--- title: Smart TVs got so bad people hired Claude to fix them description: People are using Claude Code to debloat their smart TVs by connecting over ADB and letting the agent disable non-essential system packages, stripping ads,... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/smart-tvs-got-so-bad-people-hired-claude-to-fix-them-htn48diup twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Smart TVs got so bad people hired Claude to fix them | daily.dev og:description: People are using Claude Code to debloat their smart TVs by connecting over ADB and letting the agent disable non-essential system packages, stripping ads,... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/smart-tvs-got-so-bad-people-hired-claude-to-fix-them-htn48diup og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/Htn48dIUp.png og:image:alt: Smart TVs got so bad people hired Claude to fix them og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Smart TVs got so bad people hired Claude to fix them **[Trends](https://daily.dev/sources/trends)** · 3 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary People are using Claude Code to debloat their smart TVs by connecting over ADB and letting the agent disable non-essential system packages, stripping ads, bloatware, and reclaiming RAM. The trend spawned GitHub repos like tv-vibehack (Android/Google TV) and dumbtv (Fire TV), with no root required. Results vary: some users shrank launchers dramatically and freed significant RAM, while others hit pushback from Claude or bricked their TVs. Common pitfalls include killing the Home button by disabling the launcher too early, leaving debug ports exposed, and accidentally disabling voice search or firmware updates. ## Content The pitch sounds great: point Claude Code at your smart TV, say "hack this," and watch the ads and bloatware vanish. @MrAsifShah put it in tweet form: "Ads: gone. Bloatware: gone. Up to 90% more free RAM on old sets." Then he asked whether you'd let an AI root your TV. The reality check came quickly. ## The skeptics have receipts One writer who let Claude Code debloat a Sony Bravia over ADB got modest gains, not the dramatic speedups shown online. Removing unused apps helped a bit. The real slowdown came from background activity and boot-time resource contention, which stayed put. No software tweak fixes weak hardware. Their sharper point: the bigger clutter problem is the launcher. Google TV's home screen is packed with banner and video ads. Swapping it for something minimal like AT4K Launcher or Projectivy Launcher fixes that without writing any code. An older, non-AI guide goes the same way: Projectivy, SmartTube with SponsorBlock, Wholphin as a Jellyfin client, and Button Mapper for the remote. No LLM required. ## The trend itself is real It reportedly started with a viral tweet from Ryan Doyle. Now there are GitHub repos: tv-vibehack (1,300+ stars) for Android/Google TV, dumbtv for Amazon Fire TV, and CleanYourTV. They work over ADB with no root, and changes are reversible with a single script. Results vary wildly. One user disabled 25 bloat apps and shrank the launcher from 192MB to 83MB. Others hit resistance from Claude, or bricked their TVs. ## The gotchas - Disable the stock launcher before installing a replacement and you can kill the Home button. - Debug ports left open expose the TV to your network. - Over-disabling can take out voice search, screencasting, or firmware updates. - Claude is meant to disable packages, never uninstall them. ## The weirdest version A Reddit user got Claude to debloat a Samsung Tizen TV, which isn't Android at all. Claude couldn't see the screen, so it built a local site that used the user's phone camera to photograph the TV every four seconds. It watched Keyboard Cat and rickrolled itself a few times. About 11 hours later: an Apple TV-style home screen, hidden apps, and a wiped Samsung ad ID. That's either the future of consumer hacking or a very long way to avoid buying a streaming stick. I'm genuinely split. The agent part is delightful. But the best fix may still be the boring one: swap the launcher and stop expecting miracles from old silicon. ## Questions this post answers ### What GitHub repos exist for using Claude to debloat a smart TV? Two notable projects are tv-vibehack, which targets Android/Google TV and has over 1,300 GitHub stars, and dumbtv, which targets Amazon Fire TV. A third, cleanyourtv, also exists. These repos use ADB to connect to the TV and let an AI agent disable non-essential system packages without rooting the device. _Developers tracking emerging AI-agent hacks like this follow the write-ups on daily.dev._ ### What are the risks of using an AI agent to disable bloatware on a smart TV over ADB? Disabling the stock launcher before installing a replacement can kill the Home button entirely, leaving debug ports open over ADB exposes the TV on the network, and over-disabling system packages can break voice search, screencasting, or firmware updates. At