TL;DR
- Users are seeing large banner ads on their Nvidia Shield TV devices after the latest Android TV UI update.
- Disgruntled users have bombarded the Google Play Store with bad reviews for the Android TV Home app.
- Some users have also come up with ways to get rid of pesky ads on Shield TV devices.
Smart TV UIs are a great avenue for OEMs to earn some money by displaying ads to users. We’ve seen Amazon serve up ads on the Fire TV interface. Roku also posts ads on the home screen of its devices. However, Google’s Android TV home interface has long been an ad-free space. Until now. Very recently, Nvidia Shield TV devices started getting the new Android TV UI with the Discover tab. However, the transition has been an unhappy one for hundreds of users who were greeted with the addition of ads on the home screen.
The Nvidia Shield TV boxes have largely had the upper hand over other streaming boxes because of the absence of ads. But it looks like that’s no longer the case. Angry users have taken to the Google Play Store listing for the Android TV Home app to leave comments about how much they dislike having ads on their Shield TVs. So much so that the Play Store rating for the app has crashed to a single star (h/t AndroidPolice).
Check out some of the things people have been saying.
Users are equally disgruntled on Twitter, posting screenshots of banner ads on their Shield TV home screens.
I absolutely hate that my @nvidia Shield TV is now 50% advertising. I spent $200 on this device because it was ad-free. Serious bait & switch to shove ads down my throat with an update. pic.twitter.com/fn3O5YMXnI
Meanwhile, some bothered users have taken to Reddit to propose a workaround and block ads on Shield TV. First and foremost, you can try uninstalling the update by heading to Settings > Apps > System apps > Android TV Home. You’ll also want to disable auto-update from the Google Play Store settings to avoid getting it again.
Alternatively, you can consider installing a third-party launcher to get rid of the ads. Another user suggests you can disable Google Play services on your Shield TV to disable the ads. However, that might break updates on other apps and cause unwanted sign-in issues.
Take our poll above and tell us what you think of ads on your Shield TV home screens. Do you absolutely hate them or are you okay with them? Have more to say? Leave us a comment below the article.
