This is the setup I’ve built so far:

I use KonstaKang’s LineageOS Android TV build running on a pi 5: https://konstakang.com/devices/rpi5/LineageOS23-ATV/

No Google play services store at all, I just use ADB to install apps

This is the launcher I use, it’s way nicer than the stock Lineage one: https://github.com/meddouribadis/arclauncher/

I use SmartTube as my YouTube client: https://github.com/yuliskov/smarttube/

I have this Bluetooth remote app on my phone for the rare occasion I need to type a password or something: https://f-droid.org/packages/io.github.jqssun.btremote

I also have KDE Connect on both my phone and TV so I can play/pause media from my phone at any time and send files (like new launcher wallpapers) easily without adb.

Old laptop, debian, Firefox, g60s remote. Done.

Im on a 2013 m93p thinkcenter tiny. Still goes hard

@Epzillon
I use #LibreElec with #Zattoo and #Netflix addon on an old Laptop. For remote control, I use a Remote with Bluetooth and Infrarot.
Currently I play around with #GamesOnWhales and its fork #Quasar for game streaming.

I just saw this video a few minutes ago and it seems like a pretty good approach.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=nROKp0BpFek

It looks very similar to a post here from several months ago.

https://programming.dev/post/51150524

Open the TV and pull the wifi antennas off the board.

My living room set up has been TV not connected to internet and hooking up a minipc running Fedora. Could run Windows if DRM content from streaming services is important to you.

It’s been a while for me (I don’t upgrade things that work and I try to buy things that last a long time…)

But, Hotel Mode might still be a thing, and it might bypass some “smart” stuff on the TV

I used that to make my TV start on the correct external HDMI port for my MythTV instance running on Arch Linux (btw) with dual TV tuners in.

The TV is rarely used to watch live TV and it’s certainly not connected to any networking.

Just another approach that I’ve not seen mentioned here

Any Linux distro with Plasma Bigscreen. My TV box is an old laptop I got for free from work running Cachy OS. I have a remote-sized keyboard/trackpad that I use to control it. I mostly just need the arrows, but the whole keyboard is there if I need to go in to the desktop OS.

I could use a recommendation for a big-screen ad-blocking YouTube app though.

Also, looking towards the future or for people that can find one at a decent price:

Not a raspberry pi but an Orange Pi Plus or Pro. They have a rockchip that has AV1 decoding (along with standard others) which is probably going to be the future (it is for corpo streaming already).

Put plasma big screen on it and get a Bluetooth wechip remote or something

@Epzillon I have been using Plasma Big Screen for a while now and cant be happier. I use Jellyfin as my main media source, Fred TV for my IP TV service and PWA for Youtube and Netflix. My TV has been disconnected from the internet for a while now and I dont feel my kids know the difference. I also use the Rii bluetooth remote to access Plasma Big Screen interface.

Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:

[Thread #96 for this comm, first seen 7th Sep 2026, 18:20] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]

Me personally, I just use a Linux distro (ive used Ubuntu and popos, both have been fine) and use whatever flavor of streaming service I can access. Sometimes you’re hit with lower resolution but I’d rather that than get spied on and be fed ads by my hardware.

Ive also gone back to physical media and use a DVD player. I’m just buying series I like one by one.

This video used a combination of physical media and streaming services. They relied on waydroid and with some workarounds, it worked well for them:

https://youtu.be/nROKp0BpFek?is=GFhDrr82dCCFGcVT

I know people here will hate this but i used GPT to write a custome Kodi addon to do this for me. Breaks the days up into various programming blocks that i can configure with shows from my library. It comes with a website used to configure it and an import json system for the programming so i can give my list of shows to any ai and just tell it the kind of channel i want and it will configure one for me that i can import. The programming blocks come in three types: shows, movies and music. Shows allows for sequential, random or tagged play (for holidays and seasonal events). Movies and music also come with various search and random play profiles for things lile age, genre, tags and various other terms. Took about 2 weeks to get it to the point where i can turn it on and let it run without issue. Currently working on adding network ids and bumps to extend shows to their time frames so the sequencing doesnt get so off the clock after a few hours of watching. And i miss the adult swim bumps

For the real “TV feeling”, try ErsatzTV. It basically creates multiple real-time streams of TV shows and movies from your media library. You can switch between them like channels.

I use ONN Android boxes. Fairly inexpensive, but I think it’s difficult to set up without a Google account (you can create a dummy account on the setup).

Side-loading is trivial. Some favorite apps: TizenTube to replace YouTube (or any of a dozen or so frontends), Projectivy launcher to replace the awful default. Add an always on VPN.