While you can cast Windows 10 to an Android TV, can you do it the other way round? A scenario where your whole Android TV screen is mirrored on your Windows 10 PC, and you can navigate around and control the UI. Well, we dug around and found a nifty way to control Android TV from a Windows 10 PC. You can open any app on Android TV, search for videos right from your PC, access the Play Store, and do much more. So without further ado, let’s go ahead find out how you can control Android TV from your PC.
Control Android TV From Windows 10 PC (2021)
Before we begin, make sure you have a WiFi router at home, to which both your Windows 10 PC and Android TV are connected. It allows you to wirelessly control the Android TV from anywhere on the home network. Now having cleared that, let’s jump to the guide.
1. First of all, enable Developer Options and then USB debugging on your Android TV. To do so, open Settings -> Device Preferences -> About and scroll down to the “Build” option. Now, click on the”Build” option 7-8 times continuously. It will enable Developer Options on your Android TV.
2. Next, go back to Device Preferences and scroll down. Find “Developer Options” and open it. Here, scroll down and enable the toggle next to USB debugging.
3. Once you have done that, open Settings again and go to Network and Internet -> [Your WiFi network] and click on it. Here, make a note of your IP Address. You will need it later.
4. Now move to your Windows 10 PC and download the scrcpy tool from the link here. It’s an open-source tool that allows you to display and control any Android device over an ADB connection (both wired and wireless). Once downloaded, extract the zip file to a folder. The best part about scrcpy is that it comes with all the ADB files, so you don’t need to set up ADB platform-tools separately.
5. Next, open the folder and type cmd in the address bar of the folder up-top, and hit enter. It will directly open a Command Prompt window in that folder.
6. Now run the ADB command to connect to the Android TV wirelessly. Enteradb connect ipaddressand hit enter. Make sure to replace ipaddress with the actual IP address that you noted above in step #3. As I said above, for this to work, both your Android TV and Windows 10 PC should be connected to a common WiFi network.
7. You will then get an “Allow USB debugging?” prompt on your Android TV. Enable the checkbox for “Always allow” and then click on the “OK” button. As a side note, if you get this dialog box out of the blue, especially when you have not triggered any command, then “Cancel” it immediately. This permission virtually allows anyone connected to the home network to control your TV.
8. If everything goes fine, then Command Prompt will output ‘connected to ipaddress’ response. Finally, run the adb devicescommand to confirm if your computer is indeed connected to your Android TV.
Note: If the TV is not connected, then perform step #6 again, and this time, the TV will surely be connected.
9. Finally, enter scrcpy in Command Prompt and hit enter. Within seconds, your whole Android TV screen will pop up on your Windows 10 PC. That’s amazing, right?
10. Now, you can perform all sorts of Android TV operations right from your Windows 10 PC. Click once to open anything, right-click once to go back (you can also press the Esc key on the keyboard), scroll vertically using the mouse, type in search boxes from the keyboard, and much more. You have all the Android TV controls right on your Windows 10 PC.
Use Android TV From Your PC Through Wi-Fi
That is how you can control and navigate around your Android TV from your Windows 10 PC without moving away from your desk. I love this feature and rely on it whenever I have to open an app or play some music in the background. Once you have set up everything, you need to run the adb connect and scrcpy commands to re-establish the connection. You can control your Android TV from your Windows PC anytime now.
Anyway, that is all from us. If you want to learn more about such nifty features, go through our article on the best Android TV tips and tricks. And if you are facing any issues, then let us know in the comment section below. We will surely try to help you out.
At the risk of stating the obvious, I wanted to point out, that scrcpy works even better (more reliable) when both PC and AndroidTV are connected through Ethernet on the same LAN (as opposed to connecting over WiFi.
Way too bloody difficult and complicated.
I own my PC. I own my TCL android TV (god help me). Either TCL or Google should be distributing a Windows program I can load and use it to take control of every smart TV in my home, without getting my big ass out of my office chair.
when i type in the cmd it said “‘ adb’ is not recognized as an internal or external conmand, operable program or batch file.” what im i supposed to do?
