Monet Launcher - Android TV

Review by eFreeware

Monet Launcher is a home screen replacement for Android TV and Google TV from the developer Klevico. It takes the stock launcher's place and rebuilds it around Material Design 3, animated weather wallpapers and layout controls you operate with a remote. The pitch is a TV home screen that looks like something you chose rather than something that arrived preloaded.

That is the main reason to consider it. Most TV interfaces are fixed arrangements of rows and promotions, and a launcher is the one piece of software that can change that without touching the apps underneath. Monet is free, carries no advertising, and asks for no account, which removes most of the usual friction before you decide whether the look is for you.

The app has been out long enough to have a track record: over 50,000 installs and a 4.6 average across 2,741 ratings. I have not used it, so this review works from what the developer describes, and I judge it on the feature set rather than on how it feels on a specific television.

A launcher for shared living rooms and older hardware

The clearest fit is a household where more than one person uses the same television. Monet allows up to four people to keep separate setups, so a parent's tidy arrangement of streaming and music apps does not have to be the one a teenager scrolls through. A PIN lock can be applied to individual apps, which is a straightforward way to keep certain things out of reach without hiding the whole device.

It also suits people running an older streaming box or stick. The developer describes the launcher as smooth even on older hardware, and the range of supported devices is broad: Android TV 8.0 and later, covering NVIDIA Shield TV, Chromecast with Google TV, Google TV Streamer, Xiaomi Mi Box, onn 4K and sets from Sony, TCL, Hisense and Philips. If your television's built-in interface has become slow or crowded, a launcher is a lighter thing to try than a new device.

The third group I would expect to get value here is anyone who treats the TV screen as a display as much as a menu. Between the weather wallpaper, ambient scenes and screensaver, Monet is designed to be looked at when nothing is playing, which is a different goal from a launcher that simply gets you to an app quickly.

Weather that runs behind the interface

An animated weather live wallpaper is the headline feature. A sky sits behind the home screen and follows your local conditions and the time of day, so the backdrop shifts with sunrise, daylight, sunset and night. An auto mode mirrors real local weather in real time, and the accent colors can follow the current conditions as well.

If live weather is not what you want, there are 26 scenes to choose from, including rain, thunderstorms, snowfall, northern lights, fireflies, deep space, an aquarium and a lava lamp. You can pick from 27 moods, including Fireside Evening, Cherry Blossom and Starry Sky. Any of them can double as a screensaver, which makes the same library useful in two places.

Wallpapers are not limited to what ships with the app. You can use your own photos and videos, pull rotating images from a subreddit of your choice, or use Aerial Views flyover footage. Blur, brightness and rotation controls let you tone any of these down so they do not fight with the interface on top.

Material You theming with real depth

Monet applies Material Design 3 to the television screen, and dynamic color is the mechanism: an accent palette is drawn from the current wallpaper and the interface recolors itself to match. Every color, card and accent adapts, which is why the wallpaper choices matter beyond decoration. Change the backdrop and the whole launcher shifts with it.

For finer control there are 22 accent palettes and a custom color picker with 96 shades, plus light and dark modes, custom text colors and 11 built-in background styles. That is more color control than most people will use, but it means the launcher can be matched to a room or a preference rather than accepted as-is.

Icons and tiles get similar treatment. Icon pack support is included, along with seven icon shapes and four tile styles, among them themed and transparent options. Any single app can be overridden with a custom image, color or name, and tile size is adjustable. The result is a home screen where individual apps can be made to look consistent even when they are not.

Layout, widgets and remote-first navigation

The home screen takes up to eight custom rows, which you can fill by hand or let the launcher populate by category such as games, streaming or music. Rows can be reordered, shown or hidden, and there is a nested folder system for grouping apps. Hidden apps and an adjustable grid size round out the arrangement tools, and a dock mode pins favorites to the bottom of the screen.

