On different occasions we have talked about the benefits of Android TV / Google TV. In fact, and on a personal level, It is the operating system that I choose when buying a new television. Because of the potential that access to the Play Store offers and also, why not say it, for taking advantage of applications that I have already bought for the mobile and that are sometimes perfectly functional.
But with that said, there is more life away from the Google Play Store. Applications that we can install without having to go through the official store, pulling .APK files and among them some that are not published, open source applications or what is itself, software. And now we are going to review some that are quite interesting.
open source apps
But before we begin, we are going to review what an open source application or also called open source consists of. One of this type is software whose source code is publicly available for anyone to review, modify, and distribute free of charge. Open source application developers allow other users to access their code and improve, correct or adapt their software according to the needs of the community.
This means that Anyone can contribute to the improvement of the application, either by fixing bugs, adding new features or improving the security of the software. Open source applications differ from proprietary or closed source applications, whose source code is protected and not publicly available.
We can find open source applications for any operating system on sites like GitHub or GitLab and Android TV or Google TV are no exception. There are developers who skip the Play Store and have their applications hosted so that anyone can “play” with them. And these are some of the most interesting.
Open source customization
For example, as an alternative to launchers to change the appearance of the screen, we have open source options such as FLauncher, a launcher that It does not contain advertising and has interesting functions like customizable categories, support for wallpapers and allows you to uninstall apps directly from the home screen. And the good thing is that it does not have advertising and that it is also in this link in the Play Store.
Another example is aLauncher. A launcher that is based on the previous one, so it offers a similar design. Of course, there are some changes that are detailed in the repository and thus, for example, it allows you to create a totally empty category (and use it as a spacer) or an improvement in the vertical scrolling when an empty row is at the top. You can download it from here.
And continuing with the customization we also have screensavers. One of my favorites is Aerial Dream, a screen saver similar to the one used by Apple TV. And in this sense, in addition to the option found in Google Play, we can also opt for Aerial Views, an app available in the Google Play Store but also in the official repository in the releases section.
A screensaver compatible with Dolby Vision content on compatible TVs that includes a mode to prevent burn-in on OLED panels, the option to play videos from a local network, and the ability to skip the video being viewed on the screen.
Audio and video streaming
Streaming does not escape open source applications either, and thus, for example, we found an alternative to Flickr, which, although it is in the doldrums, is still a referential app for photography lovers. The app is called Photo Search, a client who brings us images from Flickr and with an interface adapted to television screens in which we can also search by images.
If you are a user of SoundCloud, which is an online music platform that allows users to share, listen, and download music for free, you may be interested in SoundOnFire, a small app built with Flutter. You can download it from the repository that the developer for listen to thousands of songs from various artists from the telly.
We have seen photos and audio and now with Race Control TV we touch on streaming video. It is an app that is based on the official API used by Formula 1 and that It is used to see all the on-demand content of the official F1 page. You can download it from here and it allows you to change the language of the audio and the possibility of selecting the quality of the video.
media players
Another category is that of media players. Ubiquitous VLC aside, there’s an afterlife and there’s DangoPlayer TV, an ideal player to use with IPTV lists (works with M3U and M3U8 lists) that is free and that you can download from this link.
Another option is Jellyfin Android TV, an app that allows sharing content in steaming, but also send it to Chromecast or DLNA compatible devices. You can download it from the Google Play Store and also from the repository.
utilities for everything
It is not normal, but it may be the case that you want to use the television as a computer. And for that purpose they have developed MATVT, an acronym for Mouse for Android TV Toggle. It is an app that can be downloaded from the GitHub repository and that It is used to enable a cursor on the screen and that resembles a traditional mouse.
Continuing with the navigation, you can download from this link an app such as VitaBrowser. A lightweight browser It doesn’t require powerful hardware to work and can be a great alternative to browsers that come bundled with TVs.
Another curious app is displayer, available from its repository. It is interesting to use the TV as if it were a screen to show advertising. You can import images that will be used to display posters and advertisements, in the style of what appears in public places.
You can see how there is life beyond the official Android TV/Google TV app store. Free and open source applications that help us get more out of our TVs and devices that we use as a multimedia center.
In Xataka SmartHome | I have bought a high-end TV and this is all I have done right out of the box