How to install an APK on Android TV, remote control, change launcher and other tricks

We are going to explain in this tutorial a series of options to customize or modify our Android TV device.

Following this manual, we will learn how to install Android applications on the Android TV system, or change the default launcher. As we have already seen in some of our reviews in this system we have certain limitations when it comes to finding the apps in your Google Play store as it only allows apps designed specifically for this environment.

Table of Contents

INSTALL ANY ANDROID APP

Install Android APK from Alternative apps store

We can try to install the alternative app store Aptoide TV, this store is not available on Google Play to download and install to install it we need to follow the steps of the next point, still there are some Android TV that block installing this app.

Download and install Android APK

Install a file explorer like X-plore, Solid Explorer or similar from Google Play on Android TV.
Activate – Security> Restrictions> Unknown sources> We give permission to our file explorer.
Download the APK from our website, APKmiror, APKPure or APK-DL we can do it in two ways:
– From Android TV by installing a browser such as PuffinTV or TV Web Browser to download the APK.
– From a PC, we download the APK and copy it to a USB, then connect it to our Android TV.
From the installed File Explorer we locate the downloaded APK and install it.

LAUNCH CLASSIC ANDROID APPS

In order to manage and launch all the Android apps that we have installed, we recommend installing the Sideload Launcher app or the App drawer app that allows us to start applications not compatible with Android TV. We just have to look for them on the Google Play of Android TV and install it.

AVOID APP ROTATION

Some applications designed for Android give problems on Android TV since they rotate automatically and do not occupy the entire screen, to avoid this problem we can install the Set Orientation app and set it in Landscape mode.

REMOTE CONTROL AND MOUSE EMULATOR

To remotely control Android TV we can use the Android TV Remote Control app, install on mobile or tablet.
We can emulate the mouse pointer with the app with the Mouse Toggle app, even on some devices it does not work.

CHANGE REMOTE CONTROL KEYS

You can remap some keys in your remote with the Button Mapper app, we can find this app in the Google Play Store easily. We just have to install it, and we can already use the functions to change the keys allowed by assigning apps or shortcuts.

Search Button Mapper app in the Google Play store of Android TV.

CHANGE LAUNCHER ANDROID TV

If we do not like the default environment of Android TV or the Google TV update or we want to have less advertising content on our home screen it is possible to change launcher.