Have these to hand before you start
- An Android TV, Google TV device or Android box, on at its home screen
- The Google account that device is signed in to, or the password for it
- Your VOCOIPTV server address, username and password
- The remote that came with the device, rather than a phone app standing in for it
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Do these in order
Work out which of the three Androids is in front of you
This decides everything that follows, and it takes thirty seconds. Open Settings, go to System, then About, and read the line near the top. A device built for television names itself Android TV OS or Google TV there. A box running the phone build names a bare Android version and nothing else, and usually shows a mouse pointer you can move with the remote, which no television build does. If you have Android TV or Google TV, stay on this page. If you have the phone build, the Play Store on it will hide the players from you, and the sideloading route on our Fire TV Stick page is the one that works: the menus differ slightly but Downloader behaves the same. Knowing which of the three you own before you start saves an hour of searching a store that was never going to list the app.
Check the device is signed in to a Google account
Open Settings, then Accounts and Sign-in on Android TV, or Settings, Accounts on Google TV. At least one Google address should be listed. This matters because the Play Store lets you browse and search without an account, and then stops at the last moment with a sign-in prompt, which on a television means typing an email address and password with a remote. Doing it now, before you are halfway through something, is worth the two minutes. If the device is shared, use the account you are happy to leave signed in, because a later TiViMate license is attached to whichever account bought it.
Install the player that suits the screen
On a television with a remote, take TiViMate. Its whole reason for existing is the grid guide, channels down the side and time across the top, and with a list this long that is the difference between finding something and giving up. On a tablet or phone, take IPTV Smarters Pro instead, because TiViMate is built around a remote and is awkward under a finger. Open the Play Store, search the exact name, and check the developer line before installing: TiViMate is published by AR Mobile Dev, and there are several imitations with similar icons. Install, and let it sit on the home row rather than opening it yet.
Hand the player your three values
Open TiViMate. The first screen offers Add playlist. Choose it, then choose Xtream Codes rather than M3U playlist. Three boxes appear: the server address, the username and the password. The server address goes in whole, starting http:// and ending with a colon and the port number, and the two below it are case sensitive. Press Next. Smarters words it differently, as Login with Xtream Codes API, and asks for a profile name first, which is only a label. Either app then shows a progress line while it pulls down the channel list. A first run over a list this size takes a minute or two, and the screen looks frozen for part of it.
Cut the list down before you start using it
TiViMate now asks which channel groups to include, and this is the step people skip and regret. Twenty-five thousand channels arranged by country is unusable with a remote. Turn off every group you know you will not open, leave the four or five you will, and finish. Nothing is deleted at our end and the choice is reversible from Settings, Playlists, at any point. Then open Settings, Channels, and reorder what is left so the ones you watch nightly sit at the top. Ten minutes here decides whether this device gets used or quietly goes back to the streaming apps.
Prove it works: two channels, one guide, one reboot
Play a news channel and leave it alone for a minute. Then move to a sports channel, which carries several times the data and fails first if something is wrong. Open the guide and look two days ahead: program names and times should be there, and if the grid says nothing past this evening, give it another ten minutes to finish downloading. Then pull the power out of the device, plug it back in, and open the player again. It should come back with the playlist still in place and no login screen. If it asks for the server address a second time, the playlist did not save, and adding it again while watching for an error message is the fix.
If the screen does not look right
The Play Store shows the app on my phone but not on the television
The listing is being filtered rather than withheld. Players published for television hardware are hidden from the phone build of Android that some inexpensive boxes run, and the reverse happens too. Confirm which build you have from Settings, System, About. If it names a bare Android version, install through Downloader as described on the Fire TV Stick page, using the address support sends you. The app itself is identical once it is on.
The player opens and closes again within a second
Almost always memory on a 1 GB box. Hold the home button to see what else is running, close everything, and open the player on its own. If it still folds, install IPTV Smarters Pro instead, which needs noticeably less. Boxes sold with 1 GB of RAM and a 4K badge on the packaging will decode a 4K stream and then run out of room holding a channel list of this size in memory at the same time.
Changing channel blanks the screen for several seconds
That is the television and the box renegotiating the HDMI connection because the new channel has a different frame rate, not a fault in the subscription. On Google TV, open Settings, Display and Sound, and turn off Match content frame rate. On Android TV the same setting sits under Display, Resolution, where you can fix the output at 1080p 60 or 2160p 60 rather than letting it switch. The picture then holds steady between channels.
The guide is blank on every channel after an hour
Open Settings, TV guide in TiViMate, or Settings, EPG in Smarters, and trigger the update by hand. Watch whether it reports a number of channels processed: if it does, it is working and needs longer. If it reports an error, the playlist was added with the M3U option instead of Xtream Codes, which pulls the channels without the guide behind them. Remove the playlist and add it again choosing Xtream Codes.
The app we would put on this one
TiViMate
TiViMate is Android only, and its grid guide is the reason to use it. Free against Premium, the Companion app, and how to shape a very long list.
Smarters Pro
IPTV Smarters Pro runs on nearly every screen and carries no channels of its own. Which install route your device needs, and the settings that matter.
Every guide in one list
One page for each television, box and app we cover.
Working through this with no login yet?
The steps above are the same whether you are on the free day or a paid term, so there is nothing to undo later. Tell us it is a Android TV and we will send the three lines that make it work.
Android TV IPTV FAQ
What should I look for in an Android box?
Three things, in this order: an Ethernet socket, at least 2 GB of RAM, and a build that reports itself as Android TV OS rather than plain Android. The Nvidia Shield satisfies all three and costs more than a year of any plan here. The Chromecast with Google TV, in its 4K form, is the middle option most households land on. Below that, treat the specification on a marketplace listing as a claim rather than a fact, and check the Settings, About screen the day it arrives, while you can still send it back.
Does this work on Chromecast with Google TV?
Yes, and it is one of the tidier setups on this site. Google TV is Android with a different front end over it, which means both players arrive from the Play Store like any other app. The one thing to know is storage: the 4K model has 8 GB, of which rather less is usable, so keep one player rather than collecting them. The HD model works too, at 1080p, which is its ceiling regardless of the channel.
Can I keep both players installed at the same time?
You can, and the same three values go into each. Nothing at our end counts an installation, so a box with TiViMate and Smarters side by side uses no more of your plan than a box with one. What the plan counts is streams playing at the same moment, so opening a channel in the second player while the first is still running counts as two. Close one before opening the other and the tier is untouched.
Do I have to use the Play Store?
No. Every player here also exists as an install file you can fetch with Downloader, which is how the Fire TV Stick does it, and the result is the same app. The Play Store is worth using where it is available because updates arrive on their own. On the phone build of Android where the listing is hidden, Downloader is the route rather than a workaround.