I have an Android TV in which the official remote control works terribly and there doesn’t seem to be a solution, not even with a new remote control. Therefore, I have taken good advantage of use your cell phone as a remote controlsince it works more stable than the official command.
Google has given us several ways to use the mobile phone as a remote control for an Android TV: with Google TV, from the quick settings, from the new Google TV widget and from Google Home and yet my favorite is not available: create a shortcut on the home screen. Google doesn’t allow it, but we can do it anyway. We tell you how.
With Nova Launcher
If you use Nova Launcher you are in luck because the process of adding a shortcut to the Google TV remote control is simple and fast. To do this, you will need to use one of the Nova Launcher widgets: the widget Activity.
Android app activities are sort of like the screens that make up an app, and can sometimes be launched separately to open a specific section of the app instead of starting “at the beginning.” The good news is that Google TV has a specific activity for your remote control that we can launch directly, without root.
All you have to do is open the Nova Launcher widget picker (by long-tapping on the home screen and then choosing Widgets). Then display the Nova Launcher widgets and choose Activity.
It will take a while to load and then you will be shown all the applications you have installed. Display Google TV and then tap on the Google TV call, with the following text:
com.google.android.apps.googletv.app.presentation.pages.device.DeviceNotificationActivity
This will create an icon on the home screen that will be called Google TV as standard, although you are free to do a long touch, press Edit and edit it to change the name (and call it “Command”, for example). You can also change the icon with any image you have on your mobile.
It is necessary to emphasize that you must have configured and paired Google TV with the TV beforehand for this shortcut to work. To do this, open Google TV normally and tap the Floating Remote button. Pairing an Android TV with your mobile is very easy and just involves writing the code that is displayed on the TV on your mobile.
With Activity Launcher
If you don’t use Nova Launcher, an agnostic option that should work for practically any launcher is Activity Launcher, available on Google Play. Activity Launcher is, as its name suggests, an app to launch activities from other apps (and not a launcher or application launcher for Android).
After installing Activity Launcher, open it and wait for it to finish loading, which will take a few seconds. When I finish, find Google TV in the list and deploy it. You must then find the activity called as follows:
com.google.android.apps.googletv.app.presentation.pages.device.DeviceNotificationActivity
When you have it, tap the menu button to the right and choose Create Shortcutwhich will allow you to add the icon to directly open this activity on your home page.
Activity Launcher creates a shortcut with the series icon and the incomprehensible name of the activity, so If your launcher allows you to edit shortcuts, the better. Otherwise, here you can see how well the thing works.
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