Comment by kburman

I use Flauncher too. I also use Netguard from F-Droid and block everything except streaming apps and their dependencies. I only unblock Google when a steaming app requires an update. I'm slowly dropping subscriptions and moving to Jellyfin though too.

I agree. My Google TV with Projectivity Launcher shows zero launcher ads unlike my Apple TV. As a bonus, it lets me install SmartTube and use DeArrow and Sponsor Block.

I just wish I could get something similar as a native iOS app. Although I can use Safari extensions, the Safari YouTube experience on iOS is terrible.

That's a popular and socially safe point of view, but it's completely wrong. Artistic merit, like truth and beauty, is an objective quality completely orthogonal to cultural differences or personal opinion. To illustrate this orthogonality, I invite you to realize there exists art which has great merit and yet which you personally do not like. You should be able to do this, if you can't manage I can provide my own examples for you. The existence of such art proves that personal preferences don't weigh on the recognition of artistic merit.

This. The lack of a Shield hardware refresh seems insane.

I get Nvidia (the company) has other priorities with higher revenue.

But they have a product, with proven product-market fit, that gives them a last mile connection with end users, in one of the highest utilization home spaces.

How has no one at Nvidia looked at that and said "I'm not saying we orient our entire focus around it, but shouldn't we at least fund it as a strategic priority?"

If datacenter revenue falls off, it's going to look awfully short-sighted not to have diversified customer base when they had the chance.

What benefits would a hardware upgrade bring the end user? Not releasing a new model every year sounds like a perfectly good thing to me as long as they keep updating the software without introducing performance problems.

My biggest gripe with the Shield is the newest one has a remote that I really don’t like. Luckily it can be replaced with a third party remote!

Does this article actually expect the reader to download two random APK files and then install them on their Shield? This seems... dangerous?

Wow, forced ai translation based on.. ip? System lang?

Even on the OG hardware, I'm able to use 4K in h.265 or AV1 without issue, it does get hot though.

My og chromecast frequently crash (I suspect due to running out of ram when casting contents) so I ended up replacing it with the chromecast ultra. The og chromecast is still usable if you can tolerate the crashing, but I imagine it's going to get worse as developers keep updating their cast players (basically a webpage that plays video) with new features that consume more and more ram.

Even if they don't brick them explicitly they will no longer provide security updates for them.

I'm on the same boat, smart TV has never been online, all content is just cast from media server/phone/tablet straight to chromecast. It works, no fuss, glitch free, and of course they will kill it.

I've been aware of the Shield devices for some years now, as an Android user, but something always put me off them.

I lrecently bought the FireTV 4K in a last-ditched effort to find something I could at least have some control over; if I could replace the launcher with something that's just app icons and not all adverts it would have been perfect, but alas, Amazon has prevented that, so onto the next thing.

It's really sounding like Apple TV is the best option for something suitable for the whole family.

Can I ask; what is the purpose of the relatively large storage on an Apple TV, do they support "apps" of some kind?

It's still seeing software updates and can play h.265 and AV1 content in 4K without issue. The latest model is 2019 though... that said works great... latest software update was just a couple weeks ago.

Also, you can swap the Android TV launcher relatively easily.

I just wish the remote wasn't so small that I can never find it after my girls use it. I've just gotten used to using the phone app.

Thank you, that's exactly what I'm after.

A quick search, suggests the latest is 3rd gen (2022), am I looking at the right device?

That's the one I tried on the Fire Stick, it doesn't always launch, sometimes launches a few minutes after start, and when pressing home it would go back to the default launcher.

I think it's related to the accessibility settings it wants enabled, I was never able to turn it on like it says because the setting just refuses to enable.

I like FLauncher! Stupid simple and does the job.

I'm a Linux user myself, and into hardware and self-hosting, so I have hardware coming out of my ears, but I wouldn't dare try and use a Linux box in the living room.

My wife and kids use the living room TV most, I barely use it, and only then if I'm watching with them, they use all of the streaming services so they want it to play in 4K and "just work", for which Linux is unfortunately not the solution.

The down side is if you actually want streaming apps with 4K support for the paid services.

I've been using NVidia Shield TV (pro) since the first gen, still have my OG device as well as the updated models. I'm also running a Beelink SER8 with Bazzite for some living-room gaming and classic emulation.

Apple TV 4k has an idle power draw of 0.49W and a 4k streaming power draw of 2.31W. That mini desktop will likely run at around 20W idle and approaches 30W under relatively light load and up to 60W on high loads. Plus keyboard and mouse are generally terrible couch devices. I've already got a NAS and plenty of devices I can stream from. The Apple TV is an almost perfect small and efficient device to stream to.

Unfortunately not possible on the Fire Stick (4K Max), Amazon have modified it to disallow other launchers; there are some "hacks" but none have worked for me and the closest one I did get to working was too much of a pain for the rest of the family.

I've found no way to root it either so I just want rid of it, every time something appears almost-full-screen on the home page that's inappropriate for the kids with no regard for what time of day it is, my wife gets all the more annoyed by it; she never wanted it in the first place, so the poor experience is not helping my case).

I just use an Apple TV box these days, but ~15 years ago I was running a Windows 7 Media Center PC for DVR and a few saved movies. The best remote was a TiVo Slide Pro (no longer made, and my wife broke the one we had). Normal TiVo remote buttons on top, slides open to expose a small keyboard. They occasionally show up on eBay or if you have a local source, use that. You'll need one that has the RF dongle to be able to use the keyboard with anything other than an RF-capable TiVo.

I have a Logitech K830, it's great. Alas they're not manufactured any more.

Modern equivalents are a lot cheaper. I think they might not have the backlight feature which is extremely useful, and I've dropped mine many times, even spilled coffee over it, and it still works flawlessly.

i just use the cheapest wireless keyboard and mouse I can. I’m accessing content through the browser so there’s enough typing that I wouldn’t want a non keyboard personally.

Imo you only need remote like hardware if you’re planning to scroll through Netflix style walls of content.

a game controller works also really well with something like Steam Big Picture and Media Players

You also need to have a spare tire or an inflate kit, that doesn't mean you can throw it at somebody's head or spray them in the eyes. Said in another manner: having eCall doesn't mean that they are authorized to send telemetry back in non-emergency situations or use it to do any other thing unrelated to the main function. Now, if there is not a law that forbids that, car makers are going to exploit that loophole for sure, but that does not mean the EU is evil in this context.

I also don't like this precedent, but I do still feel cars are quite different. You need a license to drive a car on public roads. The car needs lots of certifications. You need an insurance. You need to prominently display your (your car's) ID for all to see. If you make mistakes while operating a car, the police can stop you and the state can take away your right to drive a car.

This makes it all very different from a gadget you use for entertainment in your own home.

Just to be clear to anyone reading - those SIMs have one purpose only - to automatically call emergency services if you crash.