Get it on your TV

PLUI (Premium TV Launcher UI) is a home-screen launcher for Android TV, Google TV and Fire TV devices. It replaces the stock home screen with a premium, ad-free one: a widget dashboard you compose yourself, apps in categories, up to ten user profiles and a PIN-protected parental lock.

Android-based TV devices: Android TV and Google TV boxes and TVs, Fire TV devices, and generic Android TV boxes. It is built remote-first (D-pad) and stays fast even on weak hardware. On Fire TV the sideload build still installs on the Android-based sticks and runs as an app — what Amazon does not allow there is a third-party app taking over the HOME button, so the home screen stays Amazon’s. The newest sticks, from the Fire TV Stick 4K Select (October 2025), run Vega OS instead of Android and cannot install Android apps at all.

On the Play build, PLUI requests the system launcher role — where the device allows it, HOME goes to PLUI the supported way. On the sideload build, a guided accessibility setup catches HOME, and auto-boot opens PLUI when the box starts. Remapping buttons inside other apps is a different job — that's our companion app, Button Mapper TV. Every route, step by step →

Premium TV Launcher UI is free to install and use — no account needed. And Elite, the full edition, is $0, forever: no catch, no trial, no ads. The only price we ask is five minutes of your time — an honest word online about the launcher, and only if it has earned it.

They are launcher profiles: each of up to ten users gets their own apps, categories, backgrounds, theme, language, widgets and screensaver, optionally behind a PIN. Streaming apps keep their own logins and profile pickers — no launcher can change that.

Cameras that publish a standard ONVIF or RTSP stream — which covers most IP cameras and NVRs — viewed live over your own network, no cloud in the middle. PLUI is a viewer: recordings and alerts stay with your camera system. Cameras locked to a closed cloud app can't be viewed by anything else.

No ads, no sponsored rows, no "recommendations" you didn't ask for — and no selling your data. The home screen shows what you put on it.

Cloud backup stores your whole setup — all users, widgets, backgrounds, categories — and restores it on a new device in minutes.

45 languages, updated live without waiting for an app update. Each user profile can have its own language.

The launcher itself is closed source, and we say so plainly. What Smartago does publish, on GitHub: TV Focus Kit — PLUI's D-pad focus layer for Jetpack Compose (traveling focus ring, arrow rules, air-mouse and remote on the same focus), MIT-licensed, real code; and plui-tv-launcher — official builds, documentation and the public issue tracker. Several TV launchers are described online as open source while their repositories hold only APK files; when it matters to you, open the repository and look for the code.

PLUI is made by Smartago — a company with a name behind it, not an anonymous account. Checkable facts: a published privacy policy; a support address, support@smartago.net, answered by a person within 24–48 hours; a Google Play developer account that also ships Downloader TV, Button Mapper TV and TV Setup Suite; and a public issue tracker on GitHub. The launcher shows no ads and no sponsored rows, needs no account, and sells no data. That is usually what people mean when they ask whether a launcher is open source — and here it can be verified.

From Google Play, on the TV: search for Premium TV Launcher UI, or open the Play page on your phone and send it to the TV. Open it once, pick a look, and it is your home screen. To make the HOME button open it on a TV that locks HOME, follow the HOME guide — three routes, two minutes for the first.

With our own Downloader TV: open it and enter code 0245 — the full sideload build downloads and installs. Or open the direct APK with any downloader app, or send SC:PLUI from your phone with Send to TV Quick. The start wizard then walks you through its three switches in plain words.

Same job, different school: PLUI is the premium, widget-dashboard launcher — up to ten profiles with a PIN parental lock, live security cameras on the home screen, 45 languages, no ads and no sponsored rows, and the full Elite edition at $0. The others are excellent at minimal or classic layouts. The comparison table lists 17 checkable facts side by side, and The Honest Take says where each one wins.

The ads and sponsored rows belong to the stock home screen, so when PLUI is your home they are simply not there — PLUI shows what you put on it and nothing else. Ads inside streaming apps are those apps’ own and stay. On TVs that lock the HOME button, the HOME guide makes PLUI the real home.

Yes — PLUI launches any app installed on the TV, in the categories and order you choose. Two honest limits: the “Continue watching” rows of the stock home are Google’s and are not available to any third-party launcher; and a few DRM apps insist on a trusted home — making PLUI the real Home app (the HOME guide) and setting the TV clock to automatic settles that.

The Play build needs nothing special. The sideload build asks for three switches in its wizard, each explained on screen: install updates (so it can update itself — nothing installs without your OK), display over other apps (the parental lock and auto-boot), and an accessibility service that listens for the HOME button only — it cannot see your screen, your apps or any personal data. The full text is in the privacy policy.

Yes. Each of the up to ten profiles can sit behind a PIN, so a child’s profile shows only the apps you allow, and a screen-time limit can end the session for the day. Settings themselves are PIN-protected, so the lock cannot be switched off from the sofa.

The launcher itself does: apps, profiles, categories and the parental lock need no connection. Widgets that fetch something — weather, radio, wallpapers — need their sources, and cameras need your own network. Cloud backup and updates run when the TV is online.

Uninstall it like any app: Settings › Apps › Premium TV Launcher UI › Uninstall; HOME returns to the stock launcher, which was never removed. If you set the Home app with TV Launcher Manager, press Restore there first. Nothing on any of our pages deletes the stock launcher, so there is never anything to reinstall.

Write to support@smartago.net — a person answers within 24–48 hours — or open an issue on the public tracker on GitHub. Include the TV model and the Android version; both are in the launcher’s About screen.

Android 6.0 and newer, on Android TV and Google TV; it is built remote-first and stays fast on weak boxes. On Android TV 14, which switches accessibility services off by itself, use TV Launcher Manager to make PLUI the real Home app — the HOME guide explains why.

Because Android TV has no “default launcher” setting, and the only thing a launcher can do by itself is listen for the HOME key with an accessibility service — which the system switches off: Android TV 14 does it on its own, Android 13 and newer need “Allow restricted settings”, and any force-stop drops it. Rather than hide that fragility inside the launcher, the mapping lives in Button Mapper TV, and the permanent fix — TV Launcher Manager, free at tvboxtools.com — sets Android’s real Home app from outside the TV, with no service left running. It works with any launcher, not only ours.