op7418/guizang-tv

Try it as an ordinary app first. This is a slim, personal-scale launcher for Xiaomi TVs, not a universal Android TV home-screen replacement; its value and its limits both come from that narrow focus.

The problem

On a Xiaomi TV, the stock home screen pushes a crowded mix of recommendations and app tiles at you. Someone who mainly wants to jump into a console on HDMI 2, open a streaming app, or look at a calm photo background has to navigate that busier surface every time. GuiZang TV replaces that first screen with a large vertical list and a dock: pick the entry with the remote, and on the tested model the PS5 and Apple TV items open specific HDMI inputs directly. The result is fewer steps from power-on to the content you actually use.

What's different

Three design choices are worth knowing. The home screen is keyboard-navigable with arrow keys and remembers the last selected entry; wallpapers can be fixed or rotate every 1, 5, 15 or 30 minutes with a fade, pausing while you leave the launcher. The settings screen brings wallpaper, layout, font, focus style and home-item editing into one place, with a live preview embedded. The mechanism is native Java on Android, and the Xiaomi-specific HDMI calls sit in a single class, so adaptation for another model is a code change rather than a config toggle.

The trade-off is that this is a tailored build. HDMI shortcuts are enabled only on verified models; adding a model name does not make it work. PS5 and Apple TV are labels for HDMI ports you wire and set yourself, not device auto-detection. The project is explicitly aimed at Xiaomi TV MiTV-MTSU0, and the README says the fully tested combination is that TV with a Mac. Wallpaper import happens at build time through a Pillow script, not on the TV.

Who should try it

Good fit: an owner of the tested Xiaomi TV who wants a quieter home screen, a small curated set of entries, and is comfortable installing an APK and possibly using ADB. Bad fit: someone with a different Android TV brand expecting a drop-in launcher, or anyone who wants to manage wallpapers, apps and accounts from the TV itself. The README also documents an optional AI-assisted setup path through AGENTS.md and docs/AI-SETUP.md for other Android devices, Mac, Windows and Linux, but it frames those as adaptation paths, not verified compatibility.

Requirements and limitations

You need an APK install path the TV supports (local install or ADB with debugging enabled) and, for the tested HDMI behavior, the specific model. The app deliberately does not intercept the Home key because tested HyperOS firmware ignores third-party default-launcher choices; booting into it requires a separate experimental option plus a one-time ADB configuration on supported models. Uninstalling ends a plain trial, but once boot-start is configured you must follow the documented disable-and-restore steps, since cached calls or downgrades can change behavior.

Building from source needs JDK 17, Gradle 8.9, Android SDK Platform 34 and Build Tools 34.0.0. The main branch contains default-off weather and Codex experiments that require network, a computer on the same LAN and a Codex login with quota; the v0.3.0 release APK is offline. Custom wallpaper support is build-time only, limited to 1–15 images, and requires rebuilding to change.

HotRepo's take

The project was 4 days old at the 2026-10-25 snapshot, with 233 stars and #9 on the NEW-REPOSITORY board for Java — a new-project ranking, not an overall Trending position. That is a single dated observation; with insufficient daily-board history, persistence cannot yet be judged. Before installing, check the compatibility and verification notes against your exact TV model and firmware.