AI has found a new application: stripping down smart TVs to eliminate unwanted bloat. Recently, developers and "vibe coders" have been sharing methods for "vibe-coding" televisions—removing sponsored advertisements, accelerating app launchers, redesigning home screens, disabling tracking capabilities, and more. One project called "dumbtv" states its purpose on GitHub: "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." Another project, "cleanyourtv," claims it can remove bloatware from any Android TV or Google TV device over Wi-Fi and swap the launcher for one resembling Apple TV's interface.

Hacking consumer electronics for greater system control isn't new, but recent AI advancements have made these techniques far more accessible to ordinary people. For smart TVs specifically, these hacks arrive as consumers grow increasingly frustrated with forced advertisements and devices monitoring their viewing habits. Modern smart TVs come equipped with Automatic Content Recognition (ACR), a technology that identifies on-screen content through screenshots, audio samples, or other digital fingerprinting methods. Should these "dumb TV" modifications gain mainstream popularity, they could potentially disrupt the smart TV advertising industry, which generates revenue by selling viewing data to advertisers or using it to deliver personalized ads through their own interfaces. Gathin T., the creator of cleanyourtv, explains that the idea emerged one afternoon when he grew tired of seeing advertisements on his parents' television.

"I had Claude Code clean it up over Wi-Fi and build a simple home screen with just their apps on it. I put the prompt on GitHub, tweeted the before and afters, and a few thousand people did the same to their own TVs over the next two days. Xiaomi, TCL, Sony, Fire TV, LG, a projector or two," the developer wrote on a donation website linked from the project's homepage. This solution doesn't require root access to the TV and doesn't permanently prevent returning to factory settings if desired. Meanwhile, the dumbtv solution has been tested end-to-end on a Fire TV Edition television and Android/Google TV platforms across TVs from Sony, TCL, Philips, Hisense, Xiaomi, and Shield. To use this hack, the developer recommends directing your preferred AI agent to the dumbtv repository on GitHub.

Important caveat: all these solutions are still works in progress, with various users testing them across different TV platforms and suggesting updates and fixes. However, individuals don't need to borrow someone else's GitHub work to accomplish this. In a recently viral X post, Ryan Doyle explains that he simply sent Claude Code the listing for his TV and asked "can you hack this." The agent then guided him through the process, enabling him to remove ads and bloatware from the TV, speed up the sluggish user interface, and customize his screensaver, he claims. Doyle then demonstrates in a video how fast and responsive the new interface becomes after the AI made the requested changes.

Seeing posts about people "vibe-coding their TVs" inspired one X user, Mihir Gupta, to try it himself. "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. The end results of these hacks may vary, however. Some people have found that Claude wouldn't respond to their simple suggestions to "hack my TV," requiring more complex prompts. Others warned that AI agents could make mistakes, potentially disabling important packages or breaking things in the process. One person even said they bricked their Android TV using Claude, and another got stuck halfway through hacking their Fire TV. For those hesitant about using AI to fully hack their TVs, existing solutions for customizing Android-based smart TVs include home screen replacement apps ATV Launcher, Projectivity Launcher, and FLauncher.