Developer uses Claude Code to mod a Xiaomi TV; the CleanYourTV open-source project gets about 13,700 stars

[[**Developers use Claude and ADB to freeze smart TV ad components and replace the stock launcher with a minimalist one; open-source projects like CleanYourTV are gaining traction. AI is lowering the barrier to hardware reverse engineering, letting users fight for control over TVs, cameras, and other devices.**

**Key points**

**1. AI and ADB let ordinary users clean up TV ads and replace the launcher**

Gathin connected Claude Code to a Xiaomi TV, disabled 25 system components, and rewrote a minimalist launcher; CleanYourTV gained about 13,700 stars in a few days. After Ansub's modifications, the TV's available memory rose from about 370MB to 600–650MB.

**2. Low-priced TVs recoup costs through ads and internet operations**

Roku's hardware business posted a gross loss of $82.02 million in 2025, while its platform business had a gross profit of $2.156 billion; TCL Electronics' internet business had a gross margin of 56.4%, versus just 16.8% for large-size displays. In China, 93% of mainstream models allow boot ads to be turned off, but pre-roll and pause ads in streaming services remain hard to remove.

**3. TV cleanup tools only reach the system layer, not in-app rules**

They can disable preinstalled packages and replace the official launcher, improving the home screen and smoothness, but they cannot remove in-stream ads, promotional posters, or "big-screen exclusive VIP" pop-ups inside streaming apps.

**4. AI lowers the reverse-engineering barrier, and the camera community is unlocking hidden features too**

Projects for Sony, Nikon, Ricoh, and Fujifilm restore hidden capabilities, port film simulations, and enable custom LUTs; a Hasselblad X2D 100C has even been made to run Doom. Firmware audits that once required months of assembly and decompilation are now being completed by ordinary people with AI, and factory defaults are starting to be questioned. 2026-10-24 18:08 A developer made a TV take Claude, and this is how its system changed iFanr Quick Read

This article is from the WeChat public account: iFanr, author: someone who follows tomorrow's products, editor: Xiao Qinpeng, original title: "A developer made a TV take Claude, and this is how its system changed"

Once upon a time, in people's minds, a TV was a species that could be watched as soon as it was turned on, and channels could be changed with a couple of presses on the remote.

Now, when you turn on the TV to watch a movie, the first thing that greets you is a boot ad. After finally getting to the home page, you are hit by a screen full of poster recommendations and membership recharge pop-ups, and if you press pause midway, a full promotional overlay pops up.

Image | Beijing Business Today

Giving the TV a "deep clean"

Last week, developer Gathin posted a set of photos on social media of modifying a TV for his parents. According to his description, the Xiaomi TV at home even required watching a sponsored ad before opening Netflix.

So he handed the TV model to the coding assistant Claude Code, let it connect to the device over Wi-Fi, disabled 25 system components in one go, and then wrote a minimalist launcher—the originally cluttered home page instantly became clean and refreshing.

He then open-sourced this set of prompts, the launcher source code, and his troubleshooting notes to GitHub, naming the project CleanYourTV.

Within just a few days, the project quickly gained about 13,700 stars—"the world has suffered from smart TVs for too long" indeed. In the related discussion area on Reddit, it was packed with users asking whether their own models could be adapted, and many also posted their own minimalist home pages after modification.

Image | 🔗github.com/Gathin23/cleanyourtv

The underlying logic of AI "taking over" the TV is not mysterious; the core is still an old tool that has been used in the Android ecosystem for over a decade: ADB (Android Debug Bridge).

As long as it connects to the same local network and enables the TV's debugging permissions, AI can use the terminal interface to inspect the hundreds of app components running. Which are boot ads, which are telemetry programs secretly reporting viewing data—AI screens them one by one and issues commands to "freeze" them, and finally swaps in a clean open-source launcher.

Image | CleanYourTV

Another YouTuber, Ansub Khan, also documented his modification process and open-sourced the project as TV Detox. On his original TV, the boot default automatically played noisy carousel content.

After the modification, the new home page was left with only the clock, commonly used video apps, and input sources.

Image | 🔗github.com/Ansub/tv-detox

In the video, Ansub measured the TV's available memory soaring from about 370 MB to 600–650 MB; a TCL Beyond user who followed the prompts also said that although there was no precise data, after getting rid of the heavy background processes, the whole TV's scrolling and response were noticeably lighter and faster.

Looking through the discussions in the Reddit community, I noticed a very interesting detail: the "ideal TV" everyone has in mind seems to not be the same thing at all, and people cannot even reach a consensus.

Some are still used to the factory interface and only want to remove ads and extra recommendations, then remap the remote's shortcut buttons to commonly used apps;

Another Sony KD-55A8H user pursues minimalism even more—he changed the clock to 24-hour format, deleted the morning and evening greetings, the date, and all decorative lines, and even changed the system font to the neat and austere IBM Plex Sans.

]]

In fact, people's needs have always varied from person to person. But within the commercial logic of pursuing standardization, users can often only customize within the framework set by manufacturers.

Hardware doesn't make money, so the screen becomes an advertising slot

In recent years, TVs have become cheaper and cheaper. Besides falling panel costs and rising productivity, there is also an element of manufacturers "selling at a loss to gain attention." But manufacturers are not charities after all; hardware is responsible for "making friends" at a low price, so the money naturally has to be earned back elsewhere.

