I uninstalled all button mapper apps from my Google TV, and you should too

From the first Android TV unit I bought in 2015 to the Chromecast with Google TV and now the Google TV Streamer, nearly every streaming box I’ve used with an Android-based operating system has triggered my one pet peeve: branded buttons for Netflix, YouTube, Disney+, and/or other services.

I don’t have a Netflix subscription and probably never will. I have a YouTube Premium family sub, I get Amazon Prime Video with my Prime subscription, Apple TV Plus and Paramount Plus with my local French Canal Plus sub, and I also have a huge Plex server with dozens of shows ripped from old DVDs. Having a permanent button imposed on me for a feature I’ll never use on hardware I have paid for irks me to no end, so I always and immediately installed Button Mapper to regain control over that button. I even paid for the Pro in-app purchase to access all features.

I thought I was doing the smart thing, but it took me years to realize that I was only hurting my Android TV-slash-Google TV experience. Let me explain.

For years, I thought that it was normal for my Android TV, and now Google TV, to be glitchy. Any time I pressed a button on the remote, it took a split second to react. Any time I kept my finger on the D-pad to scroll up, down, left, or right, it skipped a few items, then scrolled, then stopped, and hiccuped continuously. Any time I tried to lower the volume or raise it, it only happened in single-level increments; I couldn’t keep pressing the volume up button to go from level 20 to 40, I had to press it 20 times in succession. And if I went too fast, it would skip a few. It was all so maddeningly inconsistent, too.

I hated everything about this, but I blamed Google, its operating system, and the silly low hardware requirements. A cheap 43-inch Xiaomi TV, a $50 Chromecast with Google TV, and an operator-provided set-top box that was anything but optimized; none of these had any remotely ideal hardware. Besides, everyone complained online about how slow, jittery, and buggy their devices were, so I didn’t think I was alone.

Then I got the Google TV Streamer, and for a few days, everything was peachy. It was faster than anything I’d ever tried, less laggy and jittery. It flew through D-pad scrolls like a boss, immediately performed any action when I pressed buttons, and never — I repeat, never — messed up my TV’s volume controls. Then it started exhibiting all those same signs. I ignored it for months, blamed Google in my head again and the multiple Google TV Streamer issues, until a few weeks ago, when I was scrolling through my installed apps, and it dawned on me. Button Mapper. Oh, could it be?

See, apps like Button Mapper rely on the Accessibility service to listen for any interaction with the remote and then override that to perform their own actions. Mine opens Canal Plus when I tap the useless Netflix button, and Plex when I tap and hold it. But because of how they work, button mappers invariably introduce lag and interference. Long presses to raise the volume stop working, pressing continuously on the D-pad to scroll takes a while to get interpreted, and any simple click might delay the corresponding action by a fraction of a second.

So I uninstalled Button Mapper to see if my theory was correct, and lo and behold, it was like I’d just upgraded my Google TV Streamer to a whole new unit. Or gained back the original responsiveness I’d lost for months! Volume, D-pad, any button, any action; everything was more immediate, smoother, less jittery. (I’m not saying it became perfect, but it was miles ahead.) I reinstalled Button Mapper, and the problems reappeared. A-ha!

So I spent the next few days tinkering with various settings and variables in Button Mapper. I tried Redditor tricks to avoid the volume button interference, combos of settings that seemed like they should reduce interference and lag, disabling and enabling specific modes, etc., to no avail. I also tested another app, tvQuickActions, which was praised in some circles for having less volume button interference, but it had the same issues. I repeated all of this on my Xiaomi TV with the older Android TV software and found the same result. It was still slow and a bit unresponsive without the remapping apps, but nowhere near as laggy as it had been with them.

Eventually, I had to face the music: There’s no way to remap buttons on the Google TV remote without messing with the TV’s responsiveness, at least on my units and in my current setups. And since I like a glitch-free experience more than I like to regain control over a couple of remote buttons, the mapping apps had to go.

Maybe Google will one day make Accessibility services like these less glitchy, maybe there are some Android TV or Google TV units that aren’t affected by this, or maybe there’s a goldilocks list of settings to choose in these button mapping apps to avoid this negative effect, but I haven’t come across those yet. If you have, please let me know in the comments.

And this is my conclusion: If your Android TV or Google TV feels buggy and unresponsive, especially when using the D-pad and volume buttons, check if you’ve installed a button mapping app and granted it Accessibility access. If you have, try removing it, and see if that fixes (most of) your issues. If so, you’re welcome. If not, no harm done.