Widgets cover the information people tend to want on a TV: weather, clock and date, Now Playing media controls, and Bluetooth and network status. A compact status bar can sit on the left, center or right, be styled, or hide itself automatically. There are nine app launch animations and seven focus animations, which matters more on a television than it sounds, since focus movement is most of what you see while navigating.

The most recent update added a customizable quick menu, centered carousel icons and wallpaper shuffle, along with brightness and night mode controls with schedules and a playback stop timer. Weather location search and a remembered file manager also arrived in that release, and the developer notes fixes for media image crashes on Android 8 to 10 and for sound-loading freezes.

Streaming rows, live TV and the accessibility service

Monet works with the Continue Watching row, Live TV channels and streaming apps you already have, without reconfiguring them. On televisions with tuners or TV input apps, live channels and HDMI inputs can appear directly on the launcher. Any app can be set to start automatically after boot or standby, which is useful if the television is really a front end for one service.

One technical detail deserves attention before you install. Monet uses an optional Android AccessibilityService to detect Home-key presses and launcher window changes, so it stays as your home screen after you press Home, after the stock launcher shows up, or after standby. It cannot read screen contents and does not store, upload, sell or share service data, and it can be disabled at any time with the launcher still working.

Privacy is otherwise framed simply: no sign-up, no tracking and nothing collected. The app is available in 34 languages. I would treat the accessibility permission as the one item to read carefully, not because anything alarming is described, but because it is the kind of access worth understanding before granting it on a device the whole household uses.

What it costs

Monet Launcher is free to download. There are no ads, no sponsored rows and no account requirement. A single optional purchase unlocks extra customization. Pricing is a free launcher with a single optional purchase rather than a subscription.

For a personalization app, that structure is easy to reason about. The free version does not appear to be crippled or to need the unlock for the basics, and the absence of advertising is notable on a platform where home screens are often used to sell placement.

The trade-off is that the premium unlock exists at all, so some of the deeper customization sits behind a payment. Whether that matters depends on how far you intend to go with the theming and layout tools.

How it compares with the alternatives

The obvious comparison is the launcher that came with your television. That one is already installed, already configured and costs nothing, but it is also the thing you are presumably trying to get away from, and it will not offer dynamic color, weather wallpapers or per-profile layouts. Monet's case rests on whether you want those specific things.

The second comparison is a dedicated streaming device with its own interface, such as a stick or a set-top box. Those solve a different problem, namely getting apps onto an older television, and they come with their own home screens. Monet is for people who are content with the hardware they have and want to change only the layer on top of it.

The third is a general-purpose Android launcher built for phones. Those tend to assume touch input, and Monet is built entirely for a remote, which is a meaningful difference in how the interface behaves. If remote navigation is the constraint you care about, that narrows the field considerably.

A considered upgrade for a shared TV

Monet Launcher is worth installing if you want your television's home screen to reflect your taste rather than the manufacturer's, and if you are willing to spend a little time setting up rows, wallpapers and profiles. The combination of animated weather backdrops, wallpaper-driven color and remote-friendly layout tools is unusually complete for a TV launcher, and the free, ad-free, account-free structure makes it easy to try.

It is best suited to households sharing one television, to people running older Android TV boxes who want a lighter interface, and to anyone who enjoys tuning a screen until it looks right. The optional accessibility service and the one-time premium unlock are the two things to weigh before committing, and both are described plainly enough to make that decision.

If your current home screen is the part of your television you like least, this is a reasonable place to start.

What's new in version 1.0.93

- NEW Customizable quick menu - NEW Nested folders and centered carousel icons - NEW Brightness and night mode controls with schedules - NEW Playback stop timer - NEW Weather location search - NEW Wallpaper shuffle - NEW Custom ADB commands, presets and power-off shortcuts - NEW TV inputs in autostart - NEW Remember your file manager - Improved menus, wallpaper timing and Premium purchases - Fixed media image crashes on Android 8-10, sound-loading freezes