Thank you, it works
Does not work for me:
C:\Users\evertj\Downloads\scrcpy-win64-v1.17\scrcpy-server…1 file pushed, 0 skipped. 9.0 MB/s (34930 bytes in 0.004s)
[server] INFO: Device: Google Chromecast (Android 12)
[server] ERROR: Exception on thread Thread[main,5,main]
java.lang.AssertionError: java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException
at com.genymobile.scrcpy.wrappers.SurfaceControl.setDisplaySurface(SurfaceControl.java:75)
at com.genymobile.scrcpy.ScreenEncoder.setDisplaySurface(ScreenEncoder.java:243)
at com.genymobile.scrcpy.ScreenEncoder.internalStreamScreen(ScreenEncoder.java:91)
at com.genymobile.scrcpy.ScreenEncoder.streamScreen(ScreenEncoder.java:60)
at com.genymobile.scrcpy.Server.scrcpy(Server.java:80)
at com.genymobile.scrcpy.Server.main(Server.java:252)
at com.android.internal.os.RuntimeInit.nativeFinishInit(Native Method)
at com.android.internal.os.RuntimeInit.main(RuntimeInit.java:355)
Caused by: java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Native Method)
at com.genymobile.scrcpy.wrappers.SurfaceControl.setDisplaySurface(SurfaceControl.java:73)
… 7 more
Caused by: java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: displayToken must not be null
at android.view.SurfaceControl$Transaction.setDisplaySurface(SurfaceControl.java:3141)
at android.view.SurfaceControl.setDisplaySurface(SurfaceControl.java:2210)
… 9 more
INFO: Renderer: direct3d
INFO: Initial texture: 1920×1080
WARN: Device disconnected
WARN: Killing the server…
Any idea?
It doesn’t work for me (Chromecast with Google TV, using Andorid TV 12). After use SCRCPY, I receive this error on Windows 10:
[server] ERROR: Exception on thread Thread[main,5,main]WARN: Device disconnected
.
Thank you for the precise article, but! I followed the steps but there was no “allow USB debugging?” on my TV Box.
Any suggestions?
thank you in advance
Thank you very much, it work fine for me.
Hi All, my elderly parents use an Android TV but struggles, so I want to sometimes control it remotely, but from the advice here, I cannot do so as we are not on the same wife, 1200km apart :).
Any advice? Teamviewer seems to not install on Android TV for remote manipulation from PC or phone?
I Have A Realme Smart Tv ,And I Want To Set AV Input As Default , How can i Do that
My TV has android 9 and team viewer does the job completely transfer files and control. Thank you Robert Lopez. After reading your suggestion I realized I was trying to invent warm water. Sometimes the answer is right in front of us.
If port forwarding is used could you use this to connect remotely and carry out maintenance routines for apps clearing cache etc
scrcpy (screen copy) doesn’t stream audio. It only handles video streaming which is a shame. Additionally, for audio streaming, you need sndcpy (sound copy). scrcpy works well over Wifi as well (pro tip – set these options for best streaming quality – “-b 2M -m 720”
This lowers your bitrate and rendering size, else it is choppy playback.
For audio streaming, you need Android 10+. It does not work with Android 9 (e.g. Amazon Firestick TV and its 4K, 4K max variants)
You need to purchase external Android TV box which is Android 10 or Android 11 based and then use scrcpy and sndcpy and then you can watch TV content on a Windows 10 PC or Linux PC over wifi
Thanl You so much!!
what about volume controls is that possible thru this method, also found that some apps don.t work properly when i click on them, like i use background process app to kill apps running in the back ground, somehow it dosn’t allow to click OK when i choose an app to kill…otherwise this seems like a very convenient way of controlling a smart tv..grt work
@Prasenjit Biswas:
To control the AndroidTV volume:
While the scrcpy window is active, press
[ALT] + [UP] or
[ALT] + [DOWN]
Enter “.\scrcpy.exe –help” (without quotes) to see all key combos.
Thanks its working. I have a Android TV Box which is connected with a TV HDMI cable. the solution is working in a windows i can see all the apps and i can use it with my windows 10 and its easy for me. i have a quesion i have installed whatsapp on this android tv box but i cannot share any file from my computer to whatsapp and even i cannot use voice or call. how can i use computer audio for apps or computer camera. i can only control this android box with my computer. i will wait for your earliest response.
Regards
Thank you SO much it really worked
thank you so much it works
Is it possible to turnoff the MI Box using scrcpy
great detailed instructions. ? just got the free Verizon streaming box and have added Kodi as an app. I tried using the above to access Kodi’s directories, but CMD fails every time. Nothing pops up in either the tv/ or Verizon box. Developer is on with USB as above. Use the same idea with Win10 and Pi 3b+
C:\Users\keith\Downloads\scrcpy-win64-v1.17>adb connect 192.168.0.xxx
cannot connect to 192.168.0.xxx:5555: A connection attempt failed because the connected party did not properly respond after a period of time, or established connection failed because connected host has failed to respond. (10060)
What am i missing?
Does it matter that the TV “one being used” is a Roku (TCL)?
Hi, can you remote your TV box from your android phone?
I think you’ve misunderstood the purpose, it’s for controlling your android tv from your windows pc, not for watching android tv on your pc.
NO TV AUDIO ON COMPUTER.
if u want to have an complete conecction use teamviewer it can transfer audio, video, and BTW control it 🙂
Teamviewer or other remote desktop tools that work on Android usually don’t work on Android TV