Arloes: a TRUE modern Android TV client for Emby

2026-10-20T09:07:28Z

I’ve been rebuilding the Emby experience on Android TV from the ground up - using the existing AndroidTV app as the base starting point, but on modern architecture and leaning heavily on design language from some of my favourite Kodi skins (Any of the Arctic Horizon skins over the years).

I wanted something that feels like a current streaming app: artwork first, cinematic, and built for the big screen.

Arloes (Welsh for “pioneering”, pronounced ar-loys) connects to your existing Emby server. Here’s what it does:

Home: a full-bleed spotlight with title logos, cast and one-press play. Optional MDBList ratings add Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic, Trakt, TMDB and Letterboxd scores.
Browse: poster walls for movies and shows, and episode lists that flag what’s up next. Collections get their own spotlight.
Title pages: synopsis, ratings (full suite from mdblist api) and exact formats before you press play, right down to the Dolby Vision profile.
Subtitles: pick a track on the title page, or search Open Subtitles without leaving the show in a neater panel.
Live TV: a clean programme guide, plus a channel picker that slides in over whatever’s playing.
Player: Modernised with all the info in one place, title logo, progress, remaining time and when it ends.
Navigation: a top bar, a collapsed side rail or an expanding side rail, whichever you prefer.
Personalisation: your own accent colour and focus highlight.
Settings: every option explains what it does, in plain language.
Extra sort functions: Sort TV shows by "episodes left to watch" <- This was what started this project after a request i made 4 years ago that is still "We can look into that".
Full app parity: Everything the current app does this app does, same exo player, same external player support, nothing stripped, just improvements across the board.

It’s still in active development (Have server family/friends currently testing as well as on my own shield/fire sticks and google streamers and have had no issues so far). I’d love feedback, especially on anything you’ve always wanted from an Emby TV client. I'm just waiting for google to not be so slow to get it up on the playstore but can directly share the apk here if anyone would like to beta test it. There's no app tracking, no data ahrvesting, nothing funky, just an app built through my passion for this community. I'm a web dev, graphic designer and marketing manager by trade so I understand a thing or two about design language, readability and functionality.

Screenshots below are from my NVIDIA Shield. (Bonus affinity image to show the effort i put into the image presentation).