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The Google TV Streamer breaks this classic screenshot hack
- Taking screenshots with remapped remote buttons appears to not work on the Google TV Streamer.
- This could be a consequence of Android TV 14, and may ultimately affect additional devices.
- Even with the remote not working, screenshots are still possible via ADB.
Why does taking a simple screenshot always have to be so darn awkward? Can you remember if that’s power plus volume-up, or volume-down? How many times have you just mashed on all of them until the screenshot finally worked? As if things weren’t bad enough on Android phones, the situation’s even more annoying on Android TV — and to hear reports of the latest development, it’s somehow getting worse still.
Why would you want to take a screenshot on Android TV? Admittedly, this probably appeals more to smartphone journalists and other obsessive types like us who love to track all the minutiae of UI development. But really, the point is that it’s your device, and if you want to take some screens, why shouldn’t you? The biggest problem is that your typical Android TV remote isn’t going to offer a dedicated screenshot button — and good luck getting that power-plus-volume trick to work here.
So far, the easiest solution has been using software to remap the remote: to assign different functionality to the buttons than the manufacturer originally intended. In a pinch, you could set it up so that the Netflix button (or any of your choice) now takes screenshots and saves them to local storage for later retrieval.
But now the team at 9to5Google has noticed that with the new Google TV Streamer, the platform no longer seems to support this practice. While attempting to remap doesn’t throw up any obvious error messages, the screenshots just don’t work.
It’s not immediately clear why this doesn’t work on the device, but it feels likely this could be a consequence of Android TV 14, and we’re bracing to expect the same from other hardware running it. The change might not even be intentional, as this was always a bit hacky, and perhaps losing this screenshot workaround is just the consequence of a broader platform update.
In any case, it’s not the end of the road for screenshots on Android TV and Google TV, and 9to5Google points out that you can always connect to the powerful Android Debug Bridge (ADB) and manually issue commands to grab screens. That’ll have to do, but we’ll miss our screenshot remote hack.