Claude Code Turns Ad-Packed Android TVs Into Quiet Homes

A developer used Claude Code on October 17 to strip 25 Xiaomi packages off his parents’ TV and replace a sponsored home screen with a black, Apple TV-style dock. Gathin, a developer who posts as @gathint, said the assistant found the set on Wi-Fi after he typed the model number. The ad that had sat in front of Netflix was gone.

That afternoon is now an open-source prompt called CleanYourTV. It also punches a hole in the home-screen inventory that helps pay for cheap Android sets.

A Xiaomi Ad Sat in Front of Netflix

Gathin said he spent the afternoon on his parents’ television because it showed a sponsored ad before they could open Netflix. He handed Anthropic’s Claude Code the model number. It listed what was running, walked through the junk with him, and wrote a new home screen: black background, four big tiles, a clock.

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

Gathin, developer, on X, October 17, 2026

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

— Gathin (Ø,G) (@gathint) October 17, 2026

The public repo says those packages are disabled for the user, not uninstalled, and that a restore script can turn them back on. Firmware stays put. No root and no USB cable. He later moved the project from the Saturday name tv-vibehack to CleanYourTV and put a site at cleanyour.tv.

THE WEEKEND THE PROMPT LEFT THE LIVING ROOM

1. October 16, 2026: Ryan Doyle, posting as @doooyle, uses Claude Code on his own set, kills ads and a laggy interface, and adds a screensaver with calendar, weather, and Stripe payment alerts.
2. October 17, 2026: Gathin runs the same class of assistant on a Xiaomi in his parents’ house and publishes the prompt, launcher, and restore tools.
3. October 18, 2026: Muzzammil, posting as @DevMuzzammil, publishes dumbtv, a Fire TV-first pass that also targets Android TV brands.
4. October 19, 2026: The original repo is renamed CleanYourTV. Gathin writes that his parents still do not know what any of this is, and that they like that the ad is gone.
5. October 20, 2026: The GitHub listing shows 80 TV models, 28 brands, 15 languages, a 300 KB launcher, 7.6k stars, and 879 forks, with new commits the same day.

A day before Gathin’s post, Doyle had already shown how far a coding agent can push a living-room set. His version was a personal dashboard. Gathin’s version was a TV his parents could actually use. That is the copy that spread.

Roku Calls That Screen Valuable Real Estate

The sponsored row is not a glitch. In its Q2 2026 shareholder letter, dated August 6, Roku told investors the Home Screen is one of the most valuable pieces of real estate in TV, used by more than half of U.S. broadband households before they pick something to watch. The company spent that quarter rolling out its biggest Home Screen update in more than a decade, built to lift discovery and platform ad sales at the same time. Advertising in the quarter was $673 million, up 25% from a year earlier, inside $1.22 billion of platform revenue.

The Roku Home Screen is one of the most valuable pieces of real estate in TV. In the U.S. alone, it is used by more than half of broadband households, reaching them before they decide what to watch.

Roku Q2 2026 shareholder letter, August 6, 2026

The hardware side of that model is thin on purpose. Roku’s supplemental 2025 figures show devices revenue of $592.4 million and a devices gross loss of $82 million. Advertising for the year was $2.33 billion. The box can go out cheap because the first screen is inventory.

WHAT THE FIRST SCREEN IS WORTH

Viewers already treat that screen as a room they stand in, not a doorway. TiVo’s Q4 2025 Video Trends Report, from a survey of 4,493 adults in the United States and Canada, found smart TV owners spent 56.9% of the time they were using the set but not watching a show on the home page. More than one-third reported excessive ad loads on the home page. Another 65.8% had noticed information about a show or movie there.

TIVO Q4 2025 HOME SCREEN

• Sample: 4,493 adults 18 and older in the U.S. and Canada.
• Dwell time: 56.9% of non-watching use sits on the home page.
• Ad load: More than one-third saw too many ads on that page.
• Discovery: 65.8% noticed a show or movie promoted on the home screen.

CleanYourTV does not run on Roku OS. The company that described the screen most clearly is not the one losing tiles this week. The hit lands on Xiaomi, TCL, Hisense, Sony, Philips, and other Android TV and Google TV brands that shipped a similar first screen on a system that still exposes a debug bridge.

What the Prompt Changes on the Set

On a supported Android TV or Google TV, the computer and the set share a Wi-Fi network. Developer options go on, usually by pressing OK on Build seven times. USB debugging, and network or ADB debugging if the set shows them, go on next. Claude Code, or another assistant with shell access, pastes in the project prompt with the exact model. You accept the debugging prompt on the TV, then answer which apps you use, which four sit in the dock, and whether voice search, Chromecast, and software updates stay.

The assistant backs up the package list, turns off manufacturer tracking, ad services, content rows, and preloaded junk with pm disable-user, installs a small native launcher, and pulls screenshots from the TV to check its work. The GitHub README says that with the repo as context the pass takes about 15 minutes. A separate owner on a Sansui Google TV said the job took 25 minutes on that set.

