{"id":8405,"date":"2025-10-13T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-13T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hyperthinking.us\/weblog\/?p=8405"},"modified":"2025-10-13T10:03:16","modified_gmt":"2025-10-13T14:03:16","slug":"further-about-ambient-mode-on-google-tvs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hyperthinking.us\/weblog\/2025\/10\/13\/further-about-ambient-mode-on-google-tvs\/","title":{"rendered":"Further about Ambient Mode on Google TV’s"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I wrote about Google TV Ambient Mode not too long ago<\/a>, and decided to try my Sony Bravia Google TV screensaver mode junk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Firstly, on this tv, there is just screensaver in settings, choose Backdrop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you want more control, use the Home app on your phone, and tweak Ambient mode there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Problem is, Ambient mode on other Google TV dongles or the Home app don’t always have an option for your own Google Photos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My Bravia tv doesn’t even have any options for sources, one must go to the Home app for that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So today I decided to firstly go to my Google Photos and choose the settings for my TV in the actual photos app.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If I do that, then open HOME app and look, sometimes my google photos shows as an option, sometimes it doesn’t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether or not it shows, after looking in my Google Photos settings and then Home app, my own photos will start showing. But sometimes they don’t, no matter what I’ve done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even when I do have my photos showing, that Ambient Mode in Google photos is weird. Says it’s showing something else, sometimes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But then I look in Home app because my tv is now showing other things, and it says it’s showing photos from my chosen folder. Hmph.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So it takes too much ethereal meddling to make it work, or have it failing again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I used to use a nice app on these devices which I could pick albums to show, it worked flawlessly from very many options of services to pull from, all your own plus others if you wanted public stuff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I used it purely with my Google Photos for years with no problem. Until they changed permissions. So no photo app in Google TV store is any good now, pick one picture at a time, with their very flaky app connecting to your photos, ugh …. I have albums I like to show sometimes, change it up again with others whenever I wanted to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I wrote about Google TV Ambient Mode not too long ago, and decided to try my Sony Bravia Google TV screensaver mode junk. Firstly, on this tv, there is just screensaver in settings, choose Backdrop. If you want more control, use the Home app on your phone, and tweak Ambient mode there. Problem is, Ambient […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":8379,"url":"https:\/\/hyperthinking.us\/weblog\/2025\/08\/25\/google-tv-ambient-mode\/","url_meta":{"origin":8405,"position":0},"title":"Google TV Ambient Mode","author":"Maisy","date":"Monday, August 25, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Doesn't work well. If you want it to show a strangers photos or artwork or ai art sure it works, otherwise, it's trash. I used to have a great app for it that worked flawlessly with any of the albums I have in my google photos account, and it stopped\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Computer and Internet"","block_context":{"text":"Computer and Internet","link":"https:\/\/hyperthinking.us\/weblog\/category\/computer-and-internet\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4013,"url":"https:\/\/hyperthinking.us\/weblog\/2019\/08\/11\/chrome-app-android-problems\/","url_meta":{"origin":8405,"position":1},"title":"Chrome app Android Problems","author":"Maisy","date":"Sunday, August 11, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"My Samsung devices: Note8 Phone and S3 Tablet both have Chrome unresponsive issues. Chrome and Google search on my phone both would freeze for many seconds to over a minute before freeing up nearly every time I searched or opened a site ... I have restarted the phone, cleared phone\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/hyperthinking.us\/weblog\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2342,"url":"https:\/\/hyperthinking.us\/weblog\/2015\/12\/12\/sony-bravia-4k-uhd-android-tv\/","url_meta":{"origin":8405,"position":2},"title":"Sony Bravia 4K UHD Android TV","author":"Maisy","date":"Saturday, December 12, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Mid-December is already here! Wow this month has gone fast. Weather has been up and down, very cold, very warm and in-between up and down. The Highlight of the Month is: We got a 4K Sony Bravia TV last week. I love it. It's a 65X850C, plenty of HDMI inputs\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Entertainment"","block_context":{"text":"Entertainment","link":"https:\/\/hyperthinking.us\/weblog\/category\/entertainment\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2367,"url":"https:\/\/hyperthinking.us\/weblog\/2015\/12\/16\/xbr-sony-android-tv-update-brings-rvu-to-2015-tvs\/","url_meta":{"origin":8405,"position":3},"title":"XBR Sony Android TV update brings RVU to 2015 TV’s","author":"Maisy","date":"Wednesday, December 16, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"There was an Android Update to Sony 2015 XBR tv's yesterday (December 15, 2015) that finally brings DirecTV Ready to be true. It's alive! 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The camera is much simpler than Samsungs, I can still get good pictures, they\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Devices"","block_context":{"text":"Devices","link":"https:\/\/hyperthinking.us\/weblog\/category\/devices\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperthinking.us\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/20220527_113717-rotated.jpg?fit=675%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperthinking.us\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/20220527_113717-rotated.jpg?fit=675%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperthinking.us\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/20220527_113717-rotated.jpg?fit=675%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":3091,"url":"https:\/\/hyperthinking.us\/weblog\/2017\/08\/28\/youtube-tv-is-better-than-hulu-live-or-ps-vue\/","url_meta":{"origin":8405,"position":5},"title":"YouTube TV is Better than Hulu Live or PS Vue","author":"Maisy","date":"Monday, August 28, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"I have started my third Live TV streaming service trial this weekend. First it was PS Vue. It was pretty much unused, a large waste of money for a few months earlier this year. Second it was Hulu Live. 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