Lumen Launcher

Lumen is a home screen for Android TV that gets you to your apps and stays out of the way. There are no sponsored rows, no recommendation feeds and no tracking. Lumen doesn't even ask for internet access.

Stock TV launchers are some of the heaviest apps on a cheap TV. On the 1.5 GB set Lumen was built for, the stock launcher and its helper services held about 400 MB of memory between them. Lumen is a ~48 KB APK written against the plain Android framework, with no third-party libraries.

It also comes with optional TV tools to back up a TV, switch off preinstalled bloat reversibly, and restore everything with one command.

What you get

• Your apps, up front. A Favourites row with large banners, a Recent row, and a grid of everything else.
• Made for the remote. A focus outline that stays visible even on white banners, smooth scaling, and every action reachable with the D-pad, OK and Back.
• Small menus where you are. Hold OK on an app to pin, move, rename, hide or uninstall it. The menu opens right beside it.
• It tells you when something's wrong. Alerts under the clock for no network, Wi‑Fi without internet, Wi‑Fi that needs sign-in, and low or full storage. Select one to go straight to the fix.
• Notifications, inputs, voice search and settings in a slim top bar.
• Make it yours. Six backgrounds, 4–6 apps per row, names always or only on focus, sorting by name, use or install date, and a 12/24-hour clock.

Quick start

You need a computer with adb on the same network as the TV, with debugging turned on in the TV's developer options.

adb connect 192.168.1.50:5555                     # your TV's IP address
adb install -r lumen-v1.2.0.apk                   # from the latest release
adb shell cmd role add-role-holder --user 0 android.app.role.HOME com.lumen.tvlauncher 0
adb shell cmd notification allow_listener com.lumen.tvlauncher/com.lumen.tvlauncher.NotificationService
adb shell input keyevent KEYCODE_HOME

If Home still opens the old launcher, your TV ignores the default. Disable the stock one; this is fully reversible:

adb shell pm disable-user --user 0 com.google.android.tvlauncher   # undo: pm enable

The install guide walks through every step, including enabling debugging, checking the download, updating, and uninstalling safely.

Documentation

Guide	What's in it
Install	Requirements, step-by-step setup, updating, going back, uninstalling
User guide	Every screen, menu, alert and setting, plus a remote cheat sheet
TV tools	Backup, reversible debloat and restore scripts, and how to adapt them to your TV
Troubleshooting	Fixes for the problems people actually run into
Building	Building from source, signing, project layout
Releasing	Signing key, repository secrets, and publishing a release
Changelog	What changed in each version

The same guides are on the wiki, which is updated automatically from docs/.

Compatibility

|---|---| | Android TV 8.0 (API 26) and newer | Supported | | Android TV 14, Realtek-based Acer TV, 1.5 GB RAM | Tested daily | | Google TV | Should work; the stock launcher package is com.google.android.apps.tv.launcherx | | Amazon Fire TV | Not supported. Fire OS won't let another app handle the Home button |

Privacy

Lumen has no internet permission and sends nothing anywhere. Favourites, names and settings stay in its private storage on the TV. Notification access is optional and only used to show the badge and list on the home screen.