fishtank-android-tv

A basic app for watching Fishtank.live on Android TV (unofficial).

Port of the Roku app to Android TV / Fire TV.

Features

• Login with Fishtank.live email/password
• Auto-login with cached tokens on subsequent launches
• Camera grid with live thumbnails and online/offline indicators
• Full-screen HLS video playback
• Switch cameras without leaving the player (press Up)
• Stream quality selection: High / Medium / Low (press Down)
• Edge server override for outages (press Down)
• Quality and server preferences persist across sessions
• Automatic token refresh via background re-login on stream errors

Controls

Camera Grid

Button	Action
D-pad	Navigate cameras
OK	Open selected camera stream
Menu	Log out

Video Player

Button	Action
OK	Show camera name, quality, and server info
Up	Open camera switcher
Down	Open stream settings (quality and server)
Back	Return to camera grid

Camera Switcher (in player)

Button	Action
Up / Down	Navigate camera list
OK	Switch to selected camera
Back	Close switcher

Install (Sideload)

Download the latest APK from Releases.

Note: This app is not available on the Google Play Store or Amazon Appstore. It uses an unofficial, reverse-engineered API and is not affiliated with Fishtank.live. Sideloading is the only way to install it.

Fire TV Stick

1. On the Fire TV Stick: Settings > My Fire TV > Developer Options
   • Enable ADB Debugging
   • Enable Apps from Unknown Sources
2. Note the IP from Settings > My Fire TV > About > Network
3. From a computer on the same network with ADB installed:

adb connect <fire-tv-ip>:5555
adb install fishtank-android-tv-v0.1.0.apk

Or install the Downloader app on the Fire TV and enter the APK download URL from GitHub releases directly.

Note: Requires Fire TV Stick 3rd Gen or newer (Android 6.0+ / Fire OS 6+). Fire TV Stick 2nd Gen and older are not supported. If Developer Options is hidden, go to Settings > My Fire TV > About and click the device name 7 times to unlock it.

Fire TV (Cube, Smart TV, etc.)

1. Settings > My Fire TV > Developer Options
   • Enable ADB Debugging
   • Enable Apps from Unknown Sources
2. Install via ADB from a computer or use the Downloader app (same as above)

Android TV (Google TV, Sony, Nvidia Shield, etc.)

1. Settings > Device Preferences > About and click Build 7 times to enable Developer Options
2. Settings > Device Preferences > Developer Options
   • Enable USB Debugging (or Network Debugging for wireless ADB)
   • Enable Install from Unknown Sources
3. Install via ADB:

adb connect <tv-ip>:5555
adb install fishtank-android-tv-v0.1.0.apk

Or use a file manager app to open the APK from a USB drive.

Credential Storage

All sensitive data stored on the device is encrypted using Android Keystore with AES-256-GCM. The encryption key is hardware-backed and never leaves the device.

Data	Encrypted	Purpose
Email	Yes	Background re-login for token refresh
Password	Yes	Background re-login for token refresh
Access Token	Yes	REST API authentication
Live Stream Token	Yes	HLS stream URL JWT parameter
Display Name	No	Shown in header (non-sensitive)
Quality / Server	No	User preferences (non-sensitive)

Credentials are stored to allow the app to re-login automatically in the background to refresh the stream token (JWT), which expires every 30 minutes.

Developer Setup

Prerequisites

• JDK 17
• Android SDK (cmdline-tools, platform-tools, build-tools 34.0.0, API 34-35)
• Android TV emulator (included with Android SDK) or a Fire TV / Android TV device on the same network for physical testing

Note: This app has only been tested with the Android TV emulator. Physical device testing (Fire TV Stick 3rd Gen+, Android TV boxes, etc.) is untested but should work with any device running Android 6.0+ (API 23+).

Install

git clone https://github.com/barrettotte/fishtank-android-tv.git
cd fishtank-android-tv
cp .env.example .env

Android SDK Setup (Arch Linux)

sudo pacman -S jdk17-openjdk

mkdir -p $HOME/Android/Sdk/cmdline-tools
cd /tmp
curl -sLO "https://dl.google.com/android/repository/commandlinetools-linux-14742923_latest.zip"
unzip commandlinetools-linux-14742923_latest.zip
mv cmdline-tools $HOME/Android/Sdk/cmdline-tools/latest
rm commandlinetools-linux-14742923_latest.zip

# Add to .zshrc or .bashrc
export ANDROID_HOME=$HOME/Android/Sdk
export ANDROID_AVD_HOME=$HOME/.config/.android/avd
export PATH="$ANDROID_HOME/cmdline-tools/latest/bin:$ANDROID_HOME/platform-tools:$ANDROID_HOME/emulator:$PATH"

# Install SDK packages
sdkmanager "platform-tools" "platforms;android-34" "platforms;android-35" \
    "build-tools;34.0.0" "emulator" "system-images;android-34;android-tv;x86"
yes | sdkmanager --licenses

Enable ADB on Fire TV Stick

1. Go to Settings > My Fire TV > Developer Options
2. Enable ADB Debugging
3. Enable Apps from Unknown Sources
4. Note the IP from Settings > My Fire TV > About > Network
5. Run adb connect <ip>:5555 - accept the "Allow USB debugging?" dialog on the TV screen and check "Always allow from this computer"

If Developer Options is hidden, go to Settings > My Fire TV > About and click the device name 7 times to unlock it.

6. Edit .env with your device IP:

   FIRE_TV_IP=192.168.1.100
   

Build and Deploy

make deploy

This builds the debug APK and installs it onto the Fire TV Stick.

Emulator

Uses the android-tv system image which provides the Android TV launcher with Leanback home screen and D-pad navigation.

# one-time setup
make avd_create

# build, launch emulator, install, and run
make emulate

If emulator keys aren't working: The AVD may have hw.keyboard=no by default. Edit $ANDROID_AVD_HOME/FishtankTV.avd/config.ini and set hw.keyboard=yes, then also set hw.keyboard = true in hardware-qemu.ini in the same directory. Kill the emulator and relaunch.

Debugging

# view app logs
make debug

# view emulator logs
make debug_emu

Other Commands

make lint     # run Android lint
make test     # run unit tests
make clean    # delete build output

References

• Compose for TV
• Leanback Library
• ExoPlayer / Media3
• Retrofit
• Fire TV Development