Building a DIY -the -yourself -tv -box made me realize how terrible Google TV really is

Just like many affordable SMART TVs, mine is frankly running a real job because of the updated Google TV interface of my TVs. Quad-core Cortex-A55 CPUs are fairly standard, but also as cheap as they come, and combined with a sleek 1.5 GB RAM, it is easy to see why the onion experience is so bad on my TV and many others.

Fortunately there are numerous options to escape on the boundaries of cheap TV processors, including various Android TV boxes and the beloved Nvidia Shield. But I am a big fan of doing the kit that I already have, and an old Raspberry Pi 4 has been on my desk for far too long.

On paper, the Raspberry Pi 4 looks like a solid candidate for performing Android TV. With four Cortex -a72 nuclei, up to 4 GB RAM, and built -in HEVC 4K HDR coding, the PI 4 (and his successor Pi 5) would conveniently exceed cheap TV chipsets -and even closer to protecting territory. So last weekend I started to see what I could get this aging box to do.

Fortunately I didn’t have to start all over again. The brilliant Konstakang maintains Lineageo’s Android TVbuilds for various Raspberry PI devices. I grabbed the 22 Build for my Raspberry Pi 4 Based on Android 15, beaten on my fast Samsung T2 SSD to prevent microSD card performance bottlenecks. I will not repeat the installation instructions, because it is as easy as flashing the .zip file, adjusting one line in a file and connect to the PI.

I was immediately satisfied on a boat to be treated by the “classic” Android TV interface – no flashy banner ads, only space for my apps. Although I even find the barebones of the interface a bit grim, it is at least functional and has everything you want exactly where you need it. I can’t say the same about the eclectic Google TV interface, which I despise from both performance and advertising infestation perspectives.

The disadvantage is that Google services are not installed in advance (more about that in a minute), so you have to manually load specific TV apens. USB storage works great and APKs are littered for different streaming platforms. After flashing Widevine L3 for DRM, I tried to load an Amazon Prime video, and although I could register and the app ran smoothly, I came across unobtrusive play problems. Perhaps some platforms require a safer Widevine L1, but I couldn’t find patch for an adapted Android TV setup.

However, Jellyfin and YouTube were fine – no app -launch delays, immediately playing, zero deficit. It feels like a relief compared to my TV experience.

Unfortunately, there is a disadvantage: 10-bit 4K content does not play smoothly on the Raspberry Pi 4. The platform has had a troubled history with FFMPEG decoding, and it is clear that Android’s possibilities do not use his hardware acceleration and other platforms. Back to a lower bit rate 4K HEVC file, however, seems to work well and 1080p is flawless. At least the setup can be used for self -hosted media.

For the full modern Android TV experience you would like the Play Store, Account Integration and perhaps even the modern Google TV interface. This extra blinking Google Services for Android TV 15 Is not difficult, but that is where it went terribly wrong.

You can essentially install two levels of gapps on an Android TV: the minimum version, which Core Google Services contains and the full version that comes with the Google TV onion. I initially tried the first option, for a decent halfway: the classic TV interface with access to the Play Store and other service integrations. However, performance was a bit of a hit here. The system certainly started to pause when loading apps and switching menus, which it has never done before. Yet everything continued to work and grabbing apps was easier.

Out of curiosity, I then flashed the full Gapps package, and Oh Boy, that was a mistake. The Google TV interface really cooks my Raspberry Pi (quite literally, it soon became warm), and it runs like a snail. Those homescreen advertisements are not just a thorn in the eye; They kill the performance.

It took me an age to log in to my Google account; It just continued to close the login screen and send me back to the beginning. The gaming store became a lot more to navigate. Apps that were previously Lightning were fast now took a few seconds to open and load content. Fortunately, once you are in an app and the head user interface is pushed into the background, picks up the performance again, but menus stay slow and I have come across ordinary and crashes.

Because the only change is the addition of Google’s TV interface, it is difficult not to agree with my first assessment that it is a bloated nightmare that makes weak TV hardware still listless. Perhaps optimization is a problem for the Raspberry Pi. But what Google Services is performed in the background synchronization, advertising service, data shelter and whatever are it not even with low-end hardware that has already been stretched with the Barebones Android TV OS.

If someone who usually binges old shows from my DIY NAS, I am in the rare position to rarely choke on a streaming service and therefore not really needs the inflated overkill of the Android TV ecosystem. As such, there are a number of much better Linux-based options to run on do-it-yourself TV projects-rather Libreelec and OSMC. These KODI platforms are mainly designed around playing the media or connecting to your HomePlex or Jellyfinservers. However, there are also unofficial add-ons to gain access to your Amazon, Netflix and YouTube streaming accounts, so that you don’t have to miss out here. So I also tried them.

Although a stripped media hub is not for everyone, for pure play, destroy libreelec and osmc on the pi 4 my Google TV: menu navigation never skips and playback controls respond immediately-a nocturnal difference. Moreover, their focus on playing has enabled them to implement a smooth 4K HDR counting on the modest Raspberry Pi, so they also perform better there than my PI-based Android experience.

Although I might not have been able to build a flawless Android alternative for my slow Smart TV, I got away with a drastically different image of what I really want from a living room platform.

Google TV has undoubtedly fallen in the service function-Creep-Put and focuses heavily on flashy banners, vast onion integrations and the generation of advertising income, at the expense of spicy performance and direct content delivery. Every extra step that Google throws on top of playing the content increases the CPU and RAM. This is perhaps fine on platforms that pack as much punch as a mid-range smartphone, but TVs are all too often cheap and unable to run the extra bauballs from Google smoothly enough for a solid experience. The fact that Google wants to lower the requirements for Google TV has already set my alarm bells.

Funnily enough, Plex’s controversial universal search and content discoveries options are more flexible and they demonstrably do better work than Google’s operating system. This includes the assessment, comments and watchlist all under one roof, and a single click to jump to the contents of platforms that you are actually subscribed to, while you can flower the claiming onion to a minimum.

My Google TV, for comparison, still serves generic advertisements for services for which I do not pay and remains a road through online content previews with fancy transitions. Yes, some apps arrive quickly enough what you want, but others are an unbearable labyrinth of submenus and performance problems. For example, the ITVX app of the UK is notorious as an absolute snail, which ensures an inconsistent browse experience.

In general, I am not sure whether the traditional app-based approach is really what I want from my next TV platform. Yes, the idea of running Android on everything is fun, and it will undoubtedly help the platform that developers can focus your TV and telephone almost at the same time. However, telephones and TV are inherently different in the way we use content, and a TV-first platform must really be focused on serving content as painlessly as possible.

Google TV wanted to do this clearly, but it did not achieve that goal particularly well in terms of functions or performance; It is just another layer that runs on top of apps, on top of a operating system, without the tight integration with actual content that a good media server needs ideally. No wonder that affordable smart TVs continue to run as absolute waste.

The service -heavy model of Google TV may fit with powerful set -tops, but the background and onion bloat on budget models overwhelm the hardware. I’d rather use Kodi or Barebones Android TV on my Pi then Google leaves the extras in my experience in the living room.