People are using AI to turn their smart TVs into dumb TVs — and you might want to do the same

The allure of smart TVs definitely wowed everyone who ended up getting one for themselves.

Being able to turn on your big-screen TV and have instant access to your streaming apps at the touch of a button is amazing. But now it’s gotten to the point where smart TV screens are overloaded with the sort of visual clutter that makes the user experience laggy and often annoying to sift through.

A new solution has begun making the rounds for people who want to get rid of all the visual junk that litters their smart TV screens: AI. With the help of Anthropic’s Claude Code, developers have begun using it to vibe code helpful tools that get rid of unneeded apps, remove all those annoying sponsored ads and make smart TVs feel more responsive with much simpler app menus and custom interfaces to interact with.

Here’s how this trend is working for some users and why it might be worth considering doing it for yourself.

Claude Code and GitHub tools are making smart TVs dumb again

Two tools have been created in a bid to redesign people’s smart TV presentation for the better. One of them is called “dumbtv” (a very fitting name), which has a mission statement that speaks to what most smart TV users want the most from their current devices:

“Your TV should do what you paid for: your apps, your HDMI inputs, and nothing else. No ads from the TV itself, no watch tracking, no update you did not ask for. dumbtv applies that over ADB from another machine — no root, nothing written to /system, every step reversible with one script.”

The X video posted below shows just how popular it’s become since smart TV owners have begun using it:

The second tool that’s been gaining traction is called “cleanyourtv” (another appropriately named smart TV cleanser) that works to get rid of all the visual junk that litters everyone’s screens. Its lofty promise is as follows:

“Strip the bloatware from any Android TV or Google TV over Wi-Fi, and replace the ad-filled home screen with a clean launcher that looks like an Apple TV. No root, no cable, nothing uninstalled, and a one-line restore if you change your mind.”

Beyond those two developer-made AI tools meant to dumb down smart TVs, there are even more examples of people using Claude Codex to tidy up their device’s crowded user interface. X user @jackzerby can be seen in the video below explaining how he completely hacked his smart TV and vastly improved its UI in the process:

Another X user by the name of @doooyle explained how he put Claude Code to work and made it get rid of all the “bloatware” that previously hampered the performance on his smart TV:

A recently posted YouTube video (which can be seen below) has gained a ton of traction amongst the community of smart TV owners using AI to get rid of all the ads and apps on their smart TVs.

The video’s host, Ansub Khan, goes into great detail about how “Claude Code connects to the TV from my computer and goes through every app on it. It sorts them into what's safe to turn off, what the TV needs, and what I actually use.”

He goes on to explain how AI fixed all his woes: “Then it switches off the bloatware and background services, stops the TV from booting into Live TV, and builds a clean new home screen with no ads. Nothing gets deleted, and every change can be undone with one command.”

While there have been a bunch of success stories for people following those aforementioned routes to improve their smart TVs via AI, cautious tweets have emerged from people about how it may not always work.

An X user named @jihadsinwar had some heartbreaking news to share after trying to implement an AI fix for his model: “Claude bricked my tv last month trying to reboot and uninstalled the os, was fun seeing that old android recovery screen on tv.” For those who are wary about trying an AI-developed smart TV fix for themselves, it might be worth checking out this Reddit thread to see the success rate of other owners who have decided to implement it.

Bottom line

Being able to boot up your smart TV and not be inundated with ads about a TV show you’ll never watch and a game you’ll never play can drive anyone mad (including me). But I’m also the type of person who primarily uses his smart TV for gaming and uses all his streaming apps from the gaming consoles I own instead of the TV itself. I can deal with a few obtrusive ads since I barely spend any time perusing through my smart TV apps and usually go straight to gaming.

For everyone else who wants to make their smart TVs a little bit “dumber,” see if those GitHub tools and vibe coding with Claude Code can work wonders for your device.

More from Tom’s Guide

• An OpenAI agent questioned whether stealing crypto was ethical — then did it anyway
• Elon Musk just changed X's algorithm — here's what could start showing up in your feed
• Bill Gates warned everyone that AI could cause a billion deaths — this cybersecurity expert explains how realistic that scenario really is