October 26, 2026, 9:22 am | Read time: 2 minutes
Advertising, recommendations, and pre-installed services are making many smart TVs increasingly cluttered. Two new open-source projects aim to change that using AI and reduce the home screen to the essentials.
AI Tools Promise Better Organization
Today, starting a series or opening a media library on many smart TVs requires navigating through a multitude of recommendations, ad spaces, and app suggestions. The user interfaces of modern TVs are often filled with content not directly from the user. This is where the projects “CleanYourTV” and “dumbtv” come in.
The free tools aim to simplify the interface and give users more control over their TVs. They primarily support devices with Android TV or Google TV, including numerous models from Sony, TCL, and Philips. The dumbtv project also works on Amazon’s Fire TV devices. However, Samsung TVs with Tizen and LG models with webOS are excluded.
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How It Works
Setup is done via a computer on the same home network. The AI assistant Claude Code from Anthropic can be used, for example. The system can execute commands and make settings on the TV. This requires activated developer options and appropriate access rights on the device.
According to the developers, certain programs and advertising services can be disabled this way. At the same time, a significantly reduced home screen can be set up without replacing the actual operating system. The goal is to make operation clearer and allow users to become more independent from manufacturer interface specifications.
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What Users Should Know
The projects have another goal: to limit data collection by smart TVs. A test by the portal RTINGS showed that a Sony TV with Google TV could regularly transmit information to external services through activated content recognition functions. These data help identify what content is currently displayed on the screen.
However, decluttering with AI tools is not without risks. If important system applications are accidentally disabled, certain TV functions may fail. There’s also the risk that automatic updates could be turned off. Therefore, the developers of CleanYourTV offer a tool to reactivate disabled programs. However, ads within individual apps like Netflix or YouTube remain unaffected and cannot be removed through the new menus.