Bonito

A home screen for the whole room

Bonito swaps your TV's home screen for one with arcade and party games, your phone as the remote, and a Spotify queue your friends can add to. It's free, open source, and takes your TV from switched on to game night in one button press.

Try the remote
BONITO

Scan with your phone to drive this TV from it

Use this phone as the remote

That's the real launcher, running right here. Click the screen and use ← ↑ → ↓ Enter and Esc, press the remote, or scan the code: your phone becomes the remote and a game controller. The streaming apps only open on a real TV.

Five ways it can look

Five different home screens, not five colour schemes. Pick one to see it on the TV above. At home you switch in Settings, or from your phone.

Watch it play

Nobody's touching anything here. These are the real games, played by pretend friends on pretend phones. Friends scan the code on the TV and their phone becomes their controller, with nothing to install. Everyone shares the TV, and each phone shows only what its player needs.

    Music

    Your Spotify playlists through the TV speakers. In the jam, friends add songs from their phones. Needs Spotify Premium.

    Remote

    Any phone is a remote with a keyboard and volume. Scan once and it remembers. High scores are shared, so you can beat your friends.

    Watch

    Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, Prime Video, Max, Apple TV and more. On Samsung, YouTube without the ads and your HDMI inputs too.

    Casino

    Blackjack and roulette with pretend chips. Run out and the house tops you up.

    Put it on your TV

    If you use Claude Code, it can do the whole install for you. Otherwise the steps are below.

    1Pick a look. It's where your TV starts, and you can change it any time in Settings.

    2Which TV do you have?

    Everything works: it becomes your home screen, switches HDMI inputs, opens Netflix and your other apps, and plays YouTube without ads. Samsung makes you sign apps you install yourself, so the first install takes a while: about 40 minutes by hand, less with Claude Code.

    With Claude Code

    Paste this into Claude Code on a Mac or PC that's on the same Wi-Fi as the TV. It sets up the tools, finds your TV and installs, and tells you which buttons to press on the TV remote.

    Install Bonito on my Samsung TV with the Bonito design. Clone https://github.com/jbw9/bonito-tv and follow SETUP.md in it from start to finish. Do every step you can yourself, and tell me exactly what to press on the TV when you need me.

    No Claude Code yet? Install it from claude.com/claude-code, open Terminal, type claude and paste.

    By hand

    1. Turn on Developer Mode. On the TV, open Apps and press 1 2 3 4 5 on the remote. Switch Developer Mode on, type your computer's IP address, and restart the TV.
    2. Install Tizen Studio on your computer and create a Samsung certificate in its Certificate Manager. You'll need a free Samsung account.
    3. Download this project and run ./deploy.sh <your TV's IP> bonito. It installs and opens Bonito.

    The full walkthrough has every click and fixes for the usual snags. Just want to try it first? Open your TV's Internet app and go to jbw9.github.io/bonito-tv/tv.

    Then make it yours from your phone. On the TV, open Settings › Phone setup and scan the code. Your phone sets your name, city, design and Spotify login. There are no files to edit.

    Ideas board

    What should your TV do next? Post an idea, or vote for the ones you'd use. The most wanted get built first.

    Post an idea

    Rather build it yourself?

    Open a pull request. Each game is one file in app/js/ and each design is one layout in app/js/home.js, so most ideas are a small change.

    Open a pull request
    • Loading ideas…

    Questions

    Could my phone end up controlling someone else's TV?

    No. Each TV makes up its own random room code the first time it starts, and a phone only joins the room in the QR code it scanned. The code is the only way to find a TV, and the songs and requests in a room can only be seen by phones that know it.

    What do I need for the music?

    Spotify Premium. Spotify only lets home-made apps like this play music if you register your own free developer app. It takes about two minutes, and the phone setup page walks you through it. Your login is stored on your TV, nowhere else.

    How do I undo it?

    Uninstall it like any other app. On Samsung, highlight it in Apps and choose Delete, and turn Developer Mode off if you like. On Google TV, Android TV and Fire TV, uninstall it from Settings › Apps. Nothing else on the TV is changed.

    What does it store, and where?

    High scores with the name you type, and the songs friends request, in a shared database. Requests are deleted after a day. Your settings and Spotify login stay on the TV.

    Does it cost anything?

    No. It's free and open source under the MIT license. No ads, no account.

    Can I change it?

    Please do. Fork it on GitHub, and if it's something others would like, send a pull request. The designs live in app/js/home.js, each game is one file in app/js/, and you can add your own apps to the home screen in app/config.local.js.