I have installed Button Mapper and mapped the remote control's Home button to load FLauncher on my Sony A80J TV. This is nearly perfect except that my Google profile is opened and I have to exit it to get to Flauncher. Has anyone else had this problem?
Is there any way to go straight to FLauncher apps with the Home button?
There are Troubleshooting settings in Button Mapper like "Alternate Home handling" and "Alternate Input method" that you can try tweaking that will change how the device key sequences are emulated for your specific hardware.
The github project page for FLauncher describes how to map the home button, in particular using adb to set the home screen application. You'd need to adapt the adb commands for your device:
https://gitlab.com/etienn01/flauncher
Alternatively you can use the Launcher Manager tool which can be used to switch your launcher, originally developed for Amazon Fire Stick devices, but adapted for Android TV. Make sure you get the Android TV version:
This works fine for me. The problem is that the device keeps uploading the launcher from memory so you have to load it.
I've never not had the home button just directly launch it. But I only have one profile and two accounts.
Those ads are horrendous, full screen even the audacity. Reasons to avoid Android TV, if that's even possible.
I just reverted the Android TV Launcher app updates, and the huge commercial banners are gone. (now running com.google.android.tvlauncher version 2.1.3-320113730-f on philips TPM191E with Android 9)
This option is shown here:
Settings > Android settings > Device preferences > Storage > Internal Shared Storage > Apps > Show All Apps > Show System > Android TV startscreen > Remove updates.
People have had better experiences remapping buttons with Key Mapper. It's available free on playstore for phones only, but you can sideload the apk to TV no problem. Checkout this comment from a previous thread:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Chromecast/comments/pli24c/remap_youtube_button_without_showing_the_choosing/hcbldc9/