It may be that on more than one occasion you have had the need to install an application on your Smart TV with Android TV, or you simply need to take a look at the application store to see which game to install, but for some reason you cannot enter the room in which it is located or you have simply lost control. Don't worry, with this method, you will be able to control your Android TV from any computer and see what is happening remotely.
How to control your Android TV from Windows and from Mac
When it comes to controlling an Android TV device from a computer, we will follow the same procedure that is usually done when we want to do the same thing, but with an Android mobile phone. The key is to use developer permissions to remotely access the device via ADB debug mode. This option remains hidden, so the first thing we will have to do is activate it. Depending on the connection you have on your local network, you can even remotely see what is happening on your TV from any signal input, thus being able to remotely see when someone is playing with the PS5 in the HDMI 1 port, for example.
1 – Enable ADB debugging mode
To do this we will go to Settings> Device Preferences> Information and we will scroll to the last option: Compilation.
In this option we will press the selection button on our controller 8 times to activate the secret menu of the Developer Options. After doing so, a message will inform us that the Developer Options have been activated.
Go back to the previous menu by pressing the back button and look for the “Developer options” option. Enter the option and look for the “ADB Debugging” function. Activate it.
2 – Install Scrcpy on your computer
In this step, what we will do is use the Scrcpy screen mirroring application, which allows us to remotely control any Android device from a computer. It's available for Windows, Mac, and Linux, so you shouldn't have a problem installing it. However, each case requires different steps.
- From windows: Download the application from the download link and unzip the .zip on your desktop or in the folder you want.
- From MacNote: The Mac version of Scrcpy doesn't have ADB tools, so you'll need to install them first. To do this we are going to install the Homebrew package manager, and for this we will open a Terminal window and launch the following command:
/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh) "
With Homebrew installed, it's time to download the ADB tools. Run the following command in the terminal:
Brew install android-platform-tools
And finally, install Scrcpy with the following command:
brew install scrpy
3 – Establish the connection with the TV
With everything installed, it's time to connect to our TV via ADB. For this we need the IP of the device, so we will go to Settings> Network and Internet> and click on the network to which we are connected (it must be the same WiFi or wired network in which you have connected your computer).
Write down the IP address that appears, and use it in the following steps:
- From windows: Open a command prompt window from the folder you unzipped from Scrcpy. To do this, open the folder and in the path bar type CMD and press enter. This will open a Command Prompt window directly to the Scrcpy folder path.
There you will have to write the connection command with the TV using the IP that you wrote down previously. The command will be the following:
adb connect [ip-of-your-tv] >> an example would be: adb connect 192.168.1.54
- From Mac: With Terminal running, type the following command:
adb connect [ip-of-your-tv] >> an example would be: adb connect 192.168.1.54
After executing the connection command, your TV will display a message asking for an incoming connection. You must accept this message, since we will be giving our computer permission to establish a connection with the Smart TV.
4 - Open Scrcpy
With the connection established, all you have to do is run Scrcpy to remotely control your TV.
- From windows: type scrcpy from the command window that you already had open.
- From Mac: Type scrcpy from the Terminal window you already have open.
A new window will open and show the remote image of your Android TV, being able to navigate through the menus with the arrow keys on the keyboard or directly using the mouse to make gestures and return to the previous menu by pressing the secondary button.