tv-detox
Make an old, slow Android TV fast again.
Claude Code or Codex does the work. You just press OK on the remote.
| 🧹 Removes the junk Bloatware, ads and sponsored rows, gone. |
📺 A calm home screen Your apps, your HDMI inputs and a clock. Nothing else. |
↩️ Undo anytime Apps are turned off, never deleted. |
Watch it work
▶ Claude Made My Old Android TV Feel Brand New · the full setup on a real TV, in 4 minutes.
Get started
1. Turn on developer mode on the TV. Settings → Device Preferences → About → press Build 7 times. Then turn on USB debugging in Developer options. Stuck?
2. Open Claude Code or Codex on your laptop. The laptop and TV must be on the same Wi-Fi.
3. Paste this in.
Help me clean up my Android TV and make it faster.
My TV is a <brand and model>.
1. Connect to my TV over Wi-Fi. Walk me through anything
I need to tap on the TV.
2. Before changing anything, list every app in plain English:
safe to turn off, needed by the TV, and apps I use.
Check free memory.
3. Ask me before every change. Turn apps off instead of
deleting them. Never turn off Google Play, the keyboard,
Bluetooth or my HDMI inputs. Keep a list of what you
changed and how to undo it.
4. Install the home screen: download
https://github.com/Ansub/tv-detox and run its
install.sh with my TV and these apps: <your apps>.
5. Turn off animations and the screensaver, and make the TV
sleep after 5 minutes.
6. Restart the TV and show me free memory before and after.
That's it. It asks you before every change.
[!NOTE] This is what worked for us, not professional advice. Use it at your own risk. You're responsible for your own TV, and I'm not liable if something goes wrong.
Help
How do I turn on developer mode?
- On the TV, open Settings, then Device Preferences (or System), then About.
- Press OK on Build 7 times until you see "You are now a developer."
- Go back, open Developer options and turn on USB debugging. If you see Network debugging or Wireless debugging, turn that on too.
- The first time your laptop connects, the TV asks "Allow debugging?" Tick "Always allow" and press Allow.
Menus differ a bit by brand. If you're stuck, ask Claude or Codex: "I have a <brand and model> TV. How can you connect to it from my laptop and take control of it?"
Which TVs does it work on?
Android TV 9 (a real TV), 11 and 12, and Google TV 14. Every change is tested automatically on emulators.
Can I do this on a Fire TV, Roku, Samsung or LG?
- Amazon Fire TV: partly. Fire TV is Android underneath, so the cleanup works. Amazon blocks changing the home screen on current Fire TVs, so you keep Amazon's. Tell Claude what you want to keep, like Alexa voice search on the remote.
- Roku: no. Roku runs its own system, not Android, so nothing can connect to it to turn things off.
- Samsung (Tizen): no, for the same reason.
- LG (webOS): no. You can still cut down the ads by turning off Home Promotion and Content Recommendation in the TV's home settings.
If your TV or streaming box runs Android TV or Google TV, it should work. That includes many Sony, TCL, Hisense, Philips and Xiaomi TVs, Chromecast with Google TV and Nvidia Shield. Some of those brands also sell Roku or other non-Android models, so check Settings > About if you're not sure.
What about projectors or Android phones?
- Android projectors: probably. If it has Developer options and USB debugging, the cleanup should work. Cheap projectors often run a custom Android, so the home screen may act a bit differently.
- Android phones: only the cleanup. The home screen is made for a TV remote, not touch.
Anything to watch out for on Chromecast with Google TV?
It runs the same Google TV this is tested on, so it should work. People who've done it report two things:
- The YouTube button on the remote can stop working, and some lose casting. Tell Claude to keep casting on if you use it.
- Google TV can bring its own home screen back. If that happens, ask Claude to turn off Google TV's home screen and its setup app too.
The Claude app says it can't reach my TV
The chat in the Claude app (and claude.ai) runs on Anthropic's servers, not on your laptop, so it can't see your TV. You need something that runs on your own laptop: Claude Code or Codex.
Don't want to pay for either? Skip the AI and use install.sh instead (see "Can I install the home screen without AI?" below).
Can I do it from my phone, without a laptop?
Not yet. Claude has to run on a computer on the same network as your TV. A phone hotspot is fine as that network, as long as the laptop and TV both join it.
My TV is on Ethernet, not Wi-Fi
That works the same. Your laptop talks to the TV over its IP address on your home network, so cable or Wi-Fi doesn't matter. The laptop just has to be on the same network. You'll find the TV's IP in its network settings, or ask Claude to find it.
Can I just do the cleanup and keep my TV's home screen?
Yes. Leave out step 4 of the prompt ("Install the home screen"). Your TV looks the same, just with the junk turned off.
Why not just use Projectivy Launcher?
You can. The cleanup is the part that makes the TV faster, and it works with any home screen. This one is here if you want something tiny and open source: one screen, no ads, no account, about 30 MB of RAM.
The TV still opens Live TV or HDMI when it turns on
That's a TV setting, not this home screen. Ask it: "My TV opens Live TV at startup instead of the home screen. Find that setting and turn it off."
Can I install the home screen without AI?
Yes. You only need adb. On a Mac, run brew install android-platform-tools. On Windows, download Google's SDK Platform Tools, unzip it, and run the commands below from Git Bash. Download this repo, then:
sh install.sh <TV_IP> # picks your TV apps for you
sh install.sh <TV_IP> "com.netflix.ninja,com.hulu.livingroomplus" # or choose them
Most TVs keep opening their own home screen, so the script offers to turn that off. Nothing is uninstalled.
How do I change the apps on the home screen?
Use the remote. Hold OK on an app (or press Menu) to:
- Move it: use the arrows to slide it to a new spot, then press OK to finish.
- Replace it: pick another app to take its place.
- Remove it from the home screen. The app stays installed, and you can add it back any time.
To add an app, pick the Add app tile in the bottom row. Add as many apps as you like: they wrap into rows of six, and the page scrolls once there are more than twelve. Your changes are kept until you run install.sh with a new app list.
How do I undo it?
sh undo.sh <TV_IP>
This turns your TV's own home screen back on and removes this one. To undo the cleanup too, ask Claude or Codex to reverse everything on its list.
For developers: build it yourself
- Put your default apps in
apps.txt(package names, one per line). You can also pass them toinstall.shinstead. - Install Java 17 and the Android SDK. On a Mac:
brew install openjdk@17 brew install --cask android-commandlinetools sdkmanager "platforms;android-34" "build-tools;34.0.0" sh build.sh, thensh install.sh <TV_IP>installs your build instead of the release.sh ci/smoke-test.sh <TV_IP or emulator>checks it all works.
HDMI inputs are found on their own. Keep key.jks, which is made on your first build: updates must be signed with the same key.
It's one screen of plain Java, no libraries, no Gradle. The background is drawn once, the only animation is the focus lift, and it uses about 30 MB of RAM.
