How to change the home screen of Android TV

If you have a smart TV that works under the Android TV system or you use any device that uses this same operating system on your TV, it is possible that you have not made the most of the possibilities that Android TV offers . The system quickly fills up with recommendations, programs and channels that are not always going to help us, saturating the main screen of our television to a certain extent. If you have doubts, here we offer you a very complete guide on how to customize your Android TV system so that you have your applications and channels more at hand.

Putting order on Android TV

How to change the home screen of Android TV
The Android TV system is made up of a list of squares that form something like “Channels” . The interface it uses is very similar to what we see in online services such as Netflix or Prime Video. And it is that the Google system focuses on the recommendations .

But sometimes, Google TV is a bit chaotic when it comes to filling the main screen with recommendations, and we would prefer in this place, to have the applications we use the most. Of course, Android TV can be ordered and fully customized to our liking, and that is what we are going to explain to you step by step.

How to add shortcuts to your favorite applications

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To add or remove applications from our Favorites tab, we will first have to go to the Home tab of our Android TV. In there will be a list called “Favorite Applications”. To add apps to this row, navigate to the bottom of the list to the right. An icon will appear saying “add application to Favorites” .

Clicking on that icon will bring up a list of applications that we have already installed on our television or multimedia device. We will select the application and we will give the OK button on our remote control. The application will then be added to the favorites list.

Remove a program from Favorite Applications

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If, on the other hand, what you want is to remove a program from the favorites list, all you have to do is select the application along the list and make a long press on the accept button (“OK” button) of your hand at a distance. In this case, a drop-down menu will appear in which we can click on the last option, called “remove from favorites”.

Reorder favorites

To change the order of the applications within this list of favorites, we will do the same process as in the previous step, only, instead of deleting, we will click on the “move” option . With this we can move the icon to the left or right depending on how we are most interested.

Customize the Home screen

Although it may not seem like it at first glance, Android TV gives you the ability to configure practically all aspects of the system to your liking . Almost the same as in the mobile version. You will be able to hide those functions that you do not use at all and highlight those that you use in your day to day .

The only apps on Android TV that are static are those on YouTube and the rest of the stores that make up the Google Play Store. The rest of the services such as Amazon Prime Video , Netflix , HBO Max or Disney + can be configured to suit us. In the same way, you can hide those services that you no longer use or that you have simply stopped paying for the subscription, as we will tell you a little later.

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To make a precise customization of the Start menu , you will have to go to Settings , by clicking on the gear icon in the upper right corner of your TV. Then, a side menu will appear where you will have to select the “Start Screen” option. Inside we will find a lot of different options. The ones we must use are the following:

  • Customize channels
  • Customize services
  • Content preferences

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In addition, we can mark or unmark whether or not we want to enable the video previews . In case you do want to keep them, you can deactivate the sound if it bothers you that audio is played every time you hover over the different recommendations that Android TV gives you.

My list

In this first option, all the multimedia streaming apps that we have installed on our television or TV Box will appear. If you want the application to disappear from your home screen, you will simply have to uncheck it. In the same way, if an icon appears off, you will only have to check the drop-down to the right to activate the channel on your television .

For example, if you do not use Google Play Music or are interested in the recommendations offered to you through Promotional Channels, we will deactivate them from here and they will no longer appear in the rows on our main screen .

Some channels will not only have the on / off drop-down, but we can configure some of the internal options of each app. This is the case of YouTube, Disney + or HBO Max, among others. We will show you the example with YouTube , but by doing the same steps you can customize any similar app.

Youtube

If we enter the YouTube list, you can customize the information that you can view on your main screen as if they were independent channels. All these options can be configured:

  • recommendations
  • Subscriptions
  • Trends
  • Youtube music

If you don’t regularly use YouTube Music because you pay for some other music streaming service like Amazon Music Unlimited or Spotify, you can disable the YouTube Music channel on your TV. It is also very common to remove the Trends channel, since, in general, they will recommend music videos and viral videos that will not interest us at all.

Content preferences

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If you enter the Content Preferences option, you can guide Android TV a bit about your tastes .

In this menu, a series of programs installed on your television will appear and you will be able to mark or unmark those apps whose content recommendations interest you. Then, we will click on confirm and we will get a small program that will remind more than one of Tinder, since we will have to click on Like, Dislike or Skip depending on our preferences.

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We will give thumbs up if we want Google to recommend us more similar content , thumbs down if we want to tell the assistant not to show us products similar to that title and “Skip” if we are indifferent. This last option is the option that you must click if you do not know the series or movie that has been shown to you. This way we will not make artificial intelligence dizzy.

Rearrange Applications / Games

With these two options we can choose the order in which we will show our apps and games in the Apps and Games menu. It is similar to what we do on our screen on Android for smartphones, only, in this case, it is done from Settings so that we do not misconfigure our television by mistake.