If you have a smart TV that works under the system of Android TV 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 to a certain extent the main screen of our television. If you have any doubts, here we offer you a very complete guide to how to customize your android tv system so that you have your applications and channels more at hand.
Putting order on 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 on online services like Netflix or Prime Video. And it is that Google's system focuses on 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 that we use the most. Of course, Android TV can be order and customize totally at our whim, and that is what we are going to explain to you step by step.
How to add shortcuts to your favorite apps
To add or remove apps from our tab Favorites We will have to go first to the Home tab of our Android TV. Inside there will be a list called “Favorite Apps”. To add apps to this row, scroll to the bottom of the list to the right. An icon will appear that will put "add app to Favorites".
Clicking on that icon will bring up a app list that we already have installed on our television or multimedia device. We will select the application and click on the OK button on our remote control. Immediately afterwards, said application will be added to the favorites list.
Remove a program from Favorite Apps
If, on the contrary, what you want is remove a program from the favorites list, all you have to do is select the app from the list and make a long press to the accept button ("OK" button) of your remote hand. In this case, a drop down menu will appeare in which we can click on the last option, called “remove from favorites”.
Change the order of 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 that, 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.
Personalize the Home screen
Although it may not seem like it at first glance, Android TV offers you the possibility of set up practically all aspects of the system to your liking. Almost the same as in the mobile version. You will be able hide those functions that you do not use at all and highlight the ones you use in your day to day.
The only Android TV apps that are static are those from YouTube and the rest of the stores that make up the Google Play Store. The rest of the services like Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, HBO Max o Disney + They can be configured to suit us. Similarly, you can hide those services that you no longer use or that you have simply stopped paying the subscription, as we will tell you a little later.
To do one Precise Start menu customizationyou will have to go to Settings, by clicking on the gear icon in the upper right corner of your TV. Immediately afterwards, a side menu will appear where you will have to select the option "Starting screen". Inside we will find a lot of different options. The ones we should use are the following:
- Customize channels
- customize services
- Content preferences
In addition, we can check or uncheck if we want or not enable video previews. If you do want to keep them, you can turn off 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 media streaming apps that we have installed on our television or TV Box. If you want the app 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 mark 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 come out in the ranks at our main screen.
Some channels will not only have the on/off dropdown, but we will be able to 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 doing the same steps you can customize any similar app.
YouTube
If we enter the YouTube list, you will be able to customize the information that you can view on your main screen as if they were independent channels. can be configured all these options:
- Recommendations
- Subscriptions
- Trends
- Youtube music
If you don't regularly use YouTube Music because you pay for another music streaming service like Amazon Music Unlimited or Spotify, you can deactivate YouTube Music channel on your television. It is also very common to remove the Trending channel, since, in general, they will recommend music videos and viral videos that will not interest us at all.
Content preferences
If you enter the Content Preferences option, you will be able to Guide Android TV a bit about your tastes.
In this menu a series of programs installed on your television and you can mark or unmark those apps whose content recommendations interest you. Immediately afterwards, 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 based on our preferences.
We will give thumbs up if we want Google to recommend more similar content, thumbs down if we want to tell the wizard not to show us products similar to that title and "Skip" if we are indifferent. This last option is the option that you should click if you do not know the series or movie that has been shown to you. So we will not make artificial intelligence dizzy.
Rearrange Apps/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 Android screen for smartphones, only that, in this case, it is done from Settings so that we do not unconfigure our television by mistake.