He Built Custom TV Launchers for Guests and His Backyard With Claude Code

rephlektiv · reddit · 2026-10-24

A Reddit user shares six months of building three custom Android/Google TV home screens with Claude Code, keyed on the insight that the TV home screen is just an app that can talk to Home Assistant and Plex.

Three projects:

Guest room "hotel mode": guests fill an intake form (drinks, snacks, wake time, coffee order, movie genres); the TV greets them by name, shows their coffee order, builds Plex rows per genre, stays dim until wake-up, and a 5 PM "champagne button" pings the host via Home Assistant
Father-in-law's TV: news and markets up front; Claude wrote an IPTV player and Plex client from scratch so channel-up/down feels like a real TV
Pool/hot tub TVs: controls pool, spa, lights, fans and music via Home Assistant, including a custom integration for an unsupported pool controller, plus speaker paging, camera view and doorbell pop-up

Transferable lessons:

Start from who uses the TV and what they want; let Claude turn that into UI
Have Claude test itself: Android TV emulator driven over adb with screenshot checks
adb steps needed to replace the stock launcher — keep an escape hatch
Route device control through Home Assistant to keep the TV app simple

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He Built Custom TV Launchers for Guests and His Backyard With Claude Code

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