least one person reported bricking their TV during the process. _Anyone weighing a risky agent-driven hack like this checks real outcomes on daily.dev before trying it._ ### How much RAM or storage can debloating a smart TV with an AI agent save? Results vary widely by device and how aggressively packages are disabled. One user disabled 25 bloatware apps and shrank their launcher's footprint from 192MB down to 83MB, while other reports claim up to 90% more free RAM on older TV sets after removing ads and bloatware. _Those chasing real performance gains from agent-driven tweaks compare reported results on daily.dev._ ## Community take How the wider developer community reacted, aggregated from 1 discussion and 66 comments across hackernews (as of 2026-10-22). **TL;DR:** Commenters largely welcome the ad-stripping approach but the thread mostly spirals into a broader gripe about ad-subsidized smart TVs, with many sharing alternative de-googling/launcher setups and debating whether 'dumb' TVs are even viable anymore. **Sentiment:** 35% positive · 20% mixed · 45% skeptical **The case for** - Several people confirm replacing the launcher (Projectivy, ATV Launcher Pro, FLauncher) was one of the best quality-of-life upgrades they made. - Multiple commenters independently vouch for Wholphin and similar alternative Jellyfin clients as big UX improvements over the default. - One person shares that using an AI agent to automate the ADB/APK fixes worked remarkably well in practice. **The pushback** - Some argue dumb/ad-free TVs are effectively unsubsidized and thus much pricier, making this workaround necessary rather than a real fix. - Others push back that panel costs don't actually support the subsidy argument, pointing to cheap monitors and dumb TV brands. - Security concerns raised about handing ADB/root access to an AI agent, or about trusting the project at all without a security review. - Complaints that ads now appear for irrelevant general products (fast food, shampoo) beyond simple content recommendations, which some find more invasive than before. **By community** - hackernews (heated): Strong engagement but it fractures into a tangential, heated debate about whether truly ad-free/dumb TVs can exist affordably, alongside genuine praise for the launcher-swap and Jellyfin client tips. **Hottest debate:** Whether 'dumb' TVs are inherently unsubsidized and thus unavoidably expensive, or whether that's just an excuse for enshittification. **Open questions** - Is there a reasonably priced, sufficiently powerful TV box that can run a fully free/open Android TV distribution (like GrapheneOS/LineageOS for TVs)? - Has this project undergone any security review given it involves ADB access and third-party APKs? **Highlights** > We seriously need some "you actually own your hardware" laws - before the likes of Google tighten every bolt and implement enough "security" to firmly lock the users out of their own devices. It's dead obvious that companies like Apple and Google and Sony and John Deere lock their hardware down to protect their revenue streams - not to help the users in any way. And yet, they're peddling the lie of "security" - and have been getting away with it for decades. Now that AI is there to give even users a leg up when it comes to things like "I don't want to see ads in my TV's menus, can you do something about it", the companies will see more and more reasons to implement more "security" to stop it. And modern "security" measures are hard to defeat with technical measures - so this has to be curbed with legal action instead. > — [ACCount39 on hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50162253) > It was very underhanded of Google to add advertising after the fact. Years later they still haven't [1] updated the screenshots in their playstore page to show the giant 1/3 full screen ads you get now. Replacing the Google launcher (I used ATV Launcher Pro) was one of the best quality of life upgrades I've ever done. Not only does Google show ads for streaming services you don't subscribe to, it also shows pure ads for things like fast food. It really lags while it tries to start up to show the ads. I'm sure it's only a matter of time before Google closes the ADB backdoor when they realise all the sweet ad dollars they're losing. [1]: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.and... > — [cube00 on hackernews · 3 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50161434) > Yes! In fact.. The first version of Google TV, an internal demo, was based on MythTV. We had MythTV running against some HDHomeRun tuners, then a transparent webview (a fork of Petit Four-era Android builds since it had great d-pad nav support) running on top of it. "Apps" were pure JavaScript gadgets, inspired by iGoogle, with custom DOM methods for anything TV-specific: channel changes, tuning info, and so on. With the MythTV demo, we managed to make some pretty fun hybrid apps that did things like pull up related stories