As of October 20 the project publishes tested lists for 80 TV models across 28 brands, including 16 TCL sets, 15 Xiaomi sets, and 13 Sony sets, plus Hisense, Philips, NVIDIA Shield, Chromecast with Google TV, onn, and two projectors. A few China-market TCL sets refuse any third-party launcher, and the lists say so in the header. Fire TV gets the debloat half only, because Fire OS will not hand the Home button to CleanYourTV’s launcher.

WHAT THE NEW HOME PUTS ON SCREEN

• The dock: Four favourite apps in a rounded band on a pitch-black field, where Apple TV puts them.
• The shelf: The focused app’s name in large type, with a glow sampled from its artwork.
• The grid: The rest of the apps, revealed when you press Down, with one glass highlight that jumps tile to tile.
• The extras: HDMI and live-TV inputs, the network name, a clock, and a drifting clock screensaver so the panel does not burn in.

Themes can change colours and the dock without a rebuild. The launcher is listed at 300 KB. The prompt is supposed to ask before it touches anything you still use. That only helps if you read the list and say no.

Fire TV Cleanup Also Cuts Alexa and Updates

dumbtv is a different contract. Muzzammil built it for a Fire TV Edition set on Fire OS 7.7.1.7 and published scripts an agent can run over ADB. The README’s line is blunt: the TV should do what you paid for, your apps and your HDMI inputs, and nothing else.

On Fire OS it disables about 65 packages. Those include Amazon’s automatic content recognition, which can fingerprint what is on screen, HDMI included, plus ad-ID services, sponsored rows, watch-time analytics, experiment engines, the promo screensaver, and OTA helpers. Alexa and the microphone app go off whether you ask or not. A DNS filter on the set sends Amazon tracking and update servers to 127.0.0.1. The project’s own 45 KB launcher, which requests no internet permission, takes Home on Fire OS 7 and 8.

Two parts do not roll back from a script. Streaming apps the pass uninstalls from user storage have to come back from the store. Anything you delete by hand stays gone. A factory reset wipes the work, including the custom home. The scripts also keep a never-disable list so the remote, HDMI switching, and settings app survive. That is the adult supervision the viral posts skip.

Samsung, LG and Roku Stay Out of Reach

The prompt people are pasting is an Android Debug Bridge workflow. Samsung’s Tizen and LG’s webOS are different systems. Roku OS does not offer that shell. dumbtv’s own support table says those sets have no path, and that the honest options are a router block or jumping straight to HDMI. CleanYourTV’s README points to a webOS experiment in its showcase file, not to a supported path for a living-room LG.

WHERE THE PROMPT CAN AND CANNOT GO

That split is the joke inside the cleanup. The platforms that treat the first screen as a product are the ones you cannot paste a prompt into. The platforms that shipped a debug bridge are the ones whose ads are falling off this week. Xiaomi keeps coming up in those reports because the ads and the lag are loud, not because it is the only brand in the repo.

The Debug Switch Has to Come Back Off

The whole trick depends on leaving a door open. Android TV can connect to Android TV over Wi-Fi once USB debugging is on, which is why no cable is required. Any other machine on that network can then try the same connection. The TV still shows an allow prompt, but a prompt on a set that sits in a hallway is a weak lock. The CleanYourTV prompt file was updated on October 20 to close network ADB when the job is done. That step is easy to skip when the new home looks good.

BEFORE YOU PASTE THE PROMPT

• Stay in the room: You have to accept the debugging dialog on the TV and answer which packages may go.
• Disable, do not delete: CleanYourTV’s rule is pm disable-user. Uninstalling system packages is how people lose HDMI switching or the Home button.
• Expect USB quirks: Debugging can cut power to USB speakers or drives on some sets until you turn it off.
• Turn debugging off: Leave Developer options on if you want, but USB, network, and ADB debugging should go dark when you are finished.

A coding assistant can also disable the wrong thing. CleanYourTV asks whether the voice assistant, casting, and updates stay. dumbtv turns Alexa and update helpers off as a matter of policy. If you need the mic button on the remote, or you want the next Fire OS patch, that pass is the wrong one. Some owners are already past ads entirely, pinning family shows, swapping languages for parents, or painting live odds on the idle screen. The same open door that makes a quiet home in 15 minutes makes a broken Home button if you approve a plan you did not read.

Fifteen Minutes Undoes Years of Home Screen Ads

People are putting an afternoon into a coding agent because the Settings menu never grew a switch labelled simple home. Roku is still investing in that screen as inventory. Android TV makers still ship sponsored rows on sets sold as televisions. The new part is not ADB. The new part is that a pasted prompt can drive ADB for someone who would never open a terminal.

The companies that priced the hardware against future ads will not add that switch. The people who wanted Netflix in two clicks already have a workaround, at least on the sets that still expose a debug port. Gathin wrote that his parents still do not know what any of this is. They like that the ad is gone.