couch-tv

Your own home screen and phone remote for a Google TV, and now a Samsung TV. No ads on the home screen. Open source (MIT).

Updates

29 October 2026: Samsung TVs. couch-tv now works on Samsung TVs too. It was tested on a 2021 Samsung Frame. It is the same link and the same setup: give this repo to your agent and it offers the Samsung path when it finds a Samsung.

What is the same on a Samsung: the home (scenes, clock, weather, your apps in your order), the phone remote, and the Claude assistant. "Put on that show about the lawyer who never went to law school" finds Suits and plays it.

What is different on a Samsung:

• You need a computer that stays on at home (a Mac, a Linux box or a Raspberry Pi on the same Wi-Fi, option B below). It opens couch-tv every time the TV is switched on, and it is what the phone remote and the assistant talk to. Without it you can only open couch-tv yourself from Samsung's app row.
• It is an app that opens itself, not a true home screen. Samsung does not let any app replace its home. The TV remote's own Home button still opens Samsung's menu; Home on the phone remote brings couch-tv back.
• Playing a show. Netflix opens the show and starts it by itself. YouTube opens the video. Prime Video, Stan, Binge, Paramount+ and Apple TV are handed the title by the couch-tv app on the TV, the way Samsung's own guide does it; so far Prime has been seen opening, the title page itself is still to be confirmed. Disney+ and the rest open on their home page and you pick the show.
• No reading the screen. Samsung gives no screenshots and no "what is playing" to the network. So Play is pressed by timing, not by looking (only Netflix's timing is tested so far), and on a "Who's watching?" screen couch-tv takes the highlighted profile, usually the first, rather than yours by name.
• You install the app yourself, with a free tool and your own Samsung account sign-in, after turning on the TV's Developer Mode. A firmware update can turn Developer Mode off again; then you repeat one step.
• No picture mode switch and no ADB tools (those are Android only).

One bridge can run your Google TVs and your Samsung together, and the phone remote switches between them. Full guide, limits and undo: docs/SAMSUNG.md.

28 to 29 October 2026, every TV:

• "Put on X" now gets past "Who's watching?" on Android TVs: it presses your profile (you list your names per person, docs/CONFIG.md) and then Play.
• The phone remote no longer opens to a white page when the phone has just woken up (docs/REMOTE.md).
• The TV home works on older TV browsers too (the 2021 Frame showed no photos and two clocks).

Home backgrounds

Five scenes take turns every 20 seconds, each with a big glass clock that sits just behind the scenery: the peaks, the volcano and the misty hills overlap the bottom of the digits, and on the waterline scene the clock floats on the lake with a blurred reflection under the surface. Your apps and "keep watching" stay put. Start on one with ?scene=<name>, or swap in your own photos. To put the clock behind your own photo, make a transparent cut-out of everything in front of the sky (any background remover will do), save it next to the photo as <photo>-fg.webp and set fg: true; tv-home/web/backgrounds/CREDITS.md has the steps.

Night	Golden hour	Waterline
Fog	Dawn	Classic (?theme=classic)

Shown with sample shows and sample people. On your TV, "keep watching" fills from what you actually watch.

Settings on the TV

No computer and no config.json needed for the everyday settings. Press down to the dock and pick the gear, Settings (just before More apps). OK opens a small menu: Home settings is couch-tv's own list, TV settings is Android's own (Wi-Fi, picture, sound).

Any remote works: up and down move, right or OK opens a section, OK changes a row, holding OK on a scene, an app, a person or a quick button picks it up so up and down move it, and Back steps back and then closes. What you change shows when the list closes.

• Language: English, Español, Español (México).
• Location: type a town or city with the TV's on-screen keyboard (or the phone remote's Type), pick it from the places found. It sets the weather's place and time zone. The place search is Open-Meteo's, free and with no key.
• Weather: show or hide it, °C or °F, check every 15, 30 or 60 minutes. Open-Meteo is the only weather provider for now.
• Look and scenes: Night scenes or Classic; which scenes take turns, in what order, how many seconds each; a 12 or 24 hour clock; your own photos (below).
• Apps: every app on the TV. OK moves it between home, More apps and hidden; hold OK to change the order. The same order as holding OK on the dock and the phone's Arrange apps.
• People: add, rename, remove and reorder who is watching.
• Quick buttons: which of the sleep timer, picture mode, look and input buttons show, in what order.
• About: the version, the GitHub address (github.com/Seagey/couch-tv), where the settings are kept, and Reset.

Your own photos. On a TV with a file picker, Add photos from a USB drive or this TV opens it and copies the photos you choose into the app (turned the right way up and sized for the screen). Many Android TV and Google TV builds have no file picker; then the list says so and you add a photo from a web address instead (a JPEG or PNG on the internet, which the TV loads each time). The on-TV app (option C) only takes web addresses. Your photos take turns with the scenes and replace the Classic look's own. Videos are not supported: a looping video under the glass clock and the blurred dock is heavy work for a small TV stick, and the clock's frosted fill is cut from a still photo.

Where they are kept. On the TV, and with option B on the computer too, so the phone agrees and a reset TV gets them back. They win over config.json on that TV; About, Reset home settings goes back to it. docs/CONFIG.md has the details.

Languages. The TV home and the phone remote both speak English, Spanish (es, for Spain and everyone else) and Mexican Spanish (es-MX: computadora, celular, presionar, clima and the rest). The phone has its own choice (TV menu, Language), "Same as the TV" by default. Messages that come from the bridge itself (an error, a note about how a show opened) and some screen reader labels on the phone are still in English.

Three ways to run it

• A. TV home only. The new home screen, nothing else. You use your normal TV remote and no computer has to stay on.
• B. Computer bridge. The home screen plus the phone remote, "put on Bluey" search, turning the TV on from the phone, keep watching across apps and an optional Claude assistant. A computer at home (a Mac, a Linux box or a Raspberry Pi) stays on and runs the bridge.
• C. Lives on the TV. The home screen and the phone remote with no computer: the bridge runs inside an app on the TV. See on-tv/README.md.

Pick your option, then follow only its steps

• A: steps 1, 2 and 6 below.
• B: steps 1 to 6 below.
• C: on-tv/README.md (it has its own developer mode and install steps).

Will it work on my TV?

Hisense, Sharp and other brands that sell more than one kind of TV: it depends on the model, not the brand. Their Google TV and Android TV models should work. Their VIDAA models run Hisense's own system and do not. Open Settings, System, About (or Device Preferences, About): "Android TV OS" means yes. Or run scripts/check-tv.py. Brand by brand (TCL, Philips, Panasonic, Sharp, Xiaomi and more, untested): docs/TV-BRANDS.md.

What you can and cannot do on each:

• Google TV and Android TV: everything in this repo. Your own home screen, your apps in your order, the phone remote, finding and playing shows, the sleep timer. Some Google Home features and the YouTube button on the remote can stop working once the Google home is switched off.
• Fire TV (Fire OS): the phone remote and app launching work. Amazon does not let another home screen take over, so you keep Amazon's home.
• Samsung: it does not run Android apps and it locks its home screen, so couch-tv goes on as a Samsung app (you install it with a free tool and your own Samsung sign-in), and the bridge opens it every time the TV is switched on,