Most Android TV hardware has no accessible USB port for a PC connection, or the port is buried behind the unit and reserved for a keyboard or storage device. Network ADB is the standard way to connect, and it works identically across brands because it is a platform feature rather than something the TV manufacturer implements separately.
The path to Developer Options on Android TV differs from phones in menu structure but not in method: go to Settings > Device Preferences > About, then select Build (sometimes labeled Android TV build or Build number) seven times. A toast message counts down the remaining taps, same as on a phone.
Back out to Device Preferences, where a new Developer options entry now appears. Inside it, enable two separate toggles:
Still inside Settings, go to Network & Internet and select the active connection (Wi-Fi or Ethernet) to view its IP address. Write this down; it is what you will target with adb connect. A static IP or DHCP reservation on your router is worth setting up for any TV device you connect to regularly, since the default dynamic lease can change the address between sessions and break a previously working connection for no obvious reason.
adb connect 192.168.1.50:5555Port 5555 is the default ADB-over-network port on Android TV, and unlike phones (where wireless debugging assigns a random port each session on Android 11+), most Android TV builds keep this fixed port, which is why so many guides hardcode :5555 without further explanation.
The TV screen should show the same RSA key fingerprint authorization prompt used for USB debugging. Accept it with the remote. If no prompt appears and the connection fails silently, network debugging was likely not actually toggled on, or the device is on a different VLAN/subnet than your PC and the two cannot reach each other at the network layer regardless of the ADB settings.
Once connected, installing an APK works exactly as it does over USB:
adb install app.apkThis is the standard route for installing apps not available in the Google TV storefront for a given region, or a build of your own app during development without publishing it anywhere first. Multi-APK installs (an app split into a base APK plus device-specific config APKs) use adb install-multiple instead of a single install call.
Network debugging does not persist across a TV reboot on most Android TV builds — the toggle resets to off, or the daemon simply does not restart automatically, and adb connect will fail with "Connection refused" until you walk back into Developer Options and confirm the toggle. This differs from phones running Android 11+, where wireless debugging pairing, once established, generally survives reboots. Treat Android TV network ADB as a per-session setup rather than a one-time configuration.
"Android TV" and "Google TV" refer to the same underlying platform with a different launcher and branding layer on top — the ADB setup steps are identical for both. Do not confuse either with the Android TV emulator image available through Android Studio's AVD manager, which is a virtual device running on your PC and connects over localhost rather than a LAN IP address.
Since the connection travels over your LAN rather than a USB cable, both the PC and the TV device need to be on the same subnet, and any router-level client isolation feature (common on guest Wi-Fi networks and some mesh systems) will block the connection even though both devices show as online. If adb connect times out rather than failing immediately with a clear refusal, client isolation or a misconfigured VLAN is a more likely cause than a driver or ADB configuration problem, since a true refusal from the device itself normally returns quickly rather than hanging.
Once connected, the same input shell commands used on phones work identically on Android TV, which is useful for driving the interface without a physical remote during scripted testing:
adb shell input keyevent 23Keycode 23 is DPAD_CENTER, the equivalent of pressing OK/Select on a TV remote. The directional pad keycodes (19 through 22 for up, down, left, right) let a script navigate menus the same way a person would with the physical remote, which is the basis for most automated Android TV UI testing that does not rely on a hardware IR blaster.
Some newer Google TV devices adopted the same wireless debugging pairing flow used on Android 11+ phones, where Developer Options shows a six-digit pairing code and a separate pairing port rather than a fixed 5555. If the device shows a "Wireless debugging" screen with a pairing code instead of a plain network toggle, use adb pair with that code and port first, then adb connect with the connection port shown on the same screen — the fixed-port method described above applies only to devices still using the older network debugging implementation.