I use the Helium browser to watch YouTube without ads. It uses uBlock Origin to block them. So I wondered if we could reuse its ad-blocking scripts in a custom TV app that loads YouTube without the ads. I’d never built a TV app before. I had tried SmartTube, but it wasn't a one-to-one replacement. Some things worked differently, and it had extra features I didn't need.
So I tried an experiment. Could Claude with Opus 5.5 help me build a small app for my own TV?
I started on the Claude website, where it built an Android app called CleanTube and gave me an APK to download. Then I moved to Opus 5.5 in T3 Code on my Mac which helped me install it on the TV and get it working.
Claude built the first APK in its cloud workspace
My first question was about existing ways to remove YouTube ads on Google TV. After I explained what I wanted, it suggested SmartTube and then TizenTube Cobalt.
I asked whether we could build our own YouTube wrapper using a similar ad-blocking approach.
Claude proposed an Android app that opens youtube.com/tv in a WebView. A WebView is a browser inside an app. YouTube supplies the TV interface, and our app inserts a small JavaScript file before YouTube's own code runs. That script removes ad entries from the data the player receives.
There is no uBlock extension installed inside CleanTube. The script uses the same kind of JSON-pruning technique, with references to uBlock Origin, TizenTube and VacuumTube.
I wasn't sure about setting up Android Studio. Claude went ahead and built the app in its cloud workspace using Android command-line tools. It tested the ad-removal script against sample data in a browser and gave me both CleanTube.apk and a ZIP of the source code.
I was glad I didn’t have to install something as heavy as Android Studio just to build one app. I hadn’t even realized Claude could build it for me in its cloud workspace.
Connecting the agent to my TV
Using Opus 5.5 with High reasoning in T3 Code on my Mac, I shared the APK and source and asked it to find my TV over Wi-Fi.
Claude found my Hisense TV. I enabled USB debugging and approved the connection, letting it use ADB to control the TV over Wi-Fi. It installed and opened CleanTube, and I could navigate YouTube's TV interface with my remote.
The feedback loop made the difference
When I tried playing a video, it showed “This video format is not supported.” I asked Opus 5.5 to investigate and fix it if possible without Android Studio.
With access to the TV, Opus inspected the error and traced it to a missing playback permission. It changed the code, rebuilt and installed the app, then verified that the Despacito video played at 1080p. It could check whether its fix worked without asking me to test each attempt.
The agent could work through a complete loop:
- Inspect the screen and playback data.
- Find a possible cause and change the code.
- Build and install the updated app.
- Play the video again and check the result.
I still decided what I wanted and approved access to the TV. But I didn't have to take a photo, send it to the agent, install its next attempt and repeat that process for every change. It could gather much of that feedback itself.
Testing beyond the first working video
Once playback worked, I asked Opus to test the app and make sure at least 90% of YouTube's features worked as expected. Any problems it found should be fixed and tested again.
It found that a 4K at 60fps video only offered 720p at 30fps and restored the missing higher-quality options. Playback at 1440p at 60fps and 4K at 60fps stuttered, so it adjusted automatic quality selection to prefer smoother 1080p at 60fps while keeping 4K available at lower frame rates. It also checked captions and the settings menu. Later, we added refresh-rate matching to improve motion where the TV supported it.
One moment stood out. Opus loaded a video to test captions, but nobody was speaking during the intro. It skipped ahead two minutes and checked that captions appeared on screen. Watching it skip ahead and check the captions without me touching the remote felt unreal.
I tried the app myself afterward. Videos played smoothly, and I was happy with it so far.
Letting Opus handle the TV cleanup
With the video playing, I asked what unused apps were on the TV. I also told Opus not to interrupt playback.
It listed the installed apps, and I chose which ones to remove. We uninstalled Voot, Sun NXT, Downloader and Hotstar while CleanTube stayed open.
I asked about memory and storage too. It was mostly a cleanup of things I no longer used.
What I took away from this experiment
Give your ideas a shot, and give the agent the tools to test them. You shouldn’t have to be the bottleneck.
CleanTube is a personal experiment, and the source and APK are public on GitHub. The APK is small. The README has installation instructions and the current limitations if you want to try it on your own TV.