SmartTube – an advanced player for set-top boxes and TVs running Android OS
github.comI've been using this for a couple of years now, and it's utterly fantastic. I highly recommend it. I honestly have a hard time imagining using YouTube without it, because without it (or something similar that can be installed on a TV), I'd have to find videos I want to watch on my PC, download them manually with yt-dlp, and then copy them to a USB stick or put them someplace where I could watch them with Jellyfin, just so I can watch them on the TV.
As the warning says, you need to install it directly from the github site. There's a helpful how-to that details how to do this on a typical Android TV using the "Downloader" app, listed as the "easiest" method here. It's really not hard, but obviously more work than just installing an app from the Play Store.
I just hit the "cast" button in the YouTube app, and my TV and stereo receiver switch on by themselves, my Google TV box opens the YouTube app by itself, and the video on my phone starts playing on my TV.
I'd love to have greater control over the software stack on my TV, but what you're describing seems awfully overwrought.
Note that SmartTube is compatible with the cast button on the official YouTube app. You can configure it so that when you tap the cast button on your app, you can select SmartTube. It casts with no ads and no sponsors :)
It’s in the settings of SmartTube under the name "remote control"
What do you mean "no sponsors" as opposed to "no ads?"
Edit: fine, you all convinced me. The very first thing it did on the very first video I played was "sponsor block," jumping over 30 seconds of a video that didn't contain any sponsored material. Fantastic stuff.
The video in question was the new Technology Connections video about freeze dryers.
Looks like you found it, but "sponsors" refers to sponsored segments that are part of the video itself.
Sponsorblock is amazing, as it lets you skip not only sponsored segments, but so much more: intros, self promotion, non essential parts of videos, and tons of other things.
Eh, I'm going to try to find a way to turn SponsorBlock off. It doesn't seem to work very well. Also, I do want to know what's in that part of the video, so that I can directly support creators I like.
You can turn SponsorBlock off right in the SmartTube options UI. Personally, I love SponsorBlock and it works remarkably well for me, especially considering the information is crowd-sourced.
That was a truly disappointing video. He spent tons of time yapping about how this freeze-dryer worked, but he didn't once bother to show a simple picture of the phase diagram for water, which makes it completely clear exactly why freeze-drying works.
As for SponsorBlock, it'll block all kinds of things. It's up to you, the user, to not expect software to read your mind, and to learn how your software works so you can configure it the way you want. With SmartTube, you can configure the SponsorBlock functionality to only skip things you want skipped, and not skip things you don't want skipped (such as intros, outros, self-promotions, etc.), or you can even just turn it off altogether if you want. It's really quite simple.
Cast on the youtube app assumes you're using the Youtube app and a mobile device.
If you've got an Android TV (natively, or a TV) then this is a great UX for finding and playing youtube content directly on the TV, no mobile device needed.
It also has a bunch of improvements over using the Youtube app on your phone - Adblocking, and Sponsor Blocking being two major benefits.
I was until recently paying for Youtube Premium and it was getting increasingly frustrating trying to watch most content for the number of intrusions into the content. From "This video brought to you by <the same 30 vpn/site builder/audiobook> companies" to "Hey, just to interrupt - do you know that 90% of people don't subscribe to this channel?"
Putting SmartTube on the device took about 15 minutes, most of that was finding a browser that would let me download a file without showing a million ads.
>Putting SmartTube on the device took about 15 minutes, most of that was finding a browser that would let me download a file without showing a million ads.
I just followed the instructions on the webpage, after installing the "Downloader" app from the Play Store. The hardest part was entering the SmartTube URL into Downloader using the on-screen keyboard and TV remote control. Kind of a pain, but totally worth it. After that, the SmartTube app can be updated inside the app easily.
Your solution sounds like you have to watch ads. No thanks.
SmartTube lets you watch YouTube without the ads or sponsor segments, and without messing with other devices. You just start the app, and use the TV remote control to navigate and select and play videos.
No ads with YuuTube Premium.
Except for all the videos that have built in ads/sponsors, which is many...
Yes that does get annoying, but at least for now they can be skipped over pretty easily.
I will not be extorted by a rectangle lol
to watch video my friends uploaded and marked no monetization even. google is ruthless now.
Videos that they pay hosting for?
the whole network is captured. could you host something and not cause problems with your isp? very few people could.
We are talking about YouTube Premium.
The ads are annoying, sure, but I need a solution my wife can use, and guests can use, without giving them a tutorial on how third-party youtube clients work.
If this SmartTube thing is anything like Invidious, then it will work great until it falls flat on its face, and then I'll have to spend an hour figuring out if my stuff is broken or if SmartTube is broken. It will inevitably be SmartTube, and I'll have to have this conversation with my wife:
"Why isn't the TV working?"
"oh you have to use the normal YouTube app for a while, the other thing broke"
"oh, can you fix it?"
"I can't, we have to wait for someone else to fix it"
"When will it be fixed?"
"No idea."
And then, 2 weeks later, it'll start working again, but it will be extremely unreliable, and we'll both find it so annoying that we'll both stop using it. I did this shit with Invidious, I did this shit with my own fork of Signal, etc etc. I have enough needy computers, I don't need my TV to become another one.
