Providing Details for App Launcher Requests

For Fire TV, Chromecast, NVIDIA Shield, Xiaomi Mi, and other Android based devices

One of the most helpful ways to fast track a new app shortcut request is to provide some additional technical details by running this one ADB command:

adb shell dumpsys window windows | grep -E 'mCurrentFocus|mFocusedApp|mInputMethodTarget|mSurface'

A video tutorial can be found at https://youtu.be/XMBs51zkD7k, or you can follow the instructions listed below.

You can do this through the Home Assistant UI by following these steps:

1. Open the app on your device FIRST ⚠️ IMPORTANT ⚠️
2. In Home Assistant, open Developer tools
3. Click the ACTIONS tab
4. In the Action menu, select Android Debug Bridge: ADB command
5. Select your device by clicking on the + Choose Entity button in the Targets section
6. Enter or copy/paste adb shell dumpsys window windows | grep -E 'mCurrentFocus|mFocusedApp|mInputMethodTarget|mSurface' into the command field
7. Click the PERFORM ACTION button

8. Click over to the Developer tools STATES tab
9. Locate the entity that you had targeted in step 5 by scrolling or typing its name into the filter entities field
10. The information that appears in the "adb_response:" section is the required information that needs to be submitted with your request. Please copy and paste this into your app request issue submission

For example, when the Netflix app is open, following these steps will provide this useful output (or similar)

adb_response: mSurface=Surface(name=com.netflix.ninja/com.netflix.ninja.MainActivity)/@0xaf2310 mSurface=Surface(name=com.android.systemui.ImageWallpaper)/@0xc578b22 mInputMethodTarget in display# 0 Window{7707ec6 u0 com.netflix.ninja/com.netflix.ninja.MainActivity}

For Apple TV Devices

For an Apple TV device app button request, this is the preferred method:

1. Click on Developer Tools
2. Open the STATES tab
3. (optional) Type the name of your Apple TV Entity to help you sort through the list
4. Under Filter attributes, copy and paste the contents of the source_list into your app request issue submission.

Given the example above, I would copy and paste this text into the request form:

source_list: Allente, AMC+, App Store, Arcade, ARD Mediathek, ARTE, bgtime.tv, Channels, CNN, Computers, Crunchyroll, Curiosity Stream, Daily Wire, DAZN, DIRECTV, discovery+, Disney+, DROPOUT, DRTV, DS video, Emby, ESPN, F1 TV, FaceTime, Fitness, Fox News, FOX Sports, Freevee, Fubo, gcn, HDHomeRun, Hulu, Infuse, IPTVX, IPVanish, iQIYI, iVysílání, Jellyfin, JustWatchTV, Magenta TV, Max, Mediaset Infinity, MLB, Moonlight, Movies, Music, NBC News, NBC Sports, Nebula, Netflix, Newsmax TV, NFL, NLZIET, NPO, OQEE by Free, Pandora, Paramount+, PBS, Peacock, Philo, Photos, Plex, Pluto TV, Podcasts, Prime Video, Proximus Pickx, Qmusic-BE, RaiPlay, Rumble, Salt TV, Search, Settings, ShopHQ, Showtime, Showtime Anytime, SiriusXM Radio for TV, Sky News, Sling TV, SmartersPro, Snappier IPTV, Speedtest, Spotify, Startup Show, STARZ, Steam Link, Stream, SVT Play, Syncnext, Tailscale, TBS, Televize Seznam, Tennis Channel, TestFlight, TIDAL, TNT, Tubi, TV, TV Shows, TV4 Play, TVNZ+, Twitch, VBTV, Viaplay, Videoland, VLC, Voyo.cz, VRT MAX, XCIPTV, YouTube, YouTube Kids, YouTube TV, ZDFmediathek

For Roku Devices

When submitting a request to add an app button for a Roku device, the following procedure is required.

IMPORTANT: Open the app on your Roku device FIRST

1. Click on Developer Tools
2. Open the STATES tab
3. (optional) Type the name of your Roku media player entity to help you sort through the list
4. Under the Attributes column, copy and paste the contents of app_id, app_name, and source into your app request submission.

Given the example above, I would copy and paste this text into the request form:

app_id: 12
app_name: Netflix
source: Netflix