Android TV + Google Apps on Raspberry Pi: Step-by-Step Guide

Using Android TV on your Raspberry Pi and connecting it to your TV is an excellent alternative to Kodi (with OSMC or LibreElec). The system is more intuitive, as you can install apps directly from the Play Store, and it works well out of the box. The installation has improved over the years, but it’s still not straightforward. So, let me guide you to get it running on your Pi.

Google doesn’t release an Android TV version for the Raspberry Pi, so a custom build is required to install it. Konsta is a developer that provides Android and Android TV images. It’s based on LineageOS and can be downloaded and run on Raspberry Pi.

If it’s your first try, this might be confusing. But don’t worry, I’ll start by explaining everything before showing you how to get Android TV on your Raspberry Pi in a few minutes.

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Android on Raspberry Pi

Let’s start with a bit of theory first, because I’ll use references that you probably don’t know if you haven’t previously tried Android on Raspberry Pi.

Can You Install Android on Raspberry Pi?

Android is not like a traditional Linux distribution that you can download and install on any device you like. The source code is available, but then each manufacturer will create a custom build for their device (ex: Samsung will install it on their phones).

The Raspberry Pi Foundation doesn’t support or promote Android in any way (they have enough jobs with Raspberry Pi OS), so there is no “official” way to get Android for your Raspberry Pi by just downloading an image and flashing it as usual.

But don’t worry, solutions exist or I wouldn’t write this article.

Emteria, LineageOS, and Konstakang

I think my first try at installing Android on a Raspberry Pi was with Emteria. It’s a company that is specialized in creating customized Android releases for many devices. They support most Raspberry Pi models, but also other devices with Intel and Rockchip processors (list here).

The issue is that they are a company, with paid options (which are very expensive), and even if they have a free plan for the community, it’s pretty limited. I didn’t try recently, but at the time, you had automatic and regular reboots, for example (to encourage you to get a license).

Then, LineageOS came around and created a free alternative. You can download Android builds for many devices on their website (list here). But unlike Emteria, they do not support Raspberry Pi, it’s basically only for smartphones.

Android (Google) ⇒ LineageOS ⇒ Konsta builds

That’s where Konsta, the developer I talked about in the introduction, picked it up. He created a custom build of LineageOS for the Raspberry Pi. He has been very active lately and managed to release new updates as soon as possible.

What’s the Difference Between Android and Android TV?

Before moving on to the steps, there’s something I need to clarify.

I was writing about Android up until now, but there’s a difference between Android and Android TV. We have a separate guide for Installing Android (tutorial here), which has similar steps, but the result is entirely different.

The goal of this tutorial is to install Android TV (with the Play store) on a Raspberry Pi.
Android TV is a version of Android customized to be used on large screens and TVs.

Basically, the interface will be easier to use, with larger icons that you can reach with a remote. To give you an idea, it’s NOT like the system on your phone, but more like the interface of Netflix or Prime Video.

Prerequisites to Install Android TV on Raspberry Pi

Let’s take a look at what you need before you start installing Android TV.

Note: If you want to see all these steps in action, I have a video lesson available for the community members. You can join here and watch it directly if you are interested (with 20+ other lessons for Raspberry Pi and many other benefits).

Recommend Hardware to Install Android TV on Raspberry Pi

In terms of hardware, a typical installation should be enough, but here is a list of what you need:

• A Raspberry Pi 4 or a Pi 5: You’ll only find a custom build of Android TV for the latest models. I recommend at least 4 GB of RAM.
  You can check this article to get tips on how to find a Raspberry Pi at a decent price.
• A fast SD card: The size doesn’t matter that much if you don’t plan to keep your own movies on it, but try to find a fast one. The link goes to my favorite, and you can find my SD card benchmarks here to compare them to other models.
  It’s possible to use USB boot, but there are additional steps, and I don’t think it’s really useful. An SD card should be fine.
• A USB drive: I’ve linked to the one I use, but it doesn’t matter, it’s just for a temporary installation part. Any USB stick is fine, you only need less than 1 GB.
• Mouse, keyboard and monitor: as usual. Even if the goal is to make it work on a TV, it’ll help with the installation. I would recommend doing the installation in your office, and then plugging it into the TV once everything is set up.

I didn’t test, but I think you can use a remote. For example, the Flirc remote control receiver is built for this. Anyway, if you have a wireless keyboard (even a mini, like the one I often use), it should be fine.

Operating System: Download Android TV

Once your hardware is ready, the first step is to download an image of Android TV from the Konstakang website. Open this page, and choose which Pi you have. It looks like:

There are links for Android and Android TV images. We are trying to install Android TV here, so you can ignore all the other links. Pick an old version of Android TV if you can’t find Google Apps for it, but it’s available for the latest version at the time of writing, so I’m installing Android 16.

