Consumers are increasingly using artificial intelligence coding tools to modify smart televisions to eliminate advertisements and tracking features. The open-source project dumbtv specifically targets the removal of built-in ads, viewing tracking, and unwanted software updates from television sets.
Muzzammil Yasin Sabuwala developed dumbtv using DeepSeek V4.1 Flash, Claude Opus 5.5, and Claude Sonnet 5.5. Testing for dumbtv has occurred on Nvidia Shield, Sony, TCL, Philips, Hisense, Xiaomi, and Fire TV Edition devices, as well as Android TV and Google TV.
Thousands of individuals have attempted modifications on projectors and televisions from LG, Fire TV, Sony, TCL, Xiaomi, and other brands. Another project, cleanyourtv, removes unnecessary software from Google TV and Android TV devices over Wi-Fi.
Cleanyourtv can also replace the default home screen with an interface that resembles Apple TV. Gathin T. used Claude Code to write a new launcher for a TV and remove 25 Xiaomi packages.
Mihir Gupta used Claude Code to replace a 192MB stock launcher with a custom 83MB version while disabling 25 unnecessary applications. Ryan Doyle also employed Claude Code to remove unnecessary software and advertisements from a television.
Modern televisions utilize automatic content recognition to identify viewing habits through digital fingerprints, audio samples, and screenshots. Users have reported instances of bricking an Android TV while using Claude.
One user reported becoming stuck in the middle of a modification process on a Fire TV.
