[App][Pro] Android TV

Apps
1

Android TV

Introducing the Android TV app for Homey!

Please note that this is an initial version, which means that there may still be bugs or issues where the app loses connection with your device. I haven’t had enough time to test it thoroughly yet, so please bear with me.

Links

If you’re interested in learning more about the app, we’ve provided a few links below to help you get started:

Supported devices

The Android TV app for Homey should work with any Android device you can install the Android TV Remote Service on.

You can test if the Homey app will work by trying to control your TV with the remote feature in the Google TV app, because it uses the same API.

Supported languages

We currently support the following languages:

  • English
  • Dutch
  • German
  • French
  • Italian
  • Swedish
  • Norwegian
  • Spanish
  • Danish
  • Polish

If you have any feedback regarding translations, please let me know by posting in this topic or by creating an issue on Github

Known issues

  • Switching the TV’s input via the flow card action should work but I haven’t managed to get this working on my own TV yet.

    I’m working on a solution but because this app relies on an external package I need the approval of the package manager before this can be fixed.

  • The device in Homey is not set as unavailable if the connection to your TV is lost.

    This is yet again a restriction of the external package used and a change to that package will need to be approved before this can be fixed.

Feedback

If you have any feedback or issues, please feel free to post them in this topic or create an issue on Github. I appreciate your help in making the app better!

Future features

I might have a look the following feature:

  • Open apps on your TV from a flow card action

If you have any suggestions please let me know!

4 Likes
2

Changelog

v0.6.0

Added channel up and channel down buttons

Full list of changes

Features

  • Added channel up and channel down button capabilities
  • Added channel up and channel down button to flow card actions

v0.5.2

Fix “device not found” error crashing app and reduce app size.

v0.5.1

Fix dependency issue

v0.5.0

Fix infinite crash loop when TV is unavailable and various other improvements

Full list of changes

Features

  • Added repair flow for when TV was unpaired
  • Refactor androidtv-remote dependency to an internal TypeScript module to fix issues, improve performance and allow for more control and flexibility.

Fixes/improvements

  • Fixed infinite crash loop when TV is unavailable
  • Removed unused dependencies

v0.4.0

Long press and open application flow card actions

Full list of changes

Features

  • New long_press_key flow card action, simulate a long key press with a specific duration e.g. 1.5 seconds
  • New open_application flow card action, open apps by their deeplink

Changes

  • The send_key flow card action was renamed to press_key

v0.3.0

Volume button fixes and new flow card actions

Full list of changes

Features

  • Added missing pairing translations for nl, de, fr, it, sv, no, es, da, pl
  • New send_key flow card action, simulate a key press from a flow
  • New application_opened flow card trigger, trigger flows when the current app changes

Fixes

  • The volume up, down and mute buttons not working

Changes

  • The volume capability was changed from a slider UI component to a sensor

v0.2.1

Fix pairing link

Full list of changes

Fixes

  • An incorrect link to pairing documentation on the add_by_ip pairing step

v0.2.0

New driver image and more App store translations

Full list of changes

Features

  • Added new driver images of the type of device it emulates (remote)
  • Added a new Homey App Store slogan
  • Added new Homey App Store descriptions in the languages: en, nl, de, fr, it, sv, no, es, da, pl

v0.1.0

Initial version

3

Interesting app!
You post images in the App Store of the Google Chromecast with Google TV (which runs on Android TV).

That one is obviously plugged into a “normal” TV of course. Is that one indeed supported? Or just TV’s that run Android TV?
1668674

4

It shouldn’t matter what kind of device it runs on, as long as it’s Android TV the app should work!

The choice to use the Chromecast with Google TV’s remote as a driver image was made together with Athom because it was an app icon before and they suggested the driver image should represent the function it provides. This might be changed later.

5

Nice to see this as the Sony TV app stopped working. I can use this to switch the TV on and off when my SkyQ box switches on / off.

I’m not sure if the volume, volume up, volume down and mute are still WIP but they just give an error at the moment about missing capability listener.

6

Thanks for the feedback!

This is most likely due to me just forgetting to actually link the capability :sweat_smile: I haven’t had that much time to test it tbh. I’ll fix this some time next week as i don’t really have any free time left.

1 Like
7

Same here, volume dont work

8

New version (v0.3.0) now available as the test version and it should be released to stable soon.

This version fixes:

  • The volume up/down/mute buttons not working.

And it adds:

  • Missing pairing translations for nl, de, fr, it, sv, no, es, da, pl
  • The send_key flow card action, allowing you to simulate a key press from a flow.
  • The application_opened flow card trigger, allowing you to trigger flow based on which app is opened on your TV.

Please note that I haven’t found a good way to format the application links yet so when an application_opened flow card is triggered it will supply the raw application link as the app. For example: com.disney.disneyplus

This version also changes:

  • The volume capability to be displayed as a sensor instead of a slider which you can’t interact with.
3 Likes
9

image
image1290×345 102 KB

Get this error today

10

Same here. App does not work anymore. Restarting the app does not solve the issue.

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I’m trying to find a solution for this issue. Will release a new test version as soon as I have a potential fix.

2 Likes
12

Seems to be working fine for me

13

It’s an edge-case some people encounter that crashes the app. I should have a fix for this sometime this week.

2 Likes
14

Thanks for the app! Working great so far for my nVidia Shield and Google Chromecast.

It will be very nice if the app knows if something is playing so that this can be used as a condition flow card.

15

Yes that’s a nice future.

If I open an app or shield is playing then turn lights on or off

16

Hi Lucas,
while adding a Sony TV I got this error in pair view.

Screenshot_20230315_212645_Homey
Screenshot_20230315_212645_Homey1080×2115 112 KB

It would be nice if you could check if it’s an implementation issue or if it depends on the device.

17

New version (v0.4.0) now available as the test version.

This version adds:

  • The long_press_key flow card action, allowing you to simulate a key press from a flow with a specific duration e.g. 1.5 seconds
  • The open_application flow card action, allowing you to open apps by their deep links (see deeplinks below).

And it renames:

  • The send_key flow card action to press_key. If you were using the “Send a key” flow card action you need to re-add this card.

Deeplinks

With the “Open an app” flow card action you can now send a deeplink to your TV and if there’s an app on your TV that listens to this link, it will be opened.

Note: sending unsupported deeplinks to your tv may crash the app, I’ve not found a solution for this yet as it seems to bypass the default error handling.

I’ve managed to figure out a few deep links for apps to save you the hassle:

  • Amazon Prime https://app.primevideo.com
  • Disney+ https://www.disneyplus.co
  • NOS nos://video/.*
  • Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title.*
  • OQEE link": "https://oq.ee/home/
  • Spotify spotify://

App settings

I’m working on a settings page where you can manage these apps and link them to simple names so they’re easier to use in flows.

If you know the deeplink for any other apps, please let me know because I’ll be able to add them to the default list.

1 Like
18

I’ve been a bit under the weather last week, I’ll try and have a look soon @RonnyW

19

Thanks for the update! I will test it later today…

One button I am missing to control my chromecast is a play/pause button instead of 2 serperate buttons for play and pause. Is this something you can add?

Cheers

20

I’ll add this in the next release, thanks for the feedback.

1 Like