Aerial Views

A screensaver for Android/Google TV devices and phones including Nvidia Shield, Fire TV, and Google TV Streamer.

Inspired by Apple TV's beautiful video screensaver!

Please read if you have an Nvidia Shield or a recent Google TV device.

Features include...

• 4K Dolby Vision (HDR) videos, if your TV supports it
• Over 250 videos from Apple, Amazon, Jetson Creative and Robin Fourcade
• Show videos & photos from USB storage, Immich server, Samba, WebDAV or custom feeds
• Place overlays in the corners of the screen such as metadata from videos and photos like location or date taken, clock, music playing, date, countdown timer
• Message overlay API - Send custom messages to display on your TV from any device on your network (eg. Home Assistant)
• Alternate the position of overlays to avoid burn-in on QD/OLED TVs
• Many playlist options to limit media length or loop certain videos
• Use the D-Pad or swipe (on phones, tablets, etc) to skip media, skip songs, change speed, seek, pause and more
• Refresh rate switching for 24fps, 50fps content

Support the project

If you enjoy using the app, please consider buying me a coffee.

How to get Aerial Views...

   <img alt="Amazon Appstore badge" src="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/G/01/mobile-apps/devportal2/res/images/amazon-appstore-badge-english-black.png" width="153">

Or download the APK from the Releases page and install it manually

Want to Contribute?

Aerial Views is an open-source project — contributions are welcome! Whether it’s a bug fix, new feature, or improving translations, feel free to open an issue or submit a pull request.

And please get in contact before submitting pull requests, thanks!

Translations

If Aerial Views is not available in your language but you have some free time to help translate menu text and video descriptions, please get in touch!

We use the Lokalise platform to coordinate translations for Aerial Views and thank them for their support of this open-source project.

Where to download videos for offline/local playback

Download curated videos from...

• Apple (114 videos)
• Jetson Creative (20 community videos)
• Robin Fourcade (18 community videos)

How to set Aerial Views as the default screensaver

Since 2023, nearly all devices that ship with Google TV, running Android TV 12 or later, have no user-interface to change the screensaver to a 3rd party one...

• Chromecast with Google TV, Google TV Streamer
• Recent MECOOL devices
• Recent TCL, Philips, and Sony TVs
• onn. Google TV devices (excluding the 2021 model)
• Fire TV (won't work with Fire OS 8.1 and above)

But it can be done manually. Here is an overview of the steps...

1. Enable Developer mode, enable USB debugging, then find the IP address of your device
2. Use a Mac, iPhone, PC or Android phone with the required software or app
3. Connect to your Android/Google/Fire TV device
4. Run two ADB commands, one to set Aerial Views as the default screensaver, the other to set how long it takes the screensaver to start

The full instructions are below, please click or tap to expand each step.

Another option is to use the TDUK Screensaver Manager app. Details on the app are below.

<details> <summary>Enable Developer Mode on your Android/Google TV</summary> &nbsp;

Navigate to the Settings menu on your device, then to the About screen. Depending on the device…

Settings > System > About or Settings > Device Preferences > About

Scroll down to Build and select Build several times until you get the message "You are now a developer!"

Return to Settings or Settings > System and look for the newly enabled Developer options page.

On the Developer options page, look for the USB debugging option and enable it.

Next, find the IP address of your device. Try looking in the Network & Internet settings of the device, check the properties of the current LAN or WIFI connection - that should list the current IP address eg. 192.168.1.105

</details> <details> <summary>Enable Developer Mode on Fire Stick/TV</summary> &nbsp;

Open Settings, then navigate to My Fire TV then the About screen.

Highlight your device name and press the action button on your remote seven times.

You'll now see a message confirming "You are now a developer", and it'll unlock the Developer Options in the previous menu.

Navigate to the Developer Options page, look for the ADB debugging option and enable it.

Next, find the IP address of your device and make a note of it. Navigate to the About then Network screen, which will show your current IP address eg. 192.168.1.120

</details> <details> <summary>Allow Auto Launch on TCL TVs</summary> &nbsp;

If you have a TCL TV with Google TV, you need to allow the Auto Launch permission so that Aerial Views can be launched from the background when the screensaver starts.

Otherwise, the screensaver cannot be started, either automatically, or manually via the Screensaver menu shortcut, unless the Aerial Views app has been recently opened (see #191 for details).

1. Open the Safety Guard app on your TV
2. Navigate to Permission Shield > Auto Launch Permission
3. Change the Auto manager at the top to Closed - this allows you to manually select which apps can auto-launch instead of the system deciding automatically
4. Scroll to Aerial Views and change it to Opened

Not all TCL TVs have the same software and features. If the above Safety Guard app does not exist on your TV, the following ADB command might help…

Android TV v13 or less:

appops set com.neilturner.aerialviews APP_AUTO_START allow

Android TV v14 or greater

appops set com.neilturner.aerialviews AUTO_START allow

You can confirm the available options:

appops get com.neilturner.aerialviews

# Returns
WAKE_LOCK: allow; time=+5m55s466ms ago; duration=+2s889ms
READ_MEDIA_IMAGES: allow; time=+1m43s406ms ago
READ_MEDIA_VISUAL_USER_SELECTED: allow; time=+1m43s408ms ago
AUTO_START: ignore; rejectTime=+7m6s72ms ago

</details> <details> <summary>Connect using an iPhone</summary> &nbsp;

Find an iPhone app that is capable of running ADB commands, such as iSH Shell, which is free.

Once installed, run the app and install the Android Tools with the following commands…

apk update
apk add android-tools

To check if the ADB command is working, try typing…

adb version 

After pressing return, you should see something like this

Android Debug Bridge version 1.0.41
Version  31.0.0p1-android-tools

Now you can execute ADB commands.

</details> <details> <summary>Connect using an Android phone</summary> &nbsp;

Find an Android app that is capable of running ADB commands, such as Remote Termux, which is free.

Once installed, run the app and install the Android Tools with the following commands…

pkg update
pkg install android-tools

To check if the ADB command is working, try typing…

adb version 

After pressing return, you should see something like this

Android Debug Bridge version 1.0.41
Version  34.0.0p1-android-tools

Now you can execute ADB commands.

</details> <details> <summary>Connect using a Mac</summary> &nbsp;

Download the official SDK Platform Tools for Mac.

Extract the files from the ZIP archive to a folder. Then open a Terminal or Command Prompt and navigate to the folder.

To check if the ADB command is working, try typing…

adb version

After pressing return, you should see something like this

Android Debug Bridge version 1.0.41
Version  35.0.0-11411520

Now you can execute ADB commands.

</details> <details> <summary>Connect using a PC with Windows</summary> &nbsp;

Download the official SDK Platform Tools for Windows.

An alternate option is [Tiny ADB and Fastboot Tool (Portable versi