Android TV, Google TV, Shield and Boxes, Set Up Around the Guide

Installation, then the guide

1. Decide between TiViMate and Smarters

   On a television with the Play Store, the default answer is TiViMate. The guide is the reason it exists: a grid of channels against the hours of the evening, browsed while the current channel keeps playing. Browsing that grid costs nothing. The paid upgrade, TiViMate Premium, is sold through the TiViMate Companion app on a phone, at about $9.99 a year or a single payment in the mid-$30s for a lifetime license, and it brings recording, multi-view and multiple playlists after a seven-day trial. Choose IPTV Smarters Pro instead if you want the identical app on every screen in the house, including Apple, Samsung and LG, where TiViMate has no version at all. Either way, use the Xtream Codes login. With it, neither player needs an M3U link or a separate guide address; the listings arrive with the sign-in.

   Request a Zyminex login

2. Confirm the Google account before searching

   Open the Play Store first and check that a Google account is signed in. The store lets you search and read listings without one, then stops you at the install button, which is an irritating way to lose five minutes on a box you have just unpacked. On most Android TV sets the store sits on the home screen; on Google TV you reach it through Apps. The Shield, the Chromecast and the televisions all work the same way here: one store, one account, one set of steps.

3. Install the player from the store

   In the store, type TiViMate IPTV Player, or IPTV Smarters Pro if that is your choice, and install it like any other app. There is no sideloading and no unknown-sources switch on a device with the full store, which is the main practical advantage Android TV has over a Firestick. If the search comes back empty, or offers only listings that look made for phones, the box is running the phone build of Android; the problems section below covers that case.

4. Add the Xtream login

   In TiViMate, press Add playlist and choose Xtream Codes login. Smarters opens on its terms; once they are accepted, its Xtream option is called Login with Xtream Codes API. Each wants the three values from your activation message: the server URL, written with http:// in front and the port after the final colon, then the username and the password, both case sensitive. Press Next in TiViMate or Add User in Smarters. A remote with number keys makes the port quick to enter; with the small Google TV remote you will be using the on-screen keyboard, so check each character before confirming.

5. Name the playlist and choose the groups

   TiViMate asks for a playlist name, then which groups to include. The name matters only if you later add a second playlist, which is a Premium feature, so something plain like Zyminex will do. On groups, be decisive but not final: untick the countries and categories you know you will never open, since the choice can be changed later. Every group left out is a block of rows the guide does not have to draw, and on a box with modest memory that is the difference between a grid that glides and one that stutters. The first download of channels and listings takes a minute or two; later refreshes are quicker.

6. Set the guide to refresh itself

   Guide data comes with your login in XMLTV, the standard listings format, and it only reaches so many days ahead, so the player has to fetch it again regularly. In TiViMate, open Settings, then TV guide, and set the refresh interval to every 12 hours. In Smarters, go to Settings, then EPG, and switch on Enable EPG on live TV so the program title shows over the picture. If a box sits in deep standby overnight and misses a refresh, an update started from the same TV guide settings brings the listings back within a minute or so.

7. Make the list yours

   Now reduce 25,000+ channels to the 30 or 40 you actually watch. In TiViMate, a long press on a channel brings up the option to add it to favorites. Under Settings, then Playlists, you can switch off whole groups, keep the ones you open and set the language. Smarters works with favorites too. Think in evenings rather than categories: the news at 6, the channels you move between after dinner, the sports networks for the weekend, and a couple of film channels for the nights when everything else is a repeat.

8. Check the guide against tonight

   Open the guide at the current hour. Pick a channel whose schedule you know and see whether the program in the 8 pm slot really starts at 8; if everything sits an hour early or late, fix the time zone before going any further. Scroll along to midnight to confirm the listings carry on rather than stopping at the next hour. Then find a channel showing the archive or clock icon, go back to something that finished earlier in the evening, and play it from its start. If a favorite plays, the times match and the archive opens, the box is done. If the free TiViMate will not open the archive, try again during the Premium trial before deciding the channel has none.

Problems we see on this one

Play Store search finds no player

Some inexpensive boxes carry the phone edition of Android, and the store on that edition leaves out apps made for televisions. Your account is fine. Install Downloader and sideload the player's APK exactly as the Firestick guide describes, including the unknown-apps permission. Before blaming the box, make sure you are searching the Play Store itself and not a manufacturer's own app shop, which some boxes place on the home screen where the store would normally be.

The guide runs dry after a day

Tonight and tomorrow are filled in, then the grid turns to No information further along. The player is not fetching new data, usually because the refresh interval was never set or the box sleeps straight through it. Set the TiViMate guide refresh to every 12 hours, run an update now from the same settings page, and if the box spends days at a time in deep standby, open the player once in the evening so it can catch up.

A new box shows every program an hour or more out

Generic boxes sometimes arrive set to a time zone that is not yours, and the guide faithfully converts every listing into it. Open the date and time page in the box's own settings, turn on the automatic time zone if it offers one or choose your region by hand, then restart the player. If the hour is still wrong after that, look for a guide time offset in the player and move it by one step. Do not use the offset to hide a wrong clock, because catch-up will then start at the wrong point.

The grid stutters on a budget box

Memory is the usual limit. A box with less than 2 GB of RAM can play one channel perfectly and still labor to draw a guide for 25,000+ channels. Switch off every group you do not open, restart the box so the player starts clean, and close other apps left running in the background. If it is still slow, the remaining fix is hardware: the Shield and the Chromecast with Google TV 4K are the two this guide would point you to.

No channel shows the catch-up icon

If not a single channel carries the archive or clock icon, the account was probably added as an M3U playlist rather than through the Xtream login, and catch-up is far more dependable through Xtream. Remove the playlist and add it again with Xtream Codes login. If only some channels lack the icon, that is normal: an archive is kept for some channels and not for others, and the icon is how the player tells you which.

Players that suit this device

By the Zyminex Team · Revised September 5, 2026