Claude Code removed 25 Xiaomi packages from his parents’ TV and wrote a new launcher, according to developer Gathin T. What prompted the overhaul? A sponsored ad standing between his parents and Netflix.
Developers and “vibe coders” are sharing AI-assisted ways to remove sponsored ads from smart TVs, speed up app launchers, redesign home screens and disable tracking features. Hacking consumer electronics for more control isn’t new, but coding assistants are making the work more accessible. There’s a tradeoff, though: an agent that can disable unwanted software can also disable something the TV needs.
Gathin, the creator of cleanyourtv, described his experiment in an October 17, 2026 post:
“Vibe coded my parents’ TV this afternoon!
It was showing a sponsored ad before you could even get to Netflix.
Gave Claude Code the model number, it found the TV on wifi, removed 25 Xiaomi packages and wrote a new launcher.
Looks like an Apple TV now lol pic.twitter.com/E5Q4A1b0yI”
The cleanyourtv project promises to remove bloatware from any Android TV or Google TV over Wi-Fi and replace its launcher with one resembling Apple TV’s interface. It doesn’t require root access, and users can still restore the TV to its factory default state.
On a donation page linked from the project’s homepage, Gathin said the replacement home screen contained only his parents’ apps. After he published the prompt on GitHub and posted before-and-after images, he said a few thousand people did the same to their own devices over the next two days. His list included Xiaomi, TCL, Sony, Fire TV and LG devices, plus “a projector or two.” That’s his account of adoption, not a guarantee that every device supports the same changes.
Another project, dumbtv, states its goal plainly: “Your TV should do what you paid for: your apps, your HDMI inputs, and nothing else. No ads from the TV itself, no watch tracking, no update you did not ask for.”
The project has been tested end-to-end on a Fire TV Edition television and on Android/Google TV platforms, with Sony, TCL, Philips, Hisense, Xiaomi and Shield named. Its developer suggests pointing your preferred AI agent at the GitHub repository. Both projects remain works in progress as users test different platforms and suggest fixes and updates.
Modern smart TVs ship with Automatic Content Recognition, or ACR, which identifies what’s playing through screenshots, audio clips or other digital fingerprints. These modifications are emerging amid complaints about forced advertising and devices monitoring viewing habits.
The smart TV advertising industry makes money by selling viewing data to advertisers or using it to serve personalized ads within its own interfaces. If these “dumb TV” modifications spread among everyday consumers, they could disrupt that business. But a cleaner home screen alone doesn’t establish that all tracking has stopped.
Users aren’t limited to someone else’s GitHub project, either. In a newly viral X post, Ryan Doyle said he sent Claude Code his TV’s listing and asked, “can you hack this?” According to his account, the agent walked him through removing ads and bloatware, speeding up a lagging interface and customizing his screensaver. His accompanying video showed an interface that appeared fast and responsive after the changes.
Mihir Gupta tried it after seeing posts about people modifying their TVs with AI. “One afternoon with Claude Code: 25 bloat apps disabled, the 192 MB stock launcher replaced with a custom 83 MB one, plus rotating wallpapers,” he wrote on X.
Not everyone has had such a straightforward experience. Several users reported that Claude wouldn’t act on simple requests to modify their TV, with other accounts and similar attempts pointing to the need for more complex prompts than “hack my TV.”
Others warned that AI agents could disable important packages or break functions. One user said they bricked their Android TV using Claude; another reported getting stuck halfway through modifying a Fire TV. These are individual reports, but they illustrate the limits: successful examples don’t establish that the process is reliable across TVs.
For people who want a different Android-based TV home screen without asking an AI agent to modify the wider system, existing replacement apps include ATV Launcher, Projectivity Launcher and FLauncher. Swapping the launcher is a narrower job than removing packages or trying to stop tracking.
