waydroid-androidtv-builds: Android TV images for Waydroid with Widevine

What the project publishes

This repository is a set of Waydroid images of Android TV. The features list is short and concrete: full-featured Android TV 13 builds based on LineageOS 20.0, with or without GApps preinstalled, VA-API video acceleration support for Intel and AMD GPUs, a built-in libhoudini ARM translation layer, built-in Widevine L3 which the documentation notes is only for x86-64 at this moment, and builds made with Mesa 25.3.

So the artefact is an image, in the Waydroid sense of the word, that you install into a Waydroid session rather than a full operating system image you flash. That distinction is the whole point of the project.

The releases are named by date and Android TV version. The most recent is 20260403, described as Android TV 16 for x86-64, released on 2026-04-04. Before it came 20260106 for Android TV 13 in January 2026, and 20250913 for Android TV 13 in September 2025.

The repository is not archived, but the last push was on 2026-04-04, which is more than six months before today, so this is a project that moves in bursts rather than on a schedule, and the release list is the honest measure of how fresh the images are.

The homepage is a Telegram channel at t.me/WayDroidATV, and the documentation also points to a demonstration video on YouTube.

Why run Android TV on Linux rather than flashing a ROM

The overview section explains the reasoning, and it is a reasonable one.

There are already some Android TV x86 ROMs, with LineageOS TV x86 named as an example, that let users turn their PC into an Android TV box. The problem the project identifies is that the CPU performance of most modern x86 systems is somehow overkill for Android TV usage. A modern desktop processor is far more capable than a TV box chipset, and a flashing ROM leaves all of that capacity idle.

This project allows users to run Android TV on top of an existing Linux OS, with their Linux things running simultaneously. The documentation gives the examples that matter: Samba for a NAS, and even Steam for gaming. The stated benefit is that the system resources are fully utilized.

That is the trade in one sentence. A flashed ROM gives you a clean Android TV environment and nothing else. A Waydroid image gives you an Android TV container next to a working desktop, so the display can show a TV app while the machine is also serving files, and the CPU is doing work rather than idling in a menu.

The audience is a Linux user with a spare screen or a secondary machine who wants Android TV apps on it without giving up the host system, and who is comfortable with Waydroid's model of running Android in a container rather than on bare metal.

VA-API, libhoudini and what the Widevine caveat means

The three technical features are the reason this is a separate project rather than a stock image, and each one has a limit worth stating.

VA-API video acceleration support for Intel and AMD GPUs means hardware video decoding happens through the VA-API interface, which is what Mesa exposes on those vendors. That is what keeps playback smooth, and the builds are made with Mesa 25.3, so the user space graphics stack is a recent one. This is also the clearest technical difference from a plain Waydroid image, which is a general purpose Android container rather than one tuned for TV playback on a PC.

The built-in libhoudini ARM translation layer handles the other direction. Many Android TV apps ship as ARM binaries, and on an x86-64 host an x86-only image simply cannot run them. libhoudini is the translation layer that lets an ARM library run on x86, so the image can install apps that a pure x86 build would reject. The cost of translation is performance, and the documentation does not claim otherwise.

Widevine L3 is the third feature, and it carries an explicit restriction: it is only for x86-64 at this moment. That is the licence level that supports streaming in HD, and it is what makes the image usable for commercial streaming apps rather than only sideloaded ones. The parenthetical is doing real work in that bullet, since it means an aarch64 host is not covered by that feature as built.

The screenshots in the repository show the homescreen, the settings UI, a Google account login prompt and a Widevine DRM screen, which together cover the setup path and the DRM case.

GApps, and where the documentation actually points you

The GApps question is answered by the build variant rather than by a setting, which is the detail to get right.

The builds come with or without GApps preinstalled, so if you want the Play Store you take the GApps image and if you do not, you take the other one. That choice happens at install time, and it matters for a build you host yourself, because the GApps variant is a different image rather than a package you add later.

