Haven

A calm, Apple TV–inspired home screen for Samsung Smart TVs.
Clock, weather, your favorite apps, a screen saver and a kitchen timer, in one app you build and install yourself.

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Why

Samsung's home screen is busy and full of ads. Haven gives you a quiet alternative: a big clock, the weather, and a dock with only the apps you actually use, on top of a slowly changing landscape.

Haven is just an app. It does not replace or change anything on your TV. Open it when you want it, and uninstall it like any other app if you don't.

Features

• Big clock in four styles (Bold, Thin, Classic, Rounded), 12-hour or 24-hour
• Weather for today plus a 4-day forecast, in °C or °F (via Open-Meteo, no account or API key needed)
• Dock with up to 9 favorite apps, launched straight from Haven
• All Apps screen that reads every app installed on your TV, with their own icons
• Landscape wallpapers drawn in code (Dawn, Day, Sunset, Night, Ocean, Desert, Graphite), or let them follow the time of day
• Screen saver: slowly moving scenery with the time, or a clock on black that shifts every minute to prevent burn-in
• Kitchen timer from 1 minute to 1 hour, with a chime when time is up
• Startup animation and sound (the sound can be turned off)
• Works with the normal TV remote: arrows, OK and Back
• Works on older TVs too (tested on a 2019 Samsung Q70R), with a Screen Size setting if your TV cuts off the edges
• No tracking, no ads, no accounts. The only network request is the weather.

Try it in your browser first

You don't need a TV to see Haven. Clone the repo and start any static web server in the project folder:

git clone https://github.com/BdejongeDev/haven.git
cd haven
python -m http.server 8765

Open http://localhost:8765 and use the arrow keys, Enter (OK) and Escape (Back). In the browser, Haven shows a demo list of apps. On a TV it shows your real apps.

Handy URL options for development:

URL	What it does
?nointro	Skip the startup animation and sound
?screen=apps	Open All Apps (also settings, saver, timer)
?wallpaper=sunset	Force a wallpaper (dawn, day, sunset, night, ocean, desert, graphite)

Install on your Samsung TV

Haven is a Tizen web app. Installing your own app on a Samsung TV is free, but the first time takes about 30–60 minutes. You only do the setup once.

What you need

• A Samsung Smart TV running Tizen (most Samsung TVs from 2017 onward)
• A Windows, macOS or Linux computer on the same network as the TV
• A free Samsung account

1. Install Tizen Studio

1. Download Tizen Studio (with IDE) from the Tizen developer site and install it.
2. Open the Package Manager that comes with it.
3. Under Extension SDK, install:
   • TV Extensions (the latest version)
   • Samsung Certificate Extension

2. Turn on Developer Mode on the TV

1. On the TV, open Apps.
2. On the remote, type 1 2 3 4 5. A Developer Mode window appears.
3. Switch Developer mode to On and enter your computer's IP address.
4. Restart the TV: hold the power button until it turns off and on again.

Find your computer's IP address with ipconfig (Windows) or ifconfig / ip addr (macOS/Linux). Find the TV's IP under Settings → General → Network → Network Status → IP Settings. Menu names vary a little between models.

3. Connect to the TV

1. In Tizen Studio, open Tools → Device Manager.
2. Click Remote Device Manager, then +, and enter the TV's IP address (port 26101).
3. Switch the connection on. Your TV should appear in the device list.

4. Create a Samsung certificate

Samsung TVs only run apps signed with a Samsung certificate that includes the TV's ID.

1. Open Tools → Certificate Manager and click +.
2. Choose Samsung, then TV.
3. Create a new author certificate (any name and password) and sign in with your Samsung account when asked.
4. For the distributor certificate, keep the default privilege level. Make sure your TV's DUID is in the device list. Tizen Studio fills it in automatically while the TV is connected.

5. Install Haven

Option A: Tizen Studio (easiest)

1. File → Import → Tizen → Tizen Project, and select this folder. Alternatively, create a new TV → Web Application → Basic Project and copy all files from this repo into it, replacing the defaults.
2. Right-click the project → Run As → Tizen Web Application.
3. Haven installs and opens on your TV. From then on you can find it among your apps.

Option B: command line

# Connect to the TV (use your TV's IP address)
sