adb for Android TV possible

[Kat-CeDe]

Description

Android TV for Media Player is almost perfect but a lot of features for TV sets based on Android TV have a lot of missing features.

Additional context

Last week I did my first steps with the core-api and it seems that the remote has 2GB RAM and 4GB FLASH so there is quite some space.

With adb my Philips TV can directly switch the different inputs and also the different sound outputs like ARC, BlueTooth or internal speaker. adb only needs USB debug enabled, the IP (which the integration already has), port 5555 and a string. The string could be made configurable as a source input like the http-get integration does it.

[thomasm789]

@Kat-CeDe If you have Home Assistant you could use scripts as they show up as entities that can be used in activities or buttons.

That being said, I do have a fork that I use that has ADB support for Android. I might contribute it here should there be any appetite for it.

[Kat-CeDe]

I am not asking for me. I have it already running but not with HAss instead with IP Symcon. I am asking for people which have not the skills and/or equipment to have a home automation running.

I do not know if HAss also can switch audio output? If not here is a tip:
"adb -s " . $ip . ":5555 shell settings put global hdmi_system_audio_control_enabled 1";
will enable ARC on my Philips TV.

btw. thank you kennymc.c for the Swiss army knife HTTP-Post integration.

Ralf

[Kat-CeDe]

BlueTooth seems to be on the way. For FireTV I think there will be either no or only a limited amount of commands to directly start an App. Here adb would be a great help. So instead of integrating it into AndroidTV it makes more sense to have a separate adb integration imho.

Ralf

[thomasm789]

@zehnm I've been testing out the Chromecast contributions and it's a solid step forward for remote playback awareness.

I wanted to raise a consideration around broader device coverage and long-term extensibility.

While Chromecast integration works well for casted content, there’s a gap when it comes to local playback — particularly for apps like Netflix, Disney+, Plex, etc., when content is played directly on the device. These scenarios currently fall outside Chromecast’s scope.

To complement the existing approach, I'd like to propose exploring ADB-based support. Using dumpsys media_session. This is something I can start to work on following the merge and release of the existing PRs.

I've confirmed that ADB can monitor local playback sessions (including title, artist, album, playback state, seek position/duration, and supported actions), in some cases, retrieve artwork directly from the session and will be able to pull the list of installed apps, which could enhance dynamic app mapping and metadata.

More importantly it also opens the door to deeplinking and richer app-specific integrations which can be used to create more richer integrations into other apps.

I'm not sure whether ADB is planned for implementation as it most practically would need to sit outside of the androidtv integration itself and be a standalone service that runs an ADB client that the integration can interact with. Unless there's a way to run both the driver and pass custom cli commands to trigger other threads. There are packages like pure-python-adb that could be explored.

ADB is also not event-driven, so we would need to poll dumpsys media_session. Low-latency network polling (~1s) is usually okay.

Happy to explore this in a follow-up PR if there's alignment but just wanted to flag it here for visibility and discussion. Let me know your thoughts! I

[thomasm789]

https://github.com/JeffLIrion/python-androidtv appears to support async

[zehnm]

TBH I haven't looked into ADB for a long time.

If ADB works "good enough" nowadays then this is certainly something to explore and integrate!
I quickly checked the mentioned python-androidtv library. If I understand it correctly, then this is a full Python implementation and not requiring an ADB server.
The Home Assistant Android Debug Bridge integration is also using it and states:

When setting up this integration, it is recommended that you do NOT use an ADB server and instead use the built-in Python ADB implementation.

That would make it suitable for running on the Remote!

Next steps would be to dig a bit deeper and confirm that it's a pure Python implementation and not requiring an ADB server and no native libraries (unless of course aarch64 versions are included in the Python package).

[Kat-CeDe]

Hi Markus,
adb works for me stable since a few years in my home automation Symcon. For me it is to slow for things like simple commands DIGIT, Menu and so on (but it works) but sometimes the only way to reach certain functions. I use it mainly on my Philips Android TV to switch inputs/outputs. So it would be a big help for Philips Android TV and perhaps also Sony Android TV.

To work with more than 1 device at a time the commandline versions needs the parameter -s with IP number of the specific device.