The installation instructions are unusually short. The documentation says to check the Releases page for more information, and that page is in the supechicken/waydroid-androidtv-build repository, a different repository from the one this documentation sits in. Worth noting before you start, because the release artefacts and the documentation are not in the same place, and the singular build repository name in the links does not match the repository holding this readme.

For bugs, the documentation asks you to open a new issue in that same supechicken repository, and asks you to check existing issues before submitting one.

For building the images yourself, the documentation points to BUILDING.md in this repository for detailed instructions, with the stated motivation being to get the latest security patches. The tree confirms that BUILDING.md is present here, along with a screenshots/ directory, a LICENSE file and a .github/ directory.

Where these images are the wrong choice

The first limit is that this is not a supported product. There is no device support, no update guarantee for your hardware, and no vendor behind it. The releases are dated images, and when a new Android TV version lands, you replace the image and reconfigure, which is different from receiving an over the air update. For a television that sits in a corner and is expected to work for years, that is a real operational cost.

The second is the documentation gap. The installation procedure is a link to a releases page in another repository, and there is no page here describing the Waydroid setup steps, the session configuration or the troubleshooting. If you already run Waydroid on a desktop, you will know how to point a session at a custom image. If you do not, the project assumes you already do.

The third is the Widevine and ARM translation combination. Widevine L3 is x86-64 only as built, and libhoudini translation costs performance, so an app that is both ARM native and DRM protected is the worst case in terms of smoothness. There is also the licensing dimension of shipping Widevine in a redistributed image, which is a question the documentation does not address and which is worth raising with whoever distributes these builds.

Compare that with running a purpose built Android TV box, which is cheap, has working Widevine by default, runs ARM apps natively, and updates itself. The difference in approach is that these images repurpose a general purpose x86-64 machine you already own, and the cost of that choice is the maintenance burden, the translation overhead and the licensing question.

Licence, source provenance and the rebuild path

The project is released under the GPL-3.0 licence, with the LICENSE file at the repository root. The readme also carries a banner in support of Ukraine alongside the project description, and the terms in the LICENSE file are what apply to the modified build scripts and packaging held in this repository. Read the file yourself for the exact terms.

The provenance of the images is worth being precise about, because it explains the whole structure of the project. The documentation says that all the modified sources used for building the ATV images can be found in the WayDroid-ATV organisation, and that this repository holds the release artefacts and the build instructions. The base is LineageOS 20.0 for the Android TV 13 builds, with the newer release moving to Android TV 16.

So there are three pieces: the upstream LineageOS tree, the WayDroid-ATV modifications, and the build pipeline documented in BUILDING.md. Rebuilding yourself is the documented path for getting the latest security patches rather than waiting for the next tagged image.

The repository is not archived, and the last push was on 2026-04-04, the same day as the 20260403 release for Android TV 16. The most recent other release was 20260106 for Android TV 13, and before that 20250913 for Android TV 13, so the cadence is roughly quarterly with a version bump on the most recent one.

Before you rebuild, read BUILDING.md rather than assuming, since the pipeline is where the Mesa version, the libhoudini integration and the GApps variants are decided, and those are the parts that determine whether your image behaves the way the feature list claims.

Editorial conclusion

These images fit a Linux user who wants a second, self hosted screen for Android TV apps on a machine that already does other work, and who needs Widevine or ARM app support that a plain Waydroid image does not give them. They do not fit someone who wants a supported TV box, since the build cadence follows the images rather than a device, and the documentation routes installation to a releases page rather than a documented procedure. Before you commit, check whether the image version on the releases page still matches the Android TV build you want, since the newest tagged build here is 20260403 for Android TV 16, and read BUILDING.md if you intend to rebuild, because the last push to this repository was on 2026-04-04 and the tree changes slowly.

Frequently asked questions

Official sources

1. License: GPL-3.0
2. Project website
3. README
4. Releases
5. WayDroid-ATV/waydroid-androidtv-builds on GitHub