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Gtvs

GTVS = Google TV Services & Android TV

  • Android TV, allows you to use the Android TV brand and adds support for all Google TV services (GTVS) which allows operators to gain access to additional features to improve their pay TV service.
  • A version of the Android operating system developed by Google for television sets, digital media players, set-top boxes, and soundbars. A successor to Google TV, it features a user interface designed around content discovery and voice search, content aggregation from various media apps and services, and integration with other recent Google technologies such as Assistant, Cast, and Knowledge Graph.

The platform was first unveiled in June 2014, and was first made available on the Nexus Player that November. The platform has been adopted as smart TV middleware by companies such as Sony and Sharp, while Android TV products have also been adopted as set-top boxes by a number of IPTV television providers.

A special edition called Android TV Operator Tier is provided to service operators that implement Android TV on the device they provide to their subscribers to access media content. In this edition, the operator can customize the home screen and services on the device.

List of devices

The ADT-1 digital media player, part of the official development kit for Android TV

  • Digital media players
  • Nexus Player (discontinued)
  • Nvidia Shield TV
  • Razer Forge TV (discontinued)
  • Xiaomi Mi Box, Mi Box S, and Mi TV Stick
  • Now TV
  • Verizon Stream TV
  • TiVo Stream 4K
  • Vodafone TV (AU)
  • Airtel Xstream Box (India)
  • Chromecast with Google TV

Televisions

During Google I/O 2014, Google announced that Sharp, Sony, and TP Vision would release smart TVs with Android TV integrated in 2015.

It was noted that support for handling TV-specific functions, such as input switching and tuning, were natively integrated into the Android platform.

Sony unveiled a range of Bravia smart TVs running Android TV at CES 2015.Sharp released two TV models on June 10, 2015. Philips announced that 80% of their 2015 TVs will run Android TV, the first two models of which were released in June 2015.

Google announced other television hardware partners in January 2016, including Arcelik, Bang & Olufsen, Hisense, RCA, TCL Corporation, and Vestel.

Set-top boxes

Several television providers have released IPTV services using Android TV-based hardware as opposed to a proprietary set-top box, including LG UPlus's U+ tvG Woofer and U+ tvG 4K UHD, French ISP Free's Freebox Mini 4K, and Bouygues Telecom's BBox Miami.

Dish Network released an Android TV device in 2017 known as the AirTV Player, marketed as a companion to its Sling TV service, and supporting an optional adapter for attaching an antenna to receive over-the-air television.

In 2020, AT&T launched AT&T TV as its new flagship pay television service, which is based on an Android TV set-top box and the infrastructure of its OTT service DirecTV Now.

Ericsson added Android TV support to its MediaFirst IPTV platform, which is used as the basis for Canadian services such as Telus Pik TV, and SaskTel MaxTV Stream.

Vodafone Australia is currently selling a TV tuner and media streaming device running Android TV.