IMHO, Android still has the best ecosystem of TV remote navigateable apps. The problem is just Google.

I have a ‘Google TV’ android based TV.

It started out terrible, but after removing or disabling almost all apps and installing couple replacements, it’s great now.

Most importantly:

• FLauncher replaces the Google launcher and thereby removes almost all ads and ‘recommendations’
• TV Bro is a FOSS webbrowser for TVs that has build-in add-blocking
• SmartTube is a Foss YouTube client that just works great and brings Add- and Sponsor block
• Stremio with Debrid Media Manager and Torrentio (both using a Debrid service!) for streaming in general
• Jellyfin if you have a home server

All of that is FOSS and would work completely without Googles involvement, if you find a way to flash a custom ROM onto a TV or TV box.

Alternatively: Anything with an ‘air mouse’.

An alternative to Android, I have used before, was just Linux with oversized app icons and then a G20s (Pro) remote. These cheap chinese G20s remotes work great as a mouse, similar to a Wii mote. Especially with the G20s Pro you can even set numerical passwords for everything and then just type it on the remote. They also have microphone that only works when you press the button. So if you have some tts service on you device, this is also a solution. I haven’t found a solution for it yet, but I believe, using T9 typing as a text input would also be a great solution when using these remotes.

There are also air mouse with a full keyboard built in, like the W1, W3, Q40… But I think, they are all a bit too heavy and too big, feel clumsy at the slight benefit of having a keyboard.

And then there are devices like the A8, which are just small keyboards with a touchpad, that also work as an air mouse, but fail as a remote IMHO. But that entirely depends, on how much typing you want to do on your TV.

I prefer no OS, just use it for HDMI ports like any other display

I just use a full fletched DE on a Mini PC. Works best for me - for navigation I use a keyboard/trackpad combination thingy.

Would something like that work for you?

I’ve been running kodi on a raspberry pi for years as my media center and It’s great. There’s an official jellyfin app for kodi too.

I bought a $20 Onn 4k TV box from Walmart, degoogled it, replaced the stock launcher with FLauncher and eventually LTVLauncher. So I guess DeGoogled Google TV (AndroidTV OS).

Definitely not WebOS. I have an Nvidia Shield that runs Android TV, which is nice because there’s a wide selection of apps and you can install custom launchers, Tailscale, Jellyfin, SmartTube. The downside, as I recently learned, is that your parents probably will have a harder time switching between the TV’s native OS and the Shield.

So I recently got a Google TV, which is (just?) Android TV, and that allows me to install Tailscale and Jellyfin, but since it’s 1 system, it’s easier for some folks to use. I also installed Projectivy Launcher for my parents to get rid of the default ad-ridden launcher. I haven’t yet had time to try to install SmartTube, but I think I read it’s possible…

Curious to learn more about https://plasma-bigscreen.org/ I didn’t know about that. Thanks!

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I’ve never owned a smart TV and I never plan to until there’s no other option available. Attaching a RasPi to the back of the TV is a killer option though.

Looks cool.

“Plasma Bigscreen is a free, open-source interface (i.e. desktop environment) for Linux designed for TVs, HTPCs, and set-top boxes. It can be shipped by any Linux operating system and run on the devices supported by that OS.”

My main has been Linux desktop loading up steam big picture. But I don’t use streaming services, I serve everything up with jellyfin using the Kodi add-on. Used to be a htpc, now it’s steam deck.

In the lounge room we have an apple tv 4k which is where the kids can stream ABC Kids and the swiftfin client. We used to have a NVIDIA shield there but we moved to apple tv because goddamn the ads on Android tv make it one of the most horrible tv experiences possible.

Arch w/KDE Plasma desktop, of course.

“Smart” TVs should be kept off the internet and only used as video output for actual computers.

I haven’t used it in a couple of years, but I always liked Roku’s platform. Simple to use, easy-to-ignore advertising.

But the last couple years I’ve been on Android with Projectivity Launcher. No ads (except for some times when I’m dumped into the standard front end), customizable.

I did initially, but then changed my setup a little bit.

My rpi (4b, I think it’s 8GB, but it might be 16. I don’t remember). Also serves as my on site backup for my media. So Jellyfin is connected to the NAS, and the rpi has two drives in a toaster and I have a cron job that syncs new media from the nas to the rpi whenever I add new stuff.

So kodi is direct playing from the hdds in the toaster.

I use Projectivity Launcher on Onn Android box that I got from Walmart for $20. It even has an option to be the default

I have a couple raspberry pis running android TV with konstas lineage os build. I don’t really have any complaints. My TVs never connect to the internet, I run jellyfin, stremio and kodi even runs pretty well on it when I want to watch something live.

My biggest qualm is I couldn’t get any of the android TV remote apps to work so I just built my own and set adb over network to default to on.