This simple trick made my Google TV faster in less than 5 minutes

Published Nov 9, 2026, 7:00 AM EST Sanuj is a freelance tech journalist with over six years of experience covering smartphones, wearables, and consumer technology. He currently writes for Android Police, Tom's Guide, Android Central, Android Authority, and Pocket-lint. He has previously contributed to publications like Pocketnow and MakeUseOf. Since the start of 2025 alone, he has tested over 30 smartphones. He has also attended major global trade shows including MWC (2024, 2025, 2026) and IFA (2024, 2025), along with launch events hosted by Google, Samsung, and other leading Android brands. When he's not writing about tech, you'll find him sipping a cup of chai, scrolling Twitter, and reading updates about his favorite football club, Chelsea FC. Feel free to reach out to him via email at sanujb6 [at] gmail [dot] com. One of the most frustrating things about smart TVs is that while the screen still looks great, the hardware inside starts showing its age after a couple of years. You could have a perfectly good TV with excellent picture and sound quality, but the processor eventually starts struggling, and the constant lag and hiccups make the experience frustrating. And that's exactly what I've been experiencing with my own Google TV lately. The easiest solution would be to plug in a third-party streaming device like the Google TV Streamer and call it a day. That would handle all the processing while the TV would act as a display. But after scrolling through X and digging through a few Reddit threads recently, I came across a trick that can speed up an older Google TV without spending a dime. And the best part is that it takes less than five minutes to set up. After trying it myself, I've noticed a big difference in how quickly my Google TV responds. Changing your Google TV launcher can make it feel much faster A lighter home screen can make navigating your TV feel smoother There are a couple of ways to speed up your Android TV. The longer route involves connecting your TV to a laptop through ADB and running a few commands to debloat the system and remove unnecessary apps and services, which my colleague Rajesh Pandey explained excellently. But if you're not into that and want a quicker, smoother Android TV experience, there's an easier solution. All you need to do is install a third-party launcher that removes clutter from your home screen, removes unnecessary recommendations and other elements that can slow things down, and gives your TV a much cleaner look. A number of third-party launchers have become popular recently, especially since the trend of using Claude to debloat Google TV started picking up. I've been using one called Talkies on my Google TV, and so far, it's worked flawlessly. Talkies is an open source project hosted on GitHub that promises a completely ad-free experience for Android TV and Google TV devices. One of its biggest advantages is its small size of around 200KB, which means it can run on older Android TV hardware without putting much load on the system. Despite being lightweight, it still offers several useful features. You get a dock to pin your favorite apps, support for Bing wallpapers, and a Continue Watching section that lets you jump back to what you were watching from the home screen. All of this comes in a package of about 200KB, smaller than the default launchers most Android TV manufacturers ship. That means much less is running in the background, which can make navigating the TV feel noticeably faster. Talkies is just one example. Plenty of other minimal third-party launchers, such as Clean Your TV and Vibe Launcher, are available for Android TV and Google TV, so you can try a few and settle on the one thatworks best for you. What I've noticed, though, is that these small, sometimes vibe-coded Android TV launchers can be more than enough to make an older TV feel faster. They remove the ads, recommendations, and other unnecessary clutter from the home screen, making navigation smoother without requiring you to mess around with ADB commands or spend money on new hardware. If you're installing a launcher outside the Play Store, enable Install unknown apps for your file manager in Android TV settings first. There are more advanced ways to speed up your Google TV In addition to switching to a third-party launcher, there are plenty of other ways to make your Android TV faster. The most basic thing you can do is uninstall apps you no longer use. Even apps that aren't actively running in the foreground can occasionally run background processes, consuming memory and slowing the experience. You can also try other tricks, like speeding up system animations through Developer Options to make navigating around the interface feel quicker. A new launcher might be all your old Google TV really needs This experience has taught me that TV manufacturers could ship Android TVs with a faster, cleaner out-of-the-box UI. Most of them choose not to. It's not like I had major issues with the default Google TV interface before, but switching to a lightweight third-party launcher has made me realize how much unnecessary clutter there is. And more importantly, that you don't need to buy new hardware to make an older Google TV feel like new again.