CleanYourTV

You spend thousands of dollars to buy a TV, but you have to watch ads first when you turn it on? Moreover, the complex operation is very unfriendly to the elderly at home. Recently, a big boss developed a project: let AI clean up all the Android TV homepage and advertisements.

CleanYourTV

The main function of CleanYourTV is"Turn off" those ads, promotion columns, pre-installed garbage and telemetry backgrounds that you don't want to see on Android TV / Google TV, and give you a minimalist desktop that looks like Apple TV。

Moreover, it does not root, disassemble, or delete things on your TV. It only "disables" rather than "uninstalls" system packages through the Wi-Fi ADB channel. If you regret it, there is a one-line command to restore it.

The most important thing is that the entire process is completed by your AI assistant, such as WorkBuddy, Claude, Codex, etc.!

Core functions

CleanYourTV mainly does two things.

The first thing is to use ADB to connect to the TV and temporarily disable some of the manufacturer's recommendations, statistical services and unused pre-installed applications. The warehouse uses pm disable-user and does not uninstall these system packages directly.

The second thing is to install the lightweight desktop that comes with the project, which turns the homepage into a commonly used application bar and application grid, and can also enter input sources, network and system settings.

Due to the intervention of AI, it is not limited to the desktop effects provided by the author. You can let AI help you make any changes you want.

Tutorial

At present, all Android TVs basically support it. For example, it is now available for Xiaomi, TCL, Sony and other brands.

First: the TV stays on, along with the computer and a Wi-Fi connection.

The first step is to turn on the ADB debugging switch on the TV.

1. First open the developer mode:

Enter Xiaomi TV Settings -> Go to About -> Find the product model -> Press the ok (confirm) button on the product model multiple times -> Then you will be prompted: You are in developer mode.

2. Open adb

After turning on the developer mode in the first step, you can now return to the settings page and enter "Account and Security" -> Find ADB debugging and set it to Allow to enable ADB debugging. (Note: When you allow ADB debugging for the first time, a pop-up window will prompt you to confirm authorization)

The second step is to feed the PROMPT.md of this project to your AI coding assistant on your computer.I copied the contents of PROMPT.md from the GitHub repository, filled in the TV model, and threw it to Claude Code. It will find the TV in the LAN, and a message "Allow USB debugging" will pop up on the TV. Just click Allow.

Project address: https://github.com/Gathin23/cleanyourtv

Step three, answer a few questions and wait.The assistant will pull up a list and ask you which four apps are in the Dock, whether to keep the voice assistant, and whether you want Chromecast. After confirmation, it will back up, disable, install the launcher, and set as the default desktop in sequence. At each step, a picture will be taken from the TV to let you see the progress. It took about ten minutes on my Xiaomi, which is almost the same as the official "about fifteen minutes".

If you don’t want to use a coding assistant, there is also a way to use manual ADB in the warehouse, but to be honest, having LLM help you read the list and avoid dependency pits does save you the effort of looking up package names in the forum for several hours.

replacement project

CleanYourTVAfter it became popular, there was an immediate replacement: Free My TV. The interface effect is as follows. If you are interested in this, you can also take a look at this.

Free My TV: https://github.com/simbasjungles/free-my-tv