You turn on the TV, wait for the home screen to load, skip the sponsored banner, and only then get to the app you want. Most owners of cheaper Android TVs are familiar with this. Many of them are now turning to artificial intelligence to fix it. Using tools such as Claude Code, they are removing ads, unnecessary pre-installed apps, and features that track what they watch. The TV then does only what its owner wants and responds much faster.
Claude hacked a TV
Ryan Doyle started the trend. He sent Claude Code a link to his TV's product page and asked whether it could be hacked. The artificial intelligence guided him through the entire process, removing ads from the TV, making the interface faster, and even allowing Doyle to customize the screensaver.
Developer Gathin T. soon joined in, frustrated that his parents' TV displayed an ad before they could even get to Netflix. He gave Claude Code the model number, and it found the Xiaomi TV on the home Wi-Fi network, removed 25 manufacturer packages, and wrote a new home screen resembling Apple TV. Gathin published his prompt on GitHub, and according to him, within two days several thousand people had done the same with Xiaomi, TCL, Sony, or Fire TV devices.
In a single afternoon, Mihir Gupta disabled 25 unnecessary apps and replaced the original 192 MB home screen with his own, which is only 83 MB.
Modifying electronics is nothing new, but AI has made it possible even for people without programming skills. This trend comes at a time when many people are losing patience with ads and with being tracked by their own devices. Modern TVs contain automatic content recognition technology that uses screenshots or audio snippets to identify what you are watching. Manufacturers then use this data to target additional advertising.
How to do it
Android TV devices include the same ADB debugging tool as smartphones, and artificial intelligence uses it to make all the changes for you. First, open device preferences in the settings, go to the device information, and press the OK button seven times on the build number item. This unlocks the developer options, where you can enable USB debugging or wireless debugging. Some models, such as those made by Xiaomi, do not offer wireless debugging, but USB debugging still opens network access through port 5555.
Then launch Claude Code on a computer connected to the same Wi-Fi network. Ask it to connect to the TV's IP address and suggest which apps you can do without. The AI lists the installed packages and then only disables—rather than uninstalls—ads, sponsored rows, data collection, and pre-installed bloatware. Many people also install a simple home screen and speed up the system by limiting animations.
The changes should be easy to reverse. Well-written prompts therefore ask the AI to back up the package list and request confirmation before interfering with HDMI inputs, updates, or the keyboard. The modification does not require full root access, and the TV can be restored to factory settings at any time. Gathin's first attempt took an entire afternoon, but with his repository, other people can complete it in about fifteen minutes.
Which TVs support it
Almost all working examples involve TVs running Android TV or Google TV. This includes brands such as Sony, TCL, Xiaomi, Hisense, OnePlus, and Philips, as well as Nvidia Shield players. Owners of Samsung TVs running Tizen, LG TVs with webOS, and Roku devices are out of luck because this debugging-tool trick does not work on them.
The dumbtv project by developer Muzammil Yasin Sabuwala targets Amazon Fire TV. He created it using the DeepSeek V4.1 Flash, Claude Opus 5.5, and Claude Sonnet 5.5 models. The tool disables around 65 packages, including Amazon's content recognition, advertising identifier, and watch-time analytics. It also blocks data collection servers and deploys a custom home screen measuring just 41 KB. The repository contains instructions specifically for language models, so you only need to point your AI assistant to it.
Can anything go wrong?
All the solutions are still under development. One user said that, with Claude's help, he turned his Android TV into an unusable brick, while another got stuck halfway through modifying a Fire TV. Some people found that Claude does not respond to a simple request to hack a TV. It works much better if you provide the exact model number and package list.
Those who have successfully completed the process advise only disabling apps and never uninstalling them. Otherwise, you can easily lose the functionality of the Home button or HDMI input switching. Once the modifications are complete, it is a good idea to disable debugging again so that an open port is not left exposed on the home network. Also, do not expect miracles from cheap models with 1 to 2 GB of memory. Be careful when disabling updates, voice search, or screen sharing as well, because the entire family will then lose those features.
If you do not want to give AI direct access to the system, you can simply replace the home screen on Android TV. Standard apps such as ATV Launcher, Projectivity Launcher, or FLauncher can do this.
Sources: techcrunch.com, aiweekly.co, and itsfoss.com
