Projectivity is another great option, especially if you want a few more options without anything you don’t want.
I also use Projectivity on my NVIDIA shield. No ads, no recommendations, just the apps I want. Everyday I’m glad I installed it.
I’ve been using Flauncher as the replacement dash for years on all my android TVs and Chromecasts
https://gitlab.com/flauncher/flauncher
It makes a massive difference and I strongly recommend it
What do you see that makes a difference? Lack of ads or is performance also better?
All of that. Lack of ads, more performant etc. Plus (and depending on the device), you can set it up in such a way that you don’t need to sign into your google account, yet still have ability to watch YouTube (SmarTube), install apps (side load plus use the Fdroid TV store … name escapes me at the moment… Flicky I think?).
Even if you need to be signed in for some reason, it’s a smoother experience.
Its just…better. You’ll lose some of the prettiness (for some reason, mine no longer displays backgrounds from upsplash, only solid colours) but its more than worth it.
No ads, better performance, customizable
I also tried Projectivy in the past but I don’t remember why I switched away from it. I think there was a performance bug that was causing it to crash. Both may be good options now
I recently swapped back to FLauncher after using Projectivy for a while. Projectivy uses a lot more resources (cache + RAM) and my TV only has like 4GB of storage.
I can also recommend Wolf Launcher. Been using it for years.
I’d love a stick that has Hoopla support, but of course that’s going to be hard to come by because Big Entertainment doesn’t make billions of dollars off of it.
Roku, Android TV (ONN), Apple TV, etc. all have Hoopla support. The app doesn’t even have a way to browse titles, but if you know what you want to watch their app works.
Great, now do iOS, Roku, and whatever Amazon is pushing these days. Oh, and raspberry pi and NVIDIA shield.
Dude just switched the launcher, should be doable on most Android TV devices.
Raspberry Pi can run Android TV, so you probably could run this launcher. Nvidia Shield is already compatible.
The others are closed systems I assume, I have no experience with Apple or Amazon devices.
Streaming sticks shouldn’t have apps. The Chromecast Ultra is the last good streaming stick. Just cast, and it plays. End of story.
Its nice to be able to use it with a remote instead of fumbling around with your phone.
Also performance, decoding support, not burning your phone’s battery, etc
If any apps, preferably open source, could do a search of services to see if one has “American Beauty” (or whatever) streaming for free AND launches the app directly I’d have no need for my stock launcher.
Somebody once tried to sell a box that would cancel all your streaming services and only fire the account back up for a month at a time when you wanted to stream something. It was a phenomenal idea with a genuine problem worth solving, completely torpedoed by the fact of the box costing $400 up front and I think requiring its own subscription.
