[Shield Android TV General] copticwalad:
I completely agree. When I first heard about the Shield in Summer 2015 and bought in October, I knew Nvidia wouldn't let me down. I'm actually now convinced Nvidia is one of the reasons Android TV still exists, along with Sony for being early adopter on its tvs.

That combined with most tv brands now including Android TV as their OS, except for Ahem... Samsung (you need to jump ship cause Tizen is not efficient or utilized well) and LG. Hats off to Nvidia cause it is real smooth and top quality. There are a few exceptions especially last few weeks if you had the beta version, but that could be due to my increased 'experiments'.

Good advice on adblink, I'm going to check it out.

I'm actually wondering what other tools members here have found really useful for dealing with the non-touchscreen / untypical android environment. For me I initially was dissappointed but over time have learned to really appreciate at least the live tv watching/dvr, Plex is a Huge one for me cause 4k 10bit + HDR videos work over network almost flawlessly, limited by Wireless for me at 15+Megabytes per second.

In regards to my preferences now, Sideload launcher is a must. Solid Explorer honestly is amazing For main File Explorer as long you're willing to use mouse cursor on controller, it is like $1 or $2 but just get Google Opinion Rewards and it'll end up being free. Our phones in our house access the Shield 128GB Adopted storage NAS through solid explorer SMB/LAN integration. PC's access it as mapped network drive. So I'll use my Pixel XL Solid Explorer app to navigate my installed apps and literally just copy and paste it onto SHIELD NAS folder. This works out cause of the arm64 and if I need a nodpi version then apkmirror usually works. Then I open it up on tv's solid explorer and install.

-TV App Repo is an amazing app for making Leanback Launcher Tile Icons for any sideloaded app, and it looks crazy awesome when you see how good those icons look on home screen. Don't expect the apps at the top to be updated though.

Let me list of apps I sideloaded and personally found limitations:

-Google Chrome - works great, Bumper buttons switch tabs easily. You can use Google voice search in it if you go to google.com, and use mouse to click Voice Search button (You might need to Request Desktop Site) but it does work inside. A few months there was an update that killed Controller-based page zooming. I think it was Chrome 54, so I set my apps not to auto-update and put back Chrome 53 I think it was, which has worked out awesome. I'll also use my Family Chrome profile on my computer to prepare bookmarks so I can easily open them on tv.

-Google Photos does work with controllers a bit, but you will need to use controller mouse to swipe from side for menu, if you can't navigate photos with left or right buttons, just click on the picture/video once and it should then work. Decent but if I remember correctly, it wasn't easy to navigate to shared albums and quite frankly casting from our phones are better unless you're trying to play back 4K videos, which do feel smoother if opened on shield google photos.

-Google Translate, actually works amazing and you can use the Auto-speech button to listen and translate between 2 languages. Only limitation is you need to use mouse cursor to point on mic button instead of click green A button.

-Google Maps - Does work decently, biggest notable limitation is no way to zoom out. Double tap where cursor is to zoom in, What I'll do to zoom out is search for bigger area, like North America and zoom in carefully knowing it's a 1 way zoom. Cool to see just general info or 3D satellite views.

-Play Books - my favorite way to see pdf's (Google pdf viewer and google drive viewer can't turn pages with joystick). Google Play Books can, however you will need to upload it first, remembering 100mb limit. UI takes a little getting used to but 3D turning pages, along with full zoom support works out nicely.

-Google Drive works great as usual.

-Google Hangouts can work if you have a Google Voice # and want to just receive and open texts links or messages.

-AIDA64 if you want to see all the cool hardware + live memory info on Shield. Notably I feel like Shield usually typically uses 2.1 GB /3GB of memory as that seems to be consistent number I see. Feel free to use Developer Options to limit # of background apps or turn it off background apps altogether, but remember that setting in case you have issues in future. The app UI is 1080p so dont' expect it to say 4k even though 4k does work fine everywhere else.

-VPN app works great if you want additional protection when using certain apps or Kodi (I haven't found the need for it and simply use Plex and other solutions). PIA is my preferred choice but honestly I usually skip turning on VPN now as speeds usually suffer enough depending on server and time to affect 4K youtube videos etc..

-I haven't tried it in a year but Google Camera and Google Duo apps did work with a Logitech C920. I might actually connect again soon to have cool family to relatives video chat.

