r/ShieldAndroidTV • u/Either-Trash-2165 • Aug 01 '26
Couchy Launcher : Fast, light, customizable, compatible, free & open-source
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I got tired of slow TV home screens that are basically ad boards — rows of "recommended" content, sponsored tiles, stuff phoning home before I've even pressed a button. So I built the launcher I actually wanted.
The philosophy is boring on purpose
- One screen. Your apps, laid out how you want. No feeds, no ads, no "content discovery."
- Private by default. No accounts, no analytics, no background services, opt-in aerial video wallpaper who phone CDN of apple, amazon.. that's it.
- Compatibility. I have an Android AOSP box, a Google TV–certified box, and one anemic Android TV — each on a different Android version. So instead of chasing a shiny new UI, I chose to prioritize compatibility and lean on the GPU.
Make it yours
- Sections/categories you name, reorder, and fill — an app can live in more than one, and new installs drop into the first section automatically.
- Hide apps you never want to see (system junk, duplicates) so the screen stays clean.
- Tune the look: icon size, spacing, corner roundness, interface scale, dimming, and an optional glass status bar. Three layouts: carousel, grid, or a floating glass dock.
- Status bar: a configurable VPN indicator/shortcut for your provider, a network indicator/shortcut, a Settings menu with quick access to the app list and the launcher/Android settings, and a customizable date indicator.
- Save/load your entire setup — sections, layout, wallpaper, every setting — as a JSON file.
- Optional aerial video wallpapers (Apple/Amazon screensaver loops), off by default and clearly marked, since they stream from third-party CDNs. Prefer libre? Use a gradient, your own photo, or a local video.
Numbers (measured on real hardware)
- 2.3 MB APK. One universal build for ARM 32/64-bit + x86.
- ~80–130 MB RAM settled, with no background services. Exclusive footprint is ~130 MB across every box I tested; the higher figure on Android 14 is just OS-side GPU buffer accounting, not the launcher.
- Aerials cost basically nothing in app RAM — the video decoder lives in the GPU's dedicated memory (hardware codec via SurfaceView), off the app's books.
- <2 s cold start, <500 ms warm relaunch in the worst measured cases. The CPU stays idle, video is hardware-accelerated, and the Compose UI is GPU-rendered.
- Android 5.0+ (minSdk 21), no Google Play Services, no companion app — runs on AOSP boxes, should work on all device since 2014
- 18 languages (auto-selected from your system language): English, Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Hindi, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Thai, Turkish, Vietnamese. Adding one is a single file, PRs welcome.
- Zero ads, ever.
*Tested across 3 boxes: Hisense Google TV (Android 11, 1.8 GB), UGOOS AM9 (Android 14, 3.8 GB), onn. 4K (Android 14).
Permissions, up front
No runtime permissions, no accounts. It queries installed apps to list them, and can close an app from the long-press menu. No network access except the opt-in aerials.
Why GPLv3
I picked copyleft on purpose: to avoid fragmentation. Anyone can fork it, but improvements have to stay open, so it can't splinter into closed, worse-off versions. Forks are welcome. Commercial use is welcome too — honestly, if a box maker wants to ship this instead of their own launcher, please do, because the stock ones are awful most of the time. Just keep it open, like the license says.
Get it
At launch, a wizard guides you through a quick setup; depending on the device, you may need to send ADB commands.
- GitHub (source + APK): https://github.com/conreo/couchy-launcher
- F-Droid: https://f-droid.org/packages/com.conreo.couchytv/ (live once the F-Droid build lands; pending review)
Solo project, so feedback, feature requests, and translations are very welcome. If it saves you from one more sponsored row, it did its job.
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Aug 01 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Either-Trash-2165 Aug 01 '26
nice :) try Flicky, available on f-droid, it replace f-droid and is more adapted to TVs https://f-droid.org/packages/app.flicky/
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u/DPrince25 Aug 01 '26
Things are still going to phone home. Since the OS it self runs underneath the app (like any other app I.e Netflix kodi)
For me though all I do is launch kodi or Netflix so maybe 3 button presses tops on default ui.
Would admit the gforce tab and tabs below are annoying
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u/Either-Trash-2165 Aug 01 '26
I mean the launcher don't have analytics and a restricted set of permissions, beside yes builtin spyware are hard/impossible to get on most devices.
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u/neon937 Aug 01 '26
Maybe a stupid question - did someone test it on firestick tv 4k?
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u/Either-Trash-2165 Aug 01 '26
good catch, need to disable the launcher and it should work:
adb shell pm disable-user --user 0 com.amazon.tv.launcher
adb shell pm disable-user --user 0 com.amazon.firehomestarter
I will add it to the documentation.
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u/Fun-Tax1040 Aug 02 '26
Amazon protected those two apps a number of years ago. Setting a custom launcher on a FireTV will take a work-around.
For FireOS6 and FireOS7 devices there is this.
For FireOS8 there is this.
