clay-36/Sva-launcher

A calm, personal home screen for Android TV.
Bring apps, live TV, games, calendars, saved videos, weather, and your own photos together in one remote-first interface.

Screenshots · Features · Installation · Getting started · Developer guide · Contributing

Sva is a launcher and media front end. It does not provide TV channels, programme data, ROMs, BIOS files, game artwork, or paid-media credentials. Bring content that you are legally allowed to use.

Home — apps and useful information at a glance	Live TV — categories, channel logos, and now/next data
TV guide — current and upcoming programmes	Live TV — DRM supported with previous/next navigation
Events — a remote-friendly monthly calendar	Games — a local NES library powered by Nestopia UE
Games — import your own NES ROMs	Saved — shortcuts to videos and playlists

• Remote-first navigation — focusing a top-level tab selects it immediately, with clear focus states throughout the UI.
• Personal home screen — select and reorder app shortcuts; keep the clock, date, weather, Wi-Fi, tools, and settings close by.
• Photo backdrops — use a single image, rotate a local folder, or connect a public Google Photos album.
• Live TV and guide — combine multiple M3U/M3U8 playlists and XMLTV, XMLTV.GZ, or JSON programme guides, browse group-title categories, display tvg-logo artwork, and hide unwanted channels.
• Integrated playback — watch with Media3 ExoPlayer, move between channels with Up/Down, view programme progress, prefer Hindi audio when available, and configure global or per-channel Widevine settings.
• NES library — import your own .nes files and launch them directly through the embedded Nestopia UE core, without a separate emulator menu.
• Events calendar — connect a public Google Calendar iCal feed, see today's events, browse 12 months in either direction, and view selected-day details and lunar illumination.
• Saved videos — create artwork-rich shortcuts for YouTube videos and playlists.
• Weather — current conditions and a three-day forecast from Open-Meteo, using a chosen city or optional approximate device location.
• Configurable refresh schedules — independently control updates for photos, playlists, programme data, calendars, and Google Photos.
• Backup and restore — export launcher preferences, app and channel choices, and IPTV/DRM configuration to JSON.
• TV file browser — browse internal storage and USB drives with the remote when adding games, choosing images or photo folders, and saving or restoring backups.
• Home-button helper — an optional Accessibility service can reopen Sva on TVs that insist on returning to the manufacturer's launcher.

Cached channels, guide data, calendar entries, weather, and artwork remain available where supported when the network is unavailable.

Install Sva Launcher on your Android TV through the Google Play testing programme:

1. Join the Sva Launcher Google Group.
2. Open the Google Play testing page and join the testing programme.
3. Follow the Google Play link on that page to install Sva Launcher on your Android TV.

Use the same Google account to join the group, join the testing programme, and install the app on your TV. Join the group before opening the testing page.

You can also build and install the APK from source.

1. Follow the installation guide, then open Sva Launcher.

2. When Android asks for a Home app, select Sva. You can change this later in Android settings.

3. Open the gear icon and configure only the sections you need:

   Section	What to add
   Apps	Choose and reorder installed app shortcuts. Without a saved selection, Sva shows up to eight apps.
   Appearance	Select a wallpaper, a local photo folder, or a public Google Photos album.
   Live TV	Add one or more M3U/M3U8 playlist URLs and optional XMLTV, XMLTV.GZ, or JSON guide URLs, one per line.
   Channels	Search, hide, and restore channels from the loaded playlist.
   YouTube	Save video and playlist links as cards in the Saved tab.
   Calendar	Add a public Google Calendar iCal link for the Events tab.
   Games	Import .nes files and optionally remap connected gamepads.
   Weather	Search for a city or explicitly request approximate device location.
   Schedules	Set an independent refresh cadence for each network-backed source.
   Navigation	Show or hide Live TV, Games, and Events; choose the order of Live TV, Games, Events, and Saved. Home stays first, and hidden categories keep their place.

The first time you browse local files, allow Sva storage access in Android settings. This lets its TV file browser find NES files, photos, and backups across local storage and USB drives.