-Titanium Backup is a lifesaver when I am rooted (currently not because of 6.3 beta testing). You can actually schedule backups to google drive and adoptable storage perfectly fine, very useful considering Apps can update anytime and have a break in functionality. I recommend at least History of 2 Backups along with protecting backups manually if you do see something, like chrome zoom functionality loss. Limitation is you can't remove Any Market Link/Association from Google Play Store like you can on the phones. My work around now because you can't turn off Auto-Update for 1 single app is to turn off AutoUpdates in settings, and then manually check for updates and select all the other updates one by one, not too bad as there aren't a ton of apps.

-SpeedTest - works fine and is very useful if you use VPN App and select exclusive apps that must use VPN, in my test Kodi + Speedtest on VPN and measuring speeds, and then comparing to speed tests in Chrome Browser which is not on VPN. Remember you can have VPN for All Apps or selective apps, can be useful.

-Official TWRP app - if you can remember there's a hidden menu on left side you can swipe in, you can use this as a very easy way to reboot recovery rather than using adb network commands or blindly trying the disconnect power, hold finger on unit, plug it in for 10sec? for accessing recovery/download/bootloader. Be very cautious if you plan on downloading/flashing bootloader as I remember only particular versions worked well on shield

NOTABLE Apps in Shield Play Store

-Aerial Dream if you ever want the same screensaver A p p l e T V has, its even better imo cause you can control what you see and see location names. This is great because Shield Backdrop settings as a Chromecast setting Still lacks Google Photos functionality. interestingly Google Photos is an option in screensaver Settings, but it does not work with local account and gives a black screen.

-AirScreen - if you use it not often then you can get away with free option, which when Airplay is turned on will actually show up additionally as an Apple TV 3rd Generation on your network for Airplay. I found it work much more reliably then the Kodi one.

Great if iphone/ipad user wants to show something that's not Cast supported as they can mirror screen. From what I've seen, developer also supports Miracast, DLNA, etc.. but I haven't tried it.

APPS I Want That I haven't found good solutions for yet.

-I really want a reliable IPTV app that works with m3u m3u8 playlists. Currently trying out IPTV by Alexander along with MX Player Pro but having issues with my video links playing for either a few seconds or not at all. I believe its because of all the free sources I've been trying. I'm open to subscription-based but I tend to not trust most of these iptv stream providers, and the disconnect between app vs source/provider is unfamiliar territory for me.

-Any Smarthome integration that's Android TV UI based, however Google Assistant has gotten good enough that I can use that. Heads up you can link Logitech Harmony on your phone or Nvidia Shield (if you set it up same account on phone/tablet) by asking Google Assistant "OK Google, ask Harmony to link my account." I say this because it's ONLY one I don't see under the huge list of accounts/brands in Google Assistant. I believe it only shows up if you have a real Google Home, which I don't. I guess what I really would like to see is Netgear Arlo Pro Camera feed to tv similar to the one Nest has for their Cameras. The shame with Nest app is inability to see/control thermostat or Protect. There is the Logitech camera app I believe, but from what I remember, Samsung and SmartThings official support is non-existent on shield unless sideloading. For some reason I actually Don't want to sideload any Smarthome apps unless I get a surveillance cam, but even then it should support PIP then cause who's going to leave that on their tv for even 30+ minutes.

-Logitech Harmony is useful for tv volume integration (if CEC doesn't work there) or turn off tv or switch inputs but not so much for turning on tv unless you use a new feature. It's an always listening controller beta feature is on (where it can listen with tv off). I believe that setting is in developer options, but I have not tried it yet, but imagine it could work well if you leave controller in charger. Irony is If you have Logitech Harmony though, you probably turned off all the CEC stuff on Shield as it messes with letting harmony know if tv is on or off. If you don't have Harmony and do use the CEC tv on or tv off then I could see that being handy so you can voice command to play Psy from Youtube on Shield and have Shield and TV turn on.

-I'm wondering if Samsung Smartthings has a useful interface for those who got the usb stick. I have the actual Hub but I gotta say, unless you have unique z-wave and zigbee devices, you don't really need it. This is with setup of Nest,Philips Hue, Wemo, Lutron Caseta Wireless, Logitech Harmony, Google Assistant, IFTTT. I actually removed SmartThings as it duplicated all the other items twice in Google Assistant which I found annoying.