TL; DR
- Users are seeing large banner ads on their Nvidia Shield TVs 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 annoying ads on Shield TVs.
Smart TV user interfaces are a great way for OEMs to make money by serving ads to users. We saw Amazon show ads on the Fire TV user interface. Roku also publishes ads on the home screen of its devices. However, Google’s Android TV home interface has long been an ad-free space. Until now. Recently, Nvidia Shield TVs received the new Android TV user interface with the “Explore” tab. However, the transition was unfortunate for hundreds of users who were greeted with the addition of ads to their home screen.
The Nvidia Shield TV boxes have largely had the upper hand over other streaming boxes due to the lack of advertising. But that no longer seems to be the case. Angry users went to the Google Play Store listing for the Android TV Home app to leave comments about how much they dislike ads on their Shield TVs. So much so that the Play Store rating for the app crashed to a single star (h / t AndroidPolice).
Look at some of the things people have said.
Users are upset as well on twitterwho have favourited screenshots of banner ads on their Shield TV home screens.
I absolutely hate that mine @nvidia Shield TV is now 50% advertising. I spent $ 200 on this device because it was ad-free. Serious bait & change to put advertising down my throat with an update. pic.twitter.com/fn3O5YMXnI
In the meantime, some troubled users have visited Reddit to suggest a workaround and block ads on Shield TV. First and foremost, you can try uninstalling the update by going to Settings> Apps> System Apps> Android TV Home. You should also turn off auto-update in 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 that you can turn off Google Play services on your Shield TV to turn off the ads. However, doing so can interrupt updates of other apps and cause unwanted login issues.
Take our survey above and tell us what you think of the ads on your Shield TV home screens. Do you absolutely hate them or are you okay with them? Do you have more to say? Leave us a comment below the article.
