3a29a98e0e2c7ca87a221e

Homestead 1.6.6

More fixes for TV inputs, and a couple of home-screen touches.

• Fixed: opening a TV input now stops sound from other apps, the way Amazon's own input viewer does. A short sound over it, such as Alexa answering, briefly lowers the input instead of talking over it.
• Fixed: the screen no longer goes to the screensaver while a TV input is showing a picture. A game controller or a disc player's remote does not count as activity to the TV, so the screensaver used to start mid-game. Reported by Reaper8351.
• Fixed: pressing the volume buttons in the moment after Home no longer makes Amazon's home screen flash up.
• Fixed: on the home screen, pressing left on the first tile of a row, or the large Live TV tile, no longer jumps down to another row.
• The navigation "click" now plays when moving along the inputs and non-TV rows, like it already did on the app grid.

Tested on an Insignia Fire TV Edition (Fire OS 7) with a game console on HDMI.

New to Homestead? See the 1.0 release for install steps and what has been tested.

SHA-256 of homestead.apk: d975861da567897a5b08d04715a0a2242b387c9441f7d983c6baeca3ba193b1c

Homestead 1.6.5

A fix for inputs with no sound.

• Fixed: HDMI and the other inputs opened from Homestead's tiles showed the picture but had no sound. Homestead's input viewer never told the TV what volume to play the input at, so the TV played it silent. It now asks for full volume. Reported by Reaper8351.

Tested on an Insignia Fire TV Edition (Fire OS 7) with a game console on HDMI.

New to Homestead? See the 1.0 release for install steps and what has been tested.

SHA-256 of homestead.apk: a60441a09d9d497094ca5dba40489de6494f3b0d55cde4b4fc78960443132112