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I’m not keen on the Android TV home screen that ships with this device. I noticed that Google are (slowly) moving devices from Android TV to Google TV which has a much nicer UI. I found instructions on how to make this change to any android device running version 9 or above, so I tried this out on the Aura.
It looks really good, but I’ve struggled with the remote button mappings disappearing. Most annoying is the EPG is not accessible anymore.
Has anyone gone down this same road and made this work? In my eyes, it’s a big improvement over Android TV interface we currently have.
Barry – is this something that is on the developers roadmap to upgrade us to in the future or will we be stuck with the current Android TV home screen for good?
I played around with it a bit more, and you can download a free app from the Google Play Store that allows you to remap the remote buttons which gets around that problem.
When you press the GUIDE button on the remote it is launching the Freeview Play TV Guide app and abviously this works fine with the default Android TV launcher, but it throws an “unable to validate request FVP-400” error when opened under the Google TV launcher. Such a shame as I can’t use it if the EPG is not working.
For anyone who is interested in this, Google are rolling out an update to Android TV which we have on the Aura to make it look more like Google TV:
https://www.whathifi.com/news/this-android-tv-update-has-a-distinctly-google-tv-flavour
It hasn’t been rolled out the UK yet and I don’t know when it will.
If you want to preview what it looks like, install a VPN and switch your region to Canada and reboot the box.
I would urge extreme caution upgrading as I would imagine Humax do a lot of interoperability testing between their custom apps and the host OS (Android). I would say without a doubt you are now running a potentially unstable and unsupported Aura.
I am sure an official Humax supported upgrade is in the works as manufacturers using Android TV commit to Google’s upgrade policy of two major upgrades. Device makers are not allowed to simply release two consecutive yearly OS upgrades as the only two upgrades. The Android TV upgrade policy requires the second upgrade is at least three versions higher than the version the device launched with (Aura was V9). Manufacturers can also release intermediate version if they want to.
Be interesting to see what Graham and Barry’s views are on this.
Thanks for the information.
From what I can gather from information in the public domain, the update is controlled by Google based on the region it detects when you connect to their services. It also requires the latest version of the Android TV Core Services and Android TV Home applications. My Aura has these versions installed, perhaps because I am on the beta program.
So my understanding is that all you need to do to trick Google into giving you the update is to use a VPN to switch to a region where they have enabled the new UI.
So, I’m not sure if this is something Humax need to control or not. Your update implies that this is the case.
I would also be really interested in hearing the views of Graham and Barry.
To be clear, once the VPN is disabled the Android TV UI reverts back the old view and I’m now running the stock versions of everything. I uninstalled the sideloaded Google TV I mentioned in my original post a while ago as it was clear this wasn’t going to work.
I’m not trying it out but I agree the updated Google TV style interface is much better, and I have learned somthing about the VPN activating the updates by region, thank you.
Interesting that the updated core services and applications are already installed so there must be an intention to update a some point (unless its just common code that does both). Maybe Humax have not thought of blocking the UI change when using a VPN connection point external to the UK? Why would users do that as it would stop most of the UK TV channel on-demand players working for one thing.
Out of interest which country did you use for your VPN connection?
+1 – Also hoping to see the updated Google TV interface come to our Aura 4k hardware.
I think its a low risk thing to try out personally since you are only temporarily spoofing your location. Last night I tested it again and it also appears that you need to set the Language in the Android settings for this to work. The VPN location I used was Canada, and I set my language to English(Canada) then rebooted the box.
Disable the VPN and reset your language back to English(United Kingdom) and you’ll go back to the stock view after another reboot or by waiting a few hours.
I agree there’s little point in doing it other than seeing what it looks like as this box is not meant to be used permanently with a VPN setting a location other than UK, and I’ve now gone back to stock settings.
I just get the impression that this is controlled by Google and not Humax and so long as Google commit to rolling this out in the UK we will get it when they do.
This might be buried in the latest firmware thread, but as posted on there by a few others this new interface is rolling out across the Auras at the moment. I had to force it to update by heading to the Play Store app on the aura where the updates to the Android Core were pending. No idea how long they had been there, but I’ve now got the new Google TV front end which looks nice.
If you are wanting the Google tv update, goto the play store on your aura, go into your account and check to see if automatic updates are enabled, also you might see something like 25 apps pending, but doing nothing. In this case reboot your device and then you might get the update installed.
If it does install, reboot it again.
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