Changing an input to HDMI1 on my Philips for instance is done with:
"adb -s " . $ip . ":5555 shell am start -a android.intent.action.VIEW -d content://android.media.tv/passthrough/com.mediatek.tvinput%2F.hdmi.HDMIInputService%2FHW5 -n org.droidtv.playtv/.PlayTvActivity -f 0x10000000"

Activating ARC is done with:
"adb -s " . $ip . ":5555 shell settings put global hdmi_system_audio_control_enabled 1"

Ralf

[zehnm]

@Kat-CeDe are you using input command for regular commands (like navigation) or the faster, but device specific, sendevent command?

Yet another option for Philips TVs is implementing their "Android TV remote extension". The openHAB folks did it, but I'm not aware there's another implementation available: https://github.com/openhab/openhab-addons/tree/main/bundles/org.openhab.binding.androidtv

One thing we have to test with ADB is how it reacts to frequent connects & disconnects.

[Kat-CeDe]

I only use adb commands for special things like input/output switching and for FireTV to start Apps. For "normal" commands like navigation I use the AndroidTV ones.

I monitor the online status of the devices I have and if it changes from offline to online I open adb connection and from online to offline I close the connection. For me there was no need to connect&disconnect during a session and at the Weekend it can be active for 16-18h. So start activity open connection, end activity close connection should work.

As far as I can see the "Android TV remote extension" from OpenHab "only" add some, mainly Ambilight connected, commands but also no commands for changing input/output. I do not know if the additional work is worth it.

btw. for Shield user. WIth the latest Shield update a current adb version was needed.

Ralf

[thomasm789]

I'm working on a PoC in android-adb branch on my forked repo. I'm using a Python adb async package. Feel free to share some of your code and ideas.

I'm thinking in only using adb for...

further commands such as key input and app list (although this needs some additional functionality to allow selection maybe on the config).

Let me know if anything else would be useful.

Media data seems to be extremely limited unless there's some sort of third party library to handle individual app logic?

[Kat-CeDe]

Hello Thomas,
for current FireTV/FireOS all commands might be of interest because BLE has a limited range and ADB is IP based and has more or less unlimited range. This usage would be of interest of everybody who has all its devices in a separate media room. I have all devices in my 5 rooms.

For me I have 3 main uses of ADB which I already use in conjunction with my home automation. An autark version would be nice.

1. Changing input on my Philips OLED because the build in remote service commands sadly are not used by Philips and from what I read also not by Sony and perhaps other Android based TV sets.
   At the moment I only have commands for HDMI1..4
   HDMI1 = "shell am start -a android.intent.action.VIEW -d content://android.media.tv/passthrough/com.mediatek.tvinput%2F.hdmi.HDMIInputService%2FHW5 -n org.droidtv.playtv/.PlayTvActivity -f 0x10000000"
   HDMI2..4 = HW6..HW8

2. ARC control
   Enable = "shell settings put global hdmi_system_audio_control_enabled 1"
   Disable = "shell settings put global hdmi_system_audio_control_enabled 0"

3. Starting Apps on FireTV
   Example Activity Prime Video
   FireTV = "shell am start -n com.amazon.firebat/.deeplink.DeepLinkRoutingActivity"
   AndroidTV = "shell am start -n com.amazon.amazonvideo.livingroom/com.amazon.ignition.IgnitionActivity"
   Example App YouTube
   FIreTV = "shell monkey --pct-syskeys 0 -p com.amazon.firetv.youtube 1"
   AndroidTV = "shell monkey --pct-syskeys 0 -p com.google.android.youtube.tv 1"
   Mixed Activity/App NetFlix
   FireTV = "shell am start -n com.netflix.ninja/.MainActivity"
   AndroidTV = "shell monkey --pct-syskeys 0 -p com.netflix.ninja 1"

For inputs and sound output I think I can also find others which were not of interest for me.
Inputs might be VGA, component or composite.
Outputs might be BlueTooth, SPDIF or RCA.

I have a list of around 6-8 Apps but the others are mainly German once like ARD, ZDF, Waipu and MagentaTV.

Especially 1 and 2 could be of interest of some Philips/Sony TV user with a R2/R3.

Most information could be found in my PHP repository of FireTV https://github.com/Kat-CeDe/IPSymconFireTV

Ralf

[thomasm789]

Thanks Ralf - I'm working on getting the App list configurable and adding in apps from ADB to start off this. Further device specific enhancements can be at a later date.