about the TV show you were watching (maybe sounds lame now but was kinda cool seeing it for the first time: an iframe over my TV show, holy shit what can't I do with this). Adware was never discussed; we wanted to be a free and hackable OS for the living room. After heading in this "widgets" direction for about a year, Android had been released and we strongly believed in a strategy based on it, so made the pivot. It was pretty tough, and educational, trying to build consumer products at Google in this era and without any singular unifying vision across the company. I longed for a top-down dictator like Steve Jobs who could cut the crap.. (even if we were judged to be the crap!) I'm guessing the ad-infested OS from OP has some lineage back to the original Google TV, but of course I'm sure it's barely recognizable now. > — [mik3y on hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50162084) > Claude has done amazing things for my Chromecast. Plex released an update recently that broke the UI badly. File names and thumbnails were overlapping each other which made the UI unusable, I couldn't navigate. I asked Claude to get the latest .apk, and fix it - and fix it, it did, all without me having to touch a command line. It even took screenshots of the chromecast screen to verify the results. I had it add a few other things like showing the media duration below the title and fixing the delete feature. I had problems getting the Chromecast to connect to my IKEv2 home vpn at an airbnb, so I told Claude to fix it. It figured out there was no good way to make the existing VPN client apps work on my chromecast, so it wrote a new VPN client for me that works perfectly, all in about 20 minutes without me needing to do much more than supply my certs. It also fixed SmartTube to work on my phone, the official app only shows 5 videos, Claude fixed the .apk to show 100+ thumbnails. > — [leptons on hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50161375) > I'm feeling weird trusting this. Is there any security review on this project? > — [polyterative on hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50163141) **Source threads** - [hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50158942) · 192 points · 66 comments ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [I used Claude Code to improve my operating system, and here's how it made me more efficient](https://daily.dev/posts/i-used-claude-code-to-improve-my-operating-system-and-here-s-how-it-made-me-more-efficient-ztd28ecg1) · XDA Developers · 10 upvotes · 5 comments --- Tags: [#tech-news](https://daily.dev/tags/tech-news), [#ai-agents](https://daily.dev/tags/ai-agents), [#android](https://daily.dev/tags/android), [#claude-code](https://daily.dev/tags/claude-code), [#android-development](https://daily.dev/tags/android-development) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/smart-tvs-got-so-bad-people-hired-claude-to-fix-them-htn48diup) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Smart TVs got so bad people hired Claude to fix them","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/smart-tvs-got-so-bad-people-hired-claude-to-fix-them-htn48diup","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/smart-tvs-got-so-bad-people-hired-claude-to-fix-them-htn48diup"},"datePublished":"2026-10-19T16:16:37.180Z","dateModified":"2026-10-22T02:32:19.858Z","description":"People are using Claude Code to debloat their smart TVs by connecting over ADB and letting the agent disable non-essential system packages, stripping ads,...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/bcb37eadf2c887b74d5a38f27edbb3d8?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/bcb37eadf2c887b74d5a38f27edbb3d8?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Trends","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Trends","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--ZfSp3asX--/f_auto,q_auto/v1780996004/logos/trends?_a=BAMAMiWQ0","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/trends"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/smart-tvs-got-so-bad-people-hired-claude-to-fix-them-htn48diup","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"tech-news,ai-agents,android,claude-code,android-development","timeRequired":"PT3M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Trends","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/trends"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Smart TVs got so bad people hired Claude to fix them"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/smart-tvs-got-so-bad-people-hired-claude-to-fix-them-htn48diup#faq","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"What GitHub repos exist for using Claude to debloat a smart TV?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Two notable projects are tv-vibehack, which targets Android/Google TV and has over 1,300 GitHub stars, and dumbtv, which targets Amazon Fire TV. 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