>If this SmartTube thing is anything like Invidious
Obviously, you haven't tried it. Any moron could use SmartTube, it's no more difficult than the official client (probably easier, in fact).
The initial setup is probably a bit beyond a typical totally non-technical person unless they're dedicated enough to just read the directions (most people these days aren't), but once it's installed, it's a breeze.
>"oh you have to use the normal YouTube app for a while, the other thing broke"
This happens from time to time because YouTube makes some change which breaks things. In my two years of usage, every time this has happened, there was already an update waiting for me in the main menu. I just applied the update and all was well again.
> In my two years of usage, every time this has happened, there was already an update waiting for me in the main menu.
I've only been using SmartTube about a year and YT changes have caused it to (partly) break only once in that time and all I needed to do was update to the latest version (which is one-click inside the app itself) and it was fixed. Also, I was a several months out of date on versions and the fixed version had been available for weeks already.
Fine, I tried it. The very first thing it did on the very first video I loaded up was yell "sponsor block!" and jump over the first 30 seconds of a video with no sponsored material. And, of course, I no longer have the convenience of controlling it with my phone, instead I have to use the d-pad on the remote. No ads is nice, but it'll take some time to convince me that I actually want to use this.
In my experience, the video does not start playing immediately. you have to watch 2 to 3 ads first.
> because without it (or something similar that can be installed on a TV), I'd have to find videos I want to watch on my PC, download them manually with yt-dlp, and then copy them to a USB stick or put them someplace
Where in your scenario are AirPlay and ChromeCast? Or just yt-dl and plex? All of which seem waaaaaay easier than your song and dance
AirPlay is Apple-only, so that's a no-go. ChromeCast I don't know much about (edit: it appears to be a dongle device you have to buy, and they're discontinued now), but the whole point of SmartTube is that you don't need to mess around with other devices; you just do everything from the TV and its remote control.
Yeah, if SmartTube didn't exist (and other similar apps, I think NewPipe is similar), then I'd have to resort to some crazy stuff. I think I did mention yt-dlp and Jellyfin before. But still, that's a big pain: I'd have to go to my PC to do that stuff, then go back to the couch to watch it on the TV. With SmartTube, I don't have to do all that.
Chromecast is already built into all(?) Android TVs, no need for separate device.
It has to be on the same network as your phone or PC, and then you should see a "cast" icon when you play video.
Chromecast is not discontinued - it runs Android TV & I run Smart Tube on it. Also a new Chromecast device was released just a couple weeks ago (I have the previous one).
According to Wikipedia, Chromecast has been discontinued, but replaced by something else called "Google TV Streamer".
Chromecast the device is discontinued. Chromecast the protocol lives on. Confusingly it was first named Google cast (2013-2016), then renamed "Chromecast" or "Chromecast built in" (most brands just using the first label), but due to the device's retirement this year, google has reverted the protocol name to "Google Cast" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Cast
Indeed, they did rename it: https://store.google.com/intl/en/ideas/articles/google-tv-st...
Lol, did not realize that so far they renamed it - looks like just an updated chromecast with the USB-C dock I'm using with it built in.
I love it too. I just wish it was also available on Android mobile.
I can see why the developer doesn't bother: the UI would need to be very different. SmartTube is meant for use on TVs, not on touchscreens, so it has no touch UI at all and is designed for use with a remote control. There's some other apps that basically do the same thing, but on Android mobile, such as ReVanced I think.
ReVanced is patched up original Youtube (which has among other things the benefits of not showing ads), but the equivalent to SmartTube would be NewPipe, which is a new YouTube replacement app.
It would not - NewPipe and its derivatives don't support Youtube accounts unlike SmartTube. With SmartTube (and Revanced, on Android mobiles) you can sign into Youtube and use your playlists, likes, comments etc.
Ok I did not know that.
I need to check, but I don't think I signed in my SmartTube, I don't see a good reason for it.
Revanced is a pain in the ass to install.
I use Revanced Extended on Android mobile. It took about ten minutes to set up the first time and has worked flawlessly since.
many TV boxes come with it 'cheap' preinstalled, like the slimboxtv firmware. still, remove this or go with an AOSP/stock TV firmware and install it yourself.
meant to say: cheap TV boxes. anyway, only install from a reliable source
> I honestly have a hard time imagining using YouTube without it
I agree and would go further to the extent I simply will not ever use YT without SmartTube on any of my TVs. For desktop I get similar functionality in Firefox with the Nova YouTube UserScript (which hosts dozens of user-created modules able to modify every aspect of YT) and on Android mobile I use ReVanced Extended.
And it's not just removing the ads and commercials, which I could (mostly) get with a YT subscription. It's that even with the subscription, YT's entire site, interface and interaction model is now so completely enshittified, it's a miserable, frustrating experience. I've used YT since months after it was launched and until I ran Nova YouTube and allowed it to "restore" the YT interface back to what it was a decade or so ago, even I didn't realize how YT has gradually 'boiled the frog' by introducing hundreds of small, anti-user regressions one at a time over the years. It was literally shocking.
