Custom Linux-powered Smart TV breaks free from ads and tracking, enables ultimate customizability — EarlGreyTV straps a laptop to the back to unlock unlimited control

Software engineer Carl Riis has announced his first hardware project, dubbed EarlGreyTV . It is a Smart TV project that differentiates itself from the usual ‘idiot box’ dominating your living room by leveraging the wonders of Linux and Firefox, plus an old laptop. Though Riis humbly admits that EarlGreyTV doesn’t compete with today’s state-of-the-art domestic solutions in every way, it has a few worthwhile advantages — customizability, control, and privacy.

Riis was inspired to create EarlGreyTV because he “didn’t really like existing Smart TV interfaces.” Perhaps more importantly, he added, “The short version of why I don’t like them is tracking, ads, and lack of control.” The concept behind EarlGreyTV is easy to understand, but the project wasn’t without its stumbling blocks. It took a modicum of finessing on both the hardware and software sides of the equation to get the project to a point where it works well for non-techy people.

An essential part of the work behind this project was on software. The old spare laptop used to power this Smart TV experience had Debian Linux with Sway as a desktop environment installed. Sway was set to auto-launch Firefox full screen and open up a custom EarlGreyTV HTML file, which provided easily editable and navigable shortcuts to all the content Riis wanted. He also worked on essential related Smart-TV-esque UI elements like volume change notifications, casting, and more.

Users also take several Smart TV behaviors for granted, all needing work. Probably one of the most significant differences a ‘normal’ Start TV user will feel is in the remote. To stay away from the default yet clunky mouse and keyboard solution, Riis chose an ‘air mouse’ (a WeChip W3), which has a gyroscopic pointer and a few shortcut buttons on the front – plus a QWERTY keyboard on its back. Home, back, and volume controls are very important to TV users and present on the WeChip W3. Riis never mentions if his EarlGreyTV uses the voice remote features, though.

In addition to the TV and remote, a CEC adaptor is useful for the seamless operation of the EarlGreyTV. In brief, this adaptor sends commands to the TV via the HDMI connection. The key benefit of adding this to the setup is that it means this TV can be controlled with one remote. Thus, the original Samsung TV remote isn’t needed to turn the TV on and off.

Many readers will have a spare, disused, possibly somehow damaged old laptop like Riis uses as the brains behind the EarlGreyTV. In the images, you can see an old, partly disassembled Lenovo laptop stuck to the rear of the Samsung TV. This device’s keyboard broke after Riis spilled Earl Grey tea on it a couple of years ago – hence the name of this project. Nevertheless, it is OK for this project to use the ‘air mouse’ as an input device. One drawback of this damaged laptop model is that it can only be powered up by shorting two pins on the mainboard.

Riis is keen to dispel concerns that a Linux-based SmartTV is a particularly complicated device or a challenging project. If you want to make your own EarlGreyTV or base another project upon this one, you can find some guidance on the blog post and even grab some supporting code from GitHub.