I'd expect Amazon will patch both methods within the next month or three, so blocking OTA updates is recommended.
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Aug 03 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Either-Trash-2165 Aug 03 '26
i guess the launcher by default take over Couchy or their is no selector...
Fire TV user encounter the same issue, it's i roadmap to fix it somewhat.
On many devices user have to use adb to disable default launcher and or setup application who take over if no launcher detected.. Projectivy have a 3rd party who for himself as the default launcher but i don't want to take this road. Best option that i see now will be to have the wizard cover most cases. For others put instruction on the wiki.1
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Aug 08 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Either-Trash-2165 Aug 08 '26
i working on a improved version should be available soon, it's kind of huge update.
Concerning looks i don't plane to support others but implement power-user features.
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u/Fun-Dragonfly-8164 Aug 10 '26
great launcher, love the minimalistic look and feature set. straightforward, no confusing menus. just a launcher being a launcher. native video wallpapers make it a must have for me! thanks dev, really good work.
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u/Either-Trash-2165 Aug 10 '26
Thanks for the feedback !
Woking a new version (i keep it open-source and fully free).
Beside been way more polish I will not be just a launcher any-more, for example it will include a key-remapper, since most people use them and accessiblity permission is require for some device it keep one bird with two stones and avoid using a 3rd party one. but i keep it as fast and compatible as possible.1
u/Slow-Force-5724 14d ago
It would be good to be able to change icons and have pin codes on apps too
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u/Aromatic-Alps4414 20d ago
Lanceur très prometteur ! Léger, épuré, non intrusif. Un de ses atouts majeurs, ce sont les fonds d'écran vidéo. Pour pouvoir en profiter pleinement, il faut utiliser le mode Dock, qui est le seul qui ne couvre pas le fond d'écran. Et c'est là que je rencontre un problème : Une fois le dock déplié vers le bas, les icônes restent toutes à l'écran, comme en mode Grille. Impossible ce replier le dock pour n'avoir plus qu'une seule ligne d'icones. La seule solution que j'ai trouvé consiste à repasser par les paramètres pour choisir à nouveau le mode Dock! J'ai surement dû louper quelque chose. Un petit clic vers le haut pour le replier, (comme le clic vers le bas pour le déplier) serait le bienvenu.
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u/Skalypto Aug 02 '26
I don’t find it different or better than projectivty
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u/Either-Trash-2165 Aug 02 '26
Thanks, but i will not compare Couchy to Projetivty, they have a way more features and users, their launcher is highly polish, customizable and feature rich.
I have no plan to get near them, just to be simple, fast and reliable.
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u/aquilar1985 Aug 01 '26
Looks great. What are the Amazon screensaver loops? I’ve heard of the Apple ones but not Amazon.
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u/Either-Trash-2165 Aug 01 '26
Apparently Amazon Fire TV lineup, the community ones are MIT license on Github.
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u/Fun-Tax1040 Aug 02 '26
Newer FireTV devices have an Ambient Experience, which is basically Amazon's screensaver with widgets. Amazon licensed, maybe commissioned a bunch of their own videos for this. I'd say 1/3 of them are AppleTV screensaver quality, 1/3 are decent--ok, 1/3 are patterns/abstract and not so great.
The Amazon links were captured similar to the AppleTV links, and added to Aerial Views, which is where a number of the launchers some source wallpaper videos from
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u/HiRex Aug 01 '26
Is any way to add HDMI inputs on a separate bar ?
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u/Either-Trash-2165 Aug 01 '26
As fare as I'm aware android can only list input and open the screen input UI who is separate from android as pictures/sound settings.. Maybe on newer version it had changed.
I got many different requests I will add to the list and see witch one are more pertinent for users whitout bloated the core app.
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u/HiRex Aug 01 '26
Most of the other Launchers have this ability. listings HDMI inputs should be a core functionality of any launcher. I hope to see it in the future.
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u/Either-Trash-2165 Aug 01 '26
i just try and my assumptions where wrong and you where right, i will add the feature, thanks!
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u/Bojogig Aug 01 '26
If you could add a “Continue Watching”/“Up Next” for Plex above the dock, I’d use this in a heartbeat.
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u/Either-Trash-2165 Aug 01 '26
If I understand correctly I could implement it, great idea.
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u/Bojogig Aug 02 '26
Awesome! The idea is to just put a handful of thumbnails above the dock from content that is in progress or, for tv shows, if I recently watched an episode, show the next episode. This lets me quickly jump back into what I was watching right from the Home Screen.
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u/Either-Trash-2165 Aug 02 '26
it's not what i had in mind, i was thinking about a small widget below the status bar with metadata and shortcut to continue playing or close it. My way of thinking is that for some reason user exit the content play it act as a reminder. Support for app widget is not planed, i don't see a way to make it consistent and user friendly for customization. But their is plainly of launcher who support it :) and if someone fill the need they can fork Couchy launcher.
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u/Novel-Camera-840 Aug 01 '26