BeatsAD/quiet-tv

If your TV's factory launcher is cluttered with recommendations and you want a calmer, customizable home screen without flashing firmware, Quiet TV is worth a cautious look — but treat default-launcher takeover as unverified on most hardware.

The problem

On many Chinese-market Android TVs, the stock home screen buries the apps you actually use under ad panels and feeds, and the remote becomes a navigation chore. Owners who want a clean dock, a custom wallpaper or a different launcher often end up digging through ADB—or rooting and flashing. Quiet TV installs as an ordinary APK and presents a native Android home screen with up to five pinned apps, a five-column all-apps grid and a wallpaper picker, so the daily routine changes from scrolling a promotional home screen to pressing the remote on a chosen app.

What's different

The distinct part is the split between harmless personalization and system-changing operations. Dock editing, sorting, launcher settings and wallpapers do not require ADB, while enabling, disabling and uninstalling apps need separate authorization and act per device capability. System components stay read-only; disabling keeps app data while uninstalling removes it. First-run setup offers trial use, setting Quiet TV as default, or restoring the original launcher, and firmware-unsupported operations are disabled with a hint about alternatives.

A second difference is the honesty of the compatibility record. The README says installation success or a correct HOME query does not prove the home button, cold boot, restart or standby wake behave properly, and it lists unresolved reports such as a "cannot be home on user 0" failure. The development source has an experimental launcher guardian that watches the original home identity and tries to restore on boot and notification events, without reading screen or notification content; it is not in the released build, so the current release should not be judged by it.

Smaller conveniences: 5-minute wallpaper rotation, QR upload from a phone on the same LAN, and separate ordering for favorites and all apps. App management lives under All Apps → App Management. Experimental Xiaomi and Coocaa shims are kept separately and should not be assumed to work on your TV.

Who should try it

A good fit is an Android TV owner who mainly wants a cleaner, ad-free home screen, a handful of pinned apps, and the ability to disable a preloaded app or two while keeping the stock launcher as a fallback. They should be willing to read compatibility notes and report their model.

A poor fit is anyone who needs home-button and boot behavior to be predictable across brands, or who expects the built-in ADB client to overcome firmware that grays out USB debugging or blocks pairing. The README states there is no universal unlock, so those users should not start here.

Requirements and limitations

You need firmware that permits a third-party launcher and a way to switch the default home app. Because manufacturers may restore the stock launcher at boot or launch it from the home button, one Sony sample does not generalize; the screenshots come from a single Sony TV running 1.1.2/34 and do not represent other models.

The released build also lacks a verified takeover: the guardian exists only in source, and the README says real-remote home key, restart, cold boot, standby and source switching remain unaccepted on manufacturer TVs. Startup-ad rules have no real-device acceptance either, so unsupported devices are view-only. Keep a record of the original launcher and check the installation guide and compatibility notes before committing. An AI-tool skill and a manual APK path are both documented install routes.

HotRepo's take

HotRepo logged this six-day-old repository at 77 total stars and #25 on the NEW-REPOSITORY board (java) on 2026-10-25 — a dated snapshot on a new-project board, not a daily growth figure. With one recorded date, persistence cannot be judged. Before installing, verify that the compatibility issue lists your TV model with confirmed home-key and reboot behavior, not just a successful install.