ReVanced Android TV Support
ReVanced Manager is not built for TVs. Its interface expects touch input, and the patching workflow targets phones. Some users sideload a patched APK from a phone onto a TV, with mixed results, but nothing about that route is supported.
The obstacle is deeper than the Manager's interface. YouTube ships a distinct application for television hardware, built around a ten-foot layout and D-pad navigation, and the patches are written against the mobile app's code. Even if you could run the Manager on a TV box, there is no patch set aimed at the TV client. Sideloading the phone build gives you a phone app displayed on a large screen: text sized for a hand held at arm's length, and a focus model that a remote cannot drive.
In practice that means the search field is hard to reach, settings menus swallow focus, and the player controls need a pointer. Pairing a Bluetooth mouse makes it workable, and if you are willing to do that, it works well enough to watch. Most people find the effort disproportionate once they have tried the alternative below. Our Android TV client glossary entry explains why the two apps are genuinely different pieces of software.
Best Alternative: SmartTube
SmartTube (formerly SmartTubeNext) is the usual recommendation for ad-free YouTube on Android TV and Amazon Fire Stick. It is designed for remotes and big screens, and it includes:
- Full YouTube ad-blocking
- SponsorBlock integration
- Return YouTube Dislike
- 4K HDR playback
- Google account sign-in
- A remote-friendly TV interface
SmartTube is open source and published on GitHub. See our SmartTube vs ReVanced comparison.
It is an independent client rather than a patched version of anything, which changes the maintenance story considerably. There is no base APK to keep in sync, no signature conflict to work around, and no patch selection to get wrong. You install one APK and you update it by installing a newer one. That is the whole workflow.
Installing on a TV, in Outline
- Enable installation from unknown sources on the device. On Android TV this sits under security settings; on Fire OS it is inside the developer options.
- Install a sideloading utility from the device's own store, or transfer the APK from a computer with ADB if you prefer.
- Fetch the APK from the project's official releases page. Not a mirror, not a file-sharing link. This is the step where TV users get burned most often, because typing a long URL with a remote invites shortcuts.
- Install it, then launch it once and sign in if you want your subscriptions.
- Move it to the front of your launcher row, since sideloaded apps often land in an "unused apps" section that takes several clicks to reach.
Budget twenty minutes the first time. Updates later are the same process minus the setup, and they are manual: nothing on a sideloaded app updates itself.
Compatible Devices
| Device | ReVanced | SmartTube |
|---|---|---|
| Android TV (Sony, Philips) | Not supported | Supported |
| Google Chromecast w/ Google TV | Not supported | Supported |
| Amazon Fire Stick / Fire TV | Not supported | Supported |
| Nvidia Shield | Not supported | Supported |
| Xiaomi Mi Box | Not supported | Supported |
Samsung Tizen and LG webOS televisions are a separate case entirely. They do not run Android, so neither option applies, and there is no sideloading route. An external streaming stick is the usual answer for those sets.
What Commonly Goes Wrong
- The app installs but never appears. Sideloaded apps are frequently hidden in a secondary launcher section rather than the main row.
- Playback stutters at 4K. Older streaming sticks lack the decoding headroom. Dropping the resolution cap inside the app settles it.
- Sign-in code never validates. The pairing flow depends on the device clock being roughly correct. TVs that have been unplugged for a while often are not.
- An update wiped the app. Some manufacturer system updates remove sideloaded packages. Reinstalling is the only remedy.
- Everything broke at once. Likely a YouTube backend change affecting all users of the client, not a fault in your install.
Honest Status
There is no roadmap for TV support in the main project and no reason to expect one. Anyone selling or advertising a ready-made TV build is not distributing something the project produced. SmartTube is actively maintained and works well, but it is community software with the same exposure as any unofficial client: a change on YouTube's side can break it until a volunteer ships a fix. If a television is the only screen you care about and you want something that simply works, YouTube Premium applies to your account and removes ads in the official TV app without any sideloading.
Frequently Asked Questions
You can get it to install on most Android TV devices, and it will usually launch. Whether it is usable is another matter. The phone app has no D-pad focus handling, so a remote cannot reliably reach the search field, the settings menu, or the player controls. People who try it typically pair a Bluetooth mouse or an air remote to work around the missing focus, which is a workaround rather than a solution.
The Manager is a touch application. Patching involves file pickers, long scrollable patch lists, and multi-step selection, all designed around a finger on a screen. Building a remote-driven version would mean rewriting the interface, and the project has not taken that on. Nothing prevents you from patching on a phone and moving the resulting APK to a TV; the limitation is the app you end up with, not the transfer.
Neither is required. It installs as a normal sideloaded APK and works signed out, which is how many people run it. Signing in is optional and enables your subscriptions and history. Root is not part of the process at any point.
Fire OS allows apps from unknown sources once you enable that in the developer settings, and the usual route is a sideloading utility installed from Amazon's own store, which then fetches the APK by URL. The Downloader-style approach is well documented for that device and does not require a computer.
It carries the same category of risk. It is an independent open-source client, not an official one, so a change on YouTube's side can break playback until the project ships an update. What it does not have is the version-matching problem that patched builds carry, because there is no base APK to keep in sync.
YouTube Premium applies to your account rather than to one device, so the official TV app plays without ads once the account is subscribed. That is the only supported route on a TV, and it is the honest answer for anyone who does not want to sideload anything.