Roadmap

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What's coming to tv-hero, in the order we plan to build it. Each step ships as its own release, with screenshots, tests and a changelog, and is checked on a real TV before the next one starts.

Have an idea or need something? Request a feature or add a 👍 to an existing request: the most-wanted ideas move up. Questions and show-and-tell go in Discussions.

Rules every item keeps: nothing loosens a rule without the parent password; nothing new leaves the home without being visible and switchable off; it must stay light on a 1 GB TV.

2.9: Fair time

Accurate screen time (bug fix, top priority)

Screen time sometimes counts less than was watched, and occasionally attributes time to the wrong moment. Causes found in the code:

• The TV decides which app is in front from window changes. Any small window replaces it: the volume bar, the keyboard, a notification, or tv-hero's own corner timer and notes. While that small window "is in front", counting stops, although the video plays on behind it.
• Time is added every 20 seconds to whatever is in front at that moment, so switching apps or profiles mid-interval can put up to 20 seconds in the wrong place.

The fix:

• Only full-screen apps change "what's in front"; overlays, dialogs, the keyboard and tv-hero's own windows never do.
• Where the TV allows it (granted during setup from the phone), use Android's own app-usage record as the source of truth, with the window method as the fallback.
• Count by the second, and close the running total on every app, profile or screen change.
• Tests that replay real sequences of events (volume bar over YouTube, keyboard in a search box, corner timer, screensaver, standby) and check the minutes.
• Today, app by app on the phone, so a parent can see where the time went.

Time-left corner

A small pill in the corner over any app: "⏱ 12 min left". Per profile, set from the phone or the Parent Menu:

• Last 5 minutes (default), Always, or Off.
• A gentle note at 5 and 1 minutes stays, as today.

Overlay settings

One place (phone → Settings → On-Screen Notes, and the Parent Menu) to switch each on-screen extra on or off: the time-left corner, the tools' corner timer, the Home info line, and the warnings.

Requests from families

A feature-request form on GitHub and this roadmap on the website, so families can ask and vote.

2.10: Phone to TV

Home Wi-Fi only; nothing here goes over the internet.

• Open a link on the TV. Share any link from the phone ("Share → Open on TV"), and it opens on the TV in the chosen browser, or in YouTube for YouTube links. In a child's profile, only into apps that child has; a parent can allow it once with the password. Every link sent is in the TV's event log.
• Photos on the TV, streamed, never saved there. Pick photos on the phone; the phone runs the slideshow, resizes each photo, leaves out its location and sends it just before it shows. The TV holds only the photo on screen, in memory, and goes back 30 seconds after the last one.
• Type and paste from the phone over Wi-Fi. Text appears in the TV's focused box as you type, through tv-hero Keyboard, which the TV uses only while the phone types and which never reads the box.
• Search from the phone, with a default per profile. YouTube, or the browser with each profile's engine: DuckDuckGo by default, safe search strict for children and Guest.
• Honest limit: tv-hero can't change another app's own settings (Brave's default search engine, for example). It can open Brave with a search address it chooses, and a family filter DNS (like AdGuard Family, in the user guide) can force SafeSearch in every browser.
• Casting stays with the TV. Chromecast built-in and Miracast already work on most Android TVs; tv-hero points to them rather than rebuilding them.

2.11: Live and free TV

• Weather. On Home and as a weather screensaver: now, today and tomorrow for a city you set on the phone (no location tracking). From Open-Meteo: free for non-commercial use, no account, credited on screen. The TV fetches it about once an hour, its only internet connection, and only once a city is set.
• Free TV. An optional Free TV screen, opened from Home's top bar (a screen of its own rather than a row in the app grid, so the remote stays predictable), with:
• official free apps and channels a parent picks, for example the public broadcaster's own app (in India, Prasar Bharati's WAVES), news and kids' channels on YouTube;
• playlists a parent adds (an M3U address), opened in a player installed on the TV.
• tv-hero ships no channel lists of its own and never adds paid channels from unofficial sources. In a child's profile, each channel needs a parent's OK.
• Live tiles. Weather, the date, and the day's festival on Home, light enough for a 1 GB TV.

2.12: Family extras

• Scenes. One tap on the phone: Homework (only learning apps, a timer on screen), Movie night (no limit until 10 pm, volume capped), Bedtime now.
• Rewards. A parent gives minutes for a chore or homework with a reason ("+15: tidied the room"), which the child sees on the TV. Streaks and badges for Earn Time.
• Weekly summary on the phone: minutes per child and per app, questions answered, requests. Computed on the TV, never sent anywhere else.

Labs (experimental, off by default)

• Install an app from the phone. Pick an APK on the phone. tv-hero shows its name, package, signer, permissions and size, asks for the parent password, installs it over the home Wi-Fi and switches TV debugging off again. The new app starts as waiting for approval, like any other new app. Labs is off until a parent switches it on.

Later

• More TVs: a device matrix (Google TV, Sony, TCL, Mi Box) with emulator tests, and fixes per brand.
• Several TVs in one phone app.
• More languages on the TV and the phone; more Earn Time subjects and languages.
• An iPhone app.

Not planned, and why

• Using the phone's memory (RAM) for the TV. Memory can't be shared over Wi-Fi. What helps instead: screen mirroring makes the phone do the heavy work and the TV only shows video, and tv-hero keeps the TV light (switching off unused apps, a small Home screen).
• Unofficial or paid channels for free. tv-hero won't bundle or point to them.
• Changing other apps' settings (Brave's search engine, YouTube's settings). Android doesn't allow it; tv-hero works around it with its own search and a family DNS.
• Analytics or accounts. tv-hero stays private by design.