On the next page, scroll down to find the download links. Get the first one:

OTA means “Over The Air” update. I think it’s to update an existing system, but we’re going to be starting from scratch, so we don’t want this one. Once the image is downloaded on your PC, you can move to the next step.

The images are hosted on sites with ads and weird tricks to get you to buy things, make sure to click on “Free access” or something similar. You don’t have to pay anything to get the file.

Applications: Download Google Apps

I already mentioned this issue earlier, but I lost days trying to install Google Apps on the Android TV system, to get the Google Play Store, etc.

Here’s a summary of the issue:

• Google Apps is not included in the custom build provided by Konsta (for legal reasons, I think it requires a commercial license from Google to distribute it).
• You can install Google Apps manually on a custom build if you find a downloadable file that is compatible with it.
• Google Apps for Android and Android TV are not the same, so you need something made specifically for Android TV.
• For years, OpenGapps was the solution. However, the problem now is that no updates are available anymore after Android 11.
• As a result, new forks have been created. Currently, I recommend MindTheGapps for Android TV and NikGapps for Android, but you might want to check them out depending on when you’re reading this.

Visit this page on the LineageOS site to find download links for MindTheGapps:

• Go to the row that matches the Android version you downloaded earlier.
  Click the link that matches your Pi’s architecture (probably ARM64).
• This will take you to a GitHub page where you can download MindTheGapps. There are two versions available (full or minimal). When I updated this tutorial, I installed the first one below, the full version for ARM64 on Android 16 (LineageOS 23), and it worked right away.
  
• Download the file on your PC.

Now you have two files, the Android TV image and the Google Apps file. I’ll explain how to put these two things together later. For now, let’s start by installing the main Android TV system.

How to Install Android TV on Raspberry Pi

There are two main steps to install Android TV on the Raspberry Pi:

1. Flash the Android TV image to your SD card, as with any OS, and boot it on your Pi.
2. Reboot the system into “recovery mode” to install Google Apps manually, and get access to the Google Play Store and all the applications.

Let’s start with the Android TV installation, which is pretty straightforward, and I’ll then show you how to install Google Apps on it.

Prepare the SD Card

Insert the SD card into your PC, and use your favorite tool to flash the Android TV image to it.

You can use Raspberry Pi Imager (choose the “Custom” option in the OS list), or Balena Etcher, or any other tool you like.

First Boot to Android TV

You can then insert the SD card into your Raspberry Pi, plug your monitor, mouse and keyboard and start it up for the first time.

After a few seconds, you’ll get a welcome wizard, looking like:

It will ask a few questions, where you can change the language and other basic things. In most cases, you can keep the default options, it’ll be fine. It also tries to detect Bluetooth devices for a long time, you can press “F2” to skip this step if you don’t have any.

I guess it’s useful if you have a Bluetooth remote (like this one on Amazon), but it’s not necessary for the moment.

Once the wizard completed, you’ll get access to the Android TV main screen, which is mostly empty for the moment:

You can find the settings in the top-right corner (or under “Apps”) if you need to change anything (set up the Wi-Fi for example), but we’ll quickly move on and install Google Apps, as we can’t do anything else here.

Add Google Apps on Android TV for Raspberry Pi

Installing Google Apps on Android TV can be done in three main steps:

1. Copying the Google Apps file to a USB drive.
2. Rebooting Android TV into recovery mode.
3. Installing Google Apps from the recovery mode and then restarting in normal mode.

Let’s go over how to do these steps in detail.

Copy Google Apps to a USB Drive

We’ll use a USB flash drive to transfer Google Apps to your Raspberry Pi.
The drive needs to be formatted in a compatible format (FAT32, for example).

If you need to format your USB key before moving forward, I find that the easiest way is generally to do it with Raspberry Pi Imager. Here’s how:

• Plug your USB drive into your PC.
• Launch Raspberry Pi Imager.
• In the ‘OS’ section, choose “Erase”.
  
• In the ‘Storage’ section, select your USB drive.
• Click WRITE to format it.
  Warning: all the files on the USB drive will be lost.

Once that’s done, copy the MindTheGapps file you downloaded earlier to the USB drive.
(You don’t need to extract the archive, just copy the .zip file as is.)

Eject the USB drive safely, and plug it into the Raspberry Pi.

Enable Reboot to Recovery Mode

The recovery mode is not accessible by default on Android TV.
You need to enable it in the settings:

• Open the Settings (cog icon in top right).
• Browse to System > Buttons.
• Enable “Advanced restart” or “Advanced reboot” or something like that.

You can use the keyboard arrows to navigate in this menu if needed, it’s often easier. You can also use “F2” to get back to the previous screen (I list all the shortcuts at the end of this article).