SmartTube is amazing for many, MANY reasons. The first obvious one is that it blocks ads AND embeds SponsorBlock by default. The second is that ads aside, it has a better UI and UX than the official YouTube app. One single unpaid guy does a better work than Google at making a TV app. The third is that SmartTube comes with tons of useful features:
- remote control to be able to cast on SmartTube, directly from the official YouTube app
- there’s a plugin to use a crowdsourced version of thumbnails
- you can hide Shorts
- and basically everything is configurable
Just install SmartTube, even if you’re a YouTube Premium user it’s worth it.
The "single guy" does better than google is because of incentives. Not that google is unable to do the same thing. The biggest ad company won't make the same choices as a dev who wants to use the product for its benefits.
We'll see more and more algo-feed enshitification. I'm not ruling out "you don't need a subscription feed anymore, we'll show you our best AI-chosen videos.
It was a good long run, I hope "product managers" won't destroy YT like Facebook did with "a place to keep up with frends" to "a shitty feed infested with ads".
In other words - SmartTube developer doesn't have to earn revenue for YouTube with their app. Everything else comes from there.
I mean anybody can do anything so the talk here is about what one person can do and is actually doing rather than the potential of what they can do.
Google I don't know if it has the potential or not but it doesn't seem to do anything to build good products it never has whatever successes it ever had.
It also creates very buggy apps. For example, even now Gmail and YouTube is buggy on common paths. For example, try deleting your spam emails and you will see the spam number on the sidebar will not clear unless you refresh. YouTube comments on the YouTube Android app often doesn't load or it loads for the wrong video etc.
So historically, Google has always been bad with actual product development. So it's not really a stretch to say that one person can do better than Google.
Google Search in 2010 was a great product.
They have the ability but not the incentives to make great products now. It's the bane of all big companies, design by committee and MBA trained managers.
All big high-performance companies had the owner/founder in charge to fight the bureaucracy and conformity.
While a lot of folks are touting SmartTube for avoiding ads, I will install it to finally have a way to change the YouTube playing speed on the TV. Thanks for posting.
Press and hold for 2x playback is one of the more useful features of the YouTube premium experience and the lack of speed adjustment on TV is quite annoying.
SmartTube is even better than that: it lets you select from a huge range of speeds (I frequently like 1.25x and 1.5x personally, but it has even more fine-grained settings like 1.15x, 1.20x, etc.), and it remembers that selection for that channel, so if a particular Youtuber is a slow talker, you can pick a speed that works well and all his videos will show at that same speed.
Smarttube is amazing especially as YouTube ad duration, skipability, and quantity are completely abusive on TV devices. It is completely frustrating experience versus YouTube in a web browser.
> Do not download SmartTube from any app store, APK websites or blogs; these were uploaded by other people and may contain malware or ads. SmartTube is not officially published on any app store. Sadly, the Google PlayStore does not allow ad-free Youtube apps using unofficial APIs.
This app is the only reason I bought a FireTV Stick 4k. For everything else (Netflix, Infuse), I use an Apple TV. App works great, can recommend.
For people with non-Android smart TVs there are similar apps (with adblock and sponsorblock) both for Tizen [0] and webOS [1].
It is not available on play store, but that is to be expected. You cannot be there with a such product.
It is not available on f-droid, which is a bummer, because I use f-droid.
Installing things from a webpage like an old barbarian. I cannot find nowhere sha for the builds on page. The same is for their 'releases' on github.
Is there an easy alternative to the standard Android version running on Sony TVs? In the past year, the home screen now shows ads and it can’t be disabled.
I just installed a different launcher to our NVIDIA Shield. One that has two big icons for Smart tube an Plex, nothing else.
Here's a list:
https://www.reddit.com/r/AndroidTV/comments/nkboqd/list_of_a...
I have 2 Sony TVs with Android/Google TV and there is an "apps only" mode that you can choose in the settings, which reduces the clutter. I've dabbled with alternate launchers like ATV Launcher and Projectivity, but have had quirky behavior. I find the "apps only" mode to be just fine without needing the third party launchers.
Instructions: https://support.google.com/googletv/answer/10070784?hl=en&sj...
I don't know if it would work on Sony TVs but a while ago I switched to Projectivy launcher on a Philips android tv and I am quite happy with it
Alternatively you can reset your TV to factory settings and then disable auto updates for TV and google play. You will probably want to check google play from time to time and manually update the apps you are using though (just don't update things like "home screen" or whatever that will put ads backs). I was doing that but I was not comfortable leaving my TV unupdated
I don't have one to test but if their history with the PlayStations is any indication you'll have good luck with https://duckduckgo.com/?q=jailbreak%20sony%20tv&ia=web
Would Google be able to detect I'm using this app and outright nuke my Google account and literally all of my digital existence?
GPLv3, nice. Is this a Newpipe fork or totally new codebase?
No relation to NewPipe. It's an Android TV exclusive and isn't available for Android mobile phones.
does any of these have a microphone array? I'm still looking for a high-quality smart speaker with TV output and the ability to connect to GPT
We use this app all the time. I love it.
It's another life, a life without ads.