Shon J.

Projects For fun

Couch Mode

An ad-free TV home screen, built over an open-source launcher and designed as open source.

Role
Built over the launcher; home screen designed as open source
Years
2026
Status
Internal
Platform
Android TV

One row of panels now sits where the sponsored row used to be.

Before and after

Before: the stock home, a sponsored banner first

Looks explored, one kept

I built five looks you could switch between from the remote, and kept Shard.

The first slanted panels
An early look: rounded cards
Tall panels, the selected one widened
Official brand logos replace soft banners
One row of slanted panels

Decisions

  1. Decision 1

    One press, one panel

    Focus follows the screen's own model, so every Left or Right press moves exactly one panel.

  2. Decision 2

    Opaque panels, smooth glide

    Each panel is one flat opaque fill, its colour pre-blended over the page, with no translucency or offscreen layers.

  3. Decision 3

    Real logos, never banners

    I render official brand vectors to exact pixels, with the app's own icon as the fallback.

How it was made

I designed and built it with AI in one evening, on the TV itself. The debloat and launcher come from Couch Mode, an open-source project, and the home screen on top is the new work.

  1. 1

    Debloat

    I disabled 31 packages and uninstalled nothing, screenshotting each step, with a script to restore every one.

  2. 2

    Explored

    I built five looks you could switch between from the remote, then kept one.

  3. 3

    Built with AI

    I built it with Claude Code over Wi-Fi debugging, tuned on the set's own hardware.

Made with: Java on Android TV, installed over ADB, inside the open-source Couch Mode launcher.

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