If the TV continues to open its built-in launcher, go to Settings → Home button, open Android's Accessibility settings, and enable Sva's service. This helper is optional and can be disabled at any time.

Open Settings → Appearance → Screensaver · Sva Memories. The screensaver follows Home's public Google Photos album automatically; save a separate shared album link here to override it, or choose Use Home album to follow Home again. Changing the screensaver album never changes Home's wallpaper source.

Choose one of nine atmospheres:

Existing saved themes automatically resolve to their replacements. Collage themes use up to three distinct album photos and adapt to one or two available photos. Captions are optional; Sva does not add stock quotes, dates or locations to your photographs.

Set an optional caption, choose 12, 20, 30 or 60 seconds per photo, and enable Clock, Weather and Events separately under Show on screensaver. Weather and events use the saved Home weather and calendar data. Preview screensaver opens the same renderer used by the system; press any remote key to return. Previously downloaded photographs work offline. Without a usable album or cached photographs, a landscape wallpaper appears. Google Photos album refresh follows the Google Photos schedule in Sva's settings.

For automatic playback while the launcher is open, set Start while Sva is idle to 1, 3, 5 or 10 minutes. It defaults to Off and skips active playback and settings. This also works on TVs that restrict third-party system screensavers.

For a system-wide screensaver, use Choose in Android TV settings, select Sva Memories, and choose the TV's idle timeout. Availability and activation controls depend on the TV manufacturer; Sva does not replace a manufacturer's Ambient mode automatically. Its registered Android DreamService runs independently of the launcher and exits on user input.

Choose Open TV guide in Live TV for the full-screen schedule. The guide opens in the selected channel category, with an All channels option, a shared time ruler, live progress, and programme reminders. Use Up/Down for channels, Left/Right for programmes, Now to return to the current time, and Back to return to Live TV. Hidden channels stay hidden; channels without guide data remain watchable.

Guide entries are matched to channels by tvg-id. Selecting a current programme starts playback; selecting an upcoming programme creates an in-app reminder five minutes before it begins. Reminders are shown only while Sva is open and do not create background notifications.

Sva supports HLS and DASH streams with Widevine and ClearKey DRM, custom HTTP headers, and per-channel playlist overrides. For advanced playlist properties, Kodi options, and license setup, see the IPTV & DRM guide.

Standard Android gamepads are assigned automatically for up to two players and can be remapped under Settings → Games. Save data is kept in Sva's private app storage.

• Location permission is optional and is requested only when you choose device-based weather setup or refresh. City search works without device location.
• Wallpapers, imported games, and cached data are stored locally. Public sources are contacted to fetch their content; the app contains no analytics or account-login service.
• Public album, calendar, playlist, guide, weather, and YouTube metadata requests are made directly from the TV.
• Exported JSON backups are unencrypted and can contain playlist URLs, DRM endpoints, credentials, public album links and weather coordinates. Store them privately; never attach them to public issues.
• HTTP is supported for user-provided IPTV and local-network sources; these connections are unencrypted. Prefer HTTPS when your provider supports it.
• The built-in TV file browser requests storage access when you open it to browse local files and USB drives. Storage access is not requested at app startup.
• Installed-app visibility supports launcher shortcuts. Optional notification access supports Now Playing; the Home override accessibility service only watches window changes and cannot retrieve window content.
• Only connect sources and open links that you trust. Stream, DRM, and codec compatibility depends on the TV.

Bug reports, feature proposals, documentation fixes, and pull requests are welcome.

1. Search existing issues before opening a new one.
2. Keep each pull request focused on one change.
3. For UI changes, verify remote/D-pad navigation and include before/after screenshots.
4. For development setup, testing commands, and contribution guidelines, see CONTRIBUTING.md and the Developer guide.

When reporting a bug, include the TV/device model, Android version, reproduction steps, and a sanitized sample playlist or feed when relevant. Report security issues using SECURITY.md.

Sva Launcher and the distributed combination with Nestopia UE are licensed under GPLv3. Nestopia remains GPL-2.0-or-later and its original notices are preserved. See NOTICE for third-party attribution.

Every distributed APK must provide access to its matching complete source revision, including the native build files and pinned emulator core source.