Reboot in Recovery Mode

Once enabled, go back to the system settings, and find the menu to reboot the system.
On my version, it was under System > Power & Energy > Restart.

A prompt appears where you can select the “Recovery” option:

Use the arrow keys and press ENTER to confirm (or you can use the mouse).
If everything works, the Raspberry Pi will restart, and you’ll get a new menu that looks like this:

You’re in recovery mode, which we’ll use to install Google Apps manually.

Optional: Mount the USB Drive

If you plug the USB drive before restarting the Raspberry Pi, it should be done automatically, but if you do it after, you can follow these steps:

• Make sure the USB key is plugged to the Raspberry Pi.
• Click on “Mount”.
• Make sure that the “USB” line is checked, or do it if it’s not the case.
  If you plugged it before the reboot, it’s probably already done.
• Then, click on “Select Storage” at the bottom of your screen and select the USB drive:

We need access to the USB drive to install Google Apps, so if you experience any issue at this stage, you won’t be able to continue. Double-check the partition format, unplug/plug the device to another port, or try to reboot once again if it doesn’t work as expected.

Install Google Apps

Once the USB drive is mounted, go back to the main menu (use the arrow icon at the bottom) and click the “Install” button. Click “Select Storage” to switch to your USB drive.

After that, you should see something like this:

You’ll get a list of the files stored on the USB drive. In my case, I only have the MindTheGapps file for Android TV 14. Click on it (with the mouse) to open the installation window.

You’ll need to swipe to start the installation (click on the white arrows, and drag them to the right with your mouse). After a few seconds, the installation is complete, and you can click Reboot > System to get back to the normal startup.

First Boot with Google Apps

This time, when you reboot, you’ll get a new Home screen branded with Google this time.
(If you don’t, make sure the Pi is connected to the internet, and do a normal reboot again.)

You’ll need to sign in to your Google account to get access to the rest.
Go to Apps > Google Play Store and log in with your credentials.

If everything goes well, you’ll finally get back to the home screen, with a lot more icons than previously:

The first time you click on an application, you’ll need to install it, but then it’s very intuitive, so you’ll quickly understand how it works. For example, after installing YouTube, you can now watch your favorite channel on your TV :-).

I did a few tests here, and it was working directly, so it’s pretty good.
I think It works even better than Kodi for apps like YouTube, where you can watch high definition videos without any drop:

Feel free to check the settings once again if needed.
For example, ff you did the installation with an Ethernet cable, maybe it’s a good time to configure the Wi-Fi before plugging the Raspberry Pi to your TV.

Additional Tips to Use Android TV on Raspberry Pi

Well done, you did the most complicated part here. Android TV is installed, and you have access to Google Play to install everything!

Here are a few additional tips that might be useful.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Android is not built to be used with a keyboard, so if you don’t have a fancy remote or a touchscreen, it might not be very comfortable to use. Hopefully, a few keyboard shortcuts are available, so even if you only have a keyboard it should be fine.

Here are the main shortcuts you need to know:

• F1: Home
• F2: Back
• F3: Multi-tasking
• F4: Menu
• F5: Power
• F11: Volume down
• F12: Volume up

Install New Apps

Once Google Play is installed, installing new apps works the same way as on any Android Device.

Open Google Play in the “Apps” menu or from the Home screen.
You’ll get a list of suggestions, looking like:

You can then click on one of the recommended apps (or use the search engine) and install them one by one. On each app, you’ll get some details and an “Install” button:

Nothing complicated here, but it’s probably a good idea to do it while you are in “installation mode” with a keyboard, mouse, etc. Depending on your hardware, it might be more challenging to search applications or type passwords later.

Frequently Asked Questions

Konsta keeps an FAQ section up-to-date on the download page. If you have any specific questions about this Android TV build, I highly recommend starting from there (here’s the link). You can, for example, find how to expand the partition, plug an external power button or use a remote.

For more specific questions, you can find various forums too. But as there are many components that depend on different developer teams, it’s not that easy to find answers.

Anyway, I hope this article was useful. I will try to keep it up-to-date once the new versions are fully supported, and you are welcome to reach out if you have any tips that you think I should add.

Whenever you’re ready, here are other ways I can help you:

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The RaspberryTips Community: Need help or want to discuss your Raspberry Pi projects with others who actually get it? Join the RaspberryTips Community and get access to private forums, exclusive lessons, and direct help.

Master your Raspberry Pi in 30 days: If you are looking for the best tips to become an expert on Raspberry Pi, this book is for you. Learn useful Linux skills and practice multiple projects with step-by-step guides.

Master Python on Raspberry Pi: Create, understand, and improve any Python script for your Raspberry Pi. Learn the essentials step-by-step without losing time understanding useless concepts.

You can also find all my recommendations for tools and hardware on this page.