ToomRamcharan/tv-vibehack

Worth a look if you own an Android TV or Google TV set that shoves sponsored rows and hotkeys at you, and you are comfortable with ADB. Not worth it if you expect a finished installable app or need broad model support.

The problem

Someone in the household just wants the cable box, an HDMI input, or a folder of home videos. Stock Google TV instead opens with sponsored banners and binds remote buttons to subscription services. The friction is both visual and physical: navigating nested menus with a D-pad, and accidentally launching Netflix because a family member pressed the wrong key. The project swaps that entry point for a custom launcher with a small dock, and intercepts the Home key and sponsored buttons so they lead where the user chooses. The result is a simpler homescreen that still falls back to stock when the custom piece is not running.

What's different

Rather than disabling the stock launcher, the project leaves com.google.android.apps.tv.launcherx in place and adds a direct-boot-aware launcher plus a native Accessibility Service. The README explains that on Android 14 Google TV, disabling the stock launcher breaks Direct Boot and can trip Android's RescueParty into a black-screen recovery state, so this design avoids that step entirely. A second piece reverse-engineers Realtek TvContract passthrough URIs, which lets the launcher jump straight to an HDMI input instead of walking through the TV's own menus. The same service remaps hardcoded remote keys (Netflix, Prime Video) to those inputs. The trade-off is that this relies on intercepting key events through an accessibility service and on device-specific passthrough IDs; both are brittle across firmware and brands. There is also a media viewer for USB/internal files, with an FFmpeg transcode step for legacy formats the TV chip cannot decode.

Who should try it

Good fit: a tinkerer setting up a TV for older relatives, who wants a stripped-down home screen and shortcut buttons and is willing to build an APK and run ADB commands. The documented Acer/Realtek example gives a concrete starting point and names the launcher package it targets. Poor fit: anyone who wants to install from a store, or a household where nobody can run adb and rebuild after a firmware update. Owners of non-Realtek TVs should note that the HDMI passthrough code is tied to Realtek input IDs; the README invites contributions for TCL, Sony, Hisense and others, which reads as a request for case studies rather than existing support.

Requirements and limitations

This is not a one-click product. You need ADB access with network debugging, a working Android toolchain to build the launcher, and the ability to enable an accessibility service via settings. The debloat step is model-specific: the README points to profiles under examples/, and disabling packages by hand is on you. The fail-safe claim should be read as the launcher never disabling the stock launcher, not as a guarantee that every ADB command or accessibility setting is harmless. Ongoing upkeep matters: a TV firmware update can change input IDs or keycodes, so the passthrough and hotkey parts need rechecking.

HotRepo's take

HotRepo first recorded this repository on 2026-10-24, when it was about 5 days old; on the 2026-10-25 NEW-REPOSITORY board (Java) it showed 303 total stars at #8. That is a new-project board placement, not a daily-growth measurement, and the stored coverage is too thin to judge persistence. Before relying on it, check whether the documented examples/ profiles and passthrough IDs match your exact TV model and firmware.