As for what else can make money after a TV is sold, we can get a glimpse from the financial reports of the overseas streaming giant Roku.

In 2025, its device hardware business posted a full-year gross loss of $82.02 million; its platform business, composed of digital advertising, subscriptions, and content distribution, had gross profit as high as $2.156 billion.

TCL Electronics also disclosed that in 2025 its internet business revenue was HK$3.11 billion, with a gross margin of 56.4%; during the same period, the gross margin of its large-size display business was 16.8%. Clearly, internet operations built around TVs have much thicker gross margin room than hardware.

In China, rectification targeting smart TVs has indeed had some effect. According to data disclosed by the National Radio and Television Administration, 93% of models from mainstream brands already support one-click or permanent disabling of startup ads.

But this still treats the symptoms, not the root cause. Limiting countdown startup ads does not stop manufacturers' need to monetize; their commercial calculations will only become more concealed.

Image | X users complain about the eyesore ads displayed when YouTube is paused

Take some domestic streaming platforms, for example. Pre-roll ads that are often 90 seconds long, full-screen promotional posters when paused, and pop-ups for a "big-screen exclusive VIP" that cannot use mobile annual cards are still stuck there unchanged like stubborn rashes.

Tools like CleanYourTV can only clean the TV system's own preinstalled packages and official launcher. It can help you clean up the living room door, but it cannot govern the rules inside each app's house.

Why can't we decide for ourselves what to do with the hardware we bought?

The "Vibe-Hacking" trend is not limited to "TVs."

In the camera world, a group of photographers is also trying every possible way to recover features that manufacturers have hidden.

On old Sony bodies, the open-source project Recipe Lab uses the old PlayMemories Camera Apps entry to let models such as the A6000 and A6300 load custom color recipes, writing color matrices and white balance parameters into the camera's underlying system.

Another study targeting A7 IV firmware went directly deep into version 6.02 firmware and dug out the officially blocked shutter angle and LUT implementation. Although currently only icons can be brought up and dial adjustment remains restricted, the existence of the code itself confirms that the hardware capability has long existed.

The Nikon community's open-source project Wonder Lantern takes personalization even deeper. Some developers not only extended the Z30 with 900-second ultra-long exposure, same-screen histogram, and custom shutter sounds; the domestic reverse-engineering community even directly unpacked and reconstructed Nikon firmware, repackaged and signed it with a private key, and successfully added new setting options to the camera menu.

Image | After modifying the firmware, a developer successfully wrote a "hello world" entry into Nikon's native settings menu (source: Xiaohongshu)

The Ricoh community's GR Mod fits photographers' own .cube LUT color presets into in-camera style slots that the camera can recognize, and even adds a 65:24 wide aspect ratio, giving this street-shooting camera a film-like style and an XPAN compositional field of view.

In the Fujifilm community, developer justice-jake is trying to break the official firmware moat—reverse-porting film simulations, snapshot focus, and the recipe editor exclusive to new models onto the almost forgotten old X70 body.

The channel curves of the old processor are locked down by hardware, so he uses AI-assisted USB debugging and firmware emulation to painstakingly extract approximate algorithm implementations bit by bit from the underlying code.

Swipe up and down to see more content

A more dramatic exploration appears on Hasselblad. The open-source project Hasselblad X Unleashed directly targets the underlying system of some medium-format bodies—this camera internally runs a deeply customized Android, and this hidden "back door" excites geeks.

They not only followed the trail to unlock wireless microphones, external monitoring, and pixel shift; someone in the community even successfully ran the classic game Doom directly on a Hasselblad camera worth tens of thousands of yuan.

Image | Hasselblad X2D 100C running Doom, with touchscreen turning and shutter firing (source: Reddit/rrRadium)

Compared with disabling a few Android apps on a TV, gnawing into the underlying firmware of a camera is obviously an adventure of a completely different order.

But these two groups, which seem entirely unrelated, are tinkering according to the same logic: we clearly bought this machine at full price, so why should how its functions are used be decided only by the manufacturer's commercial calculations?

In the past, breaking through such settings required geeks to grind through assembly code and decompilation tools for months or even years.

Now, for the first time, AI has put code auditing and troubleshooting capabilities once exclusive to reverse engineers into the hands of more ordinary people. Those features originally sealed deep in the black box, crippled by deliberate product segmentation, and those corners stuffed with ads have become transparent and visible for the first time.

From a big screen cleanup in the living room to firmware unlocking in the photography world, a bottom-up technological rebellion is taking shape through one seemingly small act of tinkering after another.

Commercial companies' profit calculations will not stop, and digital fences will not disappear out of thin air. But as the scales of technology quietly tilt, those factory settings once taken for granted have finally been called into question again.

Welcome to the "Great Reverse Engineering Era." AI industry signal channel: Frontier Technology. This content comes from the internet and the original link; the views represent only the author and do not represent Huxiu's position. If there is any copyright issue, please contact hezuo@huxiu.com, and we will verify and handle it promptly. Everyone who is changing the world and wants to change the world is on the Huxiu APP[]