An Apple TV-style home screen for LG webOS, no root

Omkar Kon GitHub

An LG OLED C6 gets a custom dock and app grid, and a small Python watcher hijacks the Home button in about 0.1 seconds. LG's own Developer Mode does the installing.

Build sheet

Device page: LG webOS TV →

Can I build this?Intermediate · AI 5/5 · $0

Difficulty: Intermediate
AI-buildability: 5/5
Time: An evening
Cost: $0

Tools

Mac or Linux computerNode.jsPython 3

Starter prompt

Based on "An Apple TV-style home screen for LG webOS, no root" on Afterware: https://afterware.xyz/p/apple-tv-style-home-screen-for-lg-webos-tvs

I have an LG webOS TV on the same Wi-Fi as my computer. Help me build a custom home screen launcher as a webOS app with a four-app dock at the bottom and a grid of other apps, using LG's ares CLI for install and Python to read the installed app list. Start by setting up Developer Mode pairing and a minimal packaged app that opens on the TV.

Estimates based on the original write-up. How AI-buildability is scored. Building with an AI assistant? Connect it to Afterware (free MCP server).

Story

LG won't let you replace its home screen, so this port of the tv-vibehack Android TV launcher cheats. The Home button still opens LG's home. A script, home-watch.py, runs on another always-on device on the same network, watches the TV's foreground app, and switches to the launcher about 0.1 seconds after LG's home appears.

The launcher itself is Apple TV-style: a dock of four apps with the focused app's name above it, a grid of the rest, and inputs, Wi-Fi and settings along the top. webOS won't let an app list installed apps, so sync-apps.py reads the list from a computer and bundles it into the launcher. It was tested on an LG OLED C6 running webOS 26.

Nothing here needs root. Developer Mode is LG's official route for sideloading your own apps. Setup runs from a Mac with Node.js and Python 3, using LG's ares CLI and a free developer account. Layout and icon come from tv-vibehack, and the project is MIT licensed.

Resources · 5

Project repository Original Android TV launcher LG webOS TV developer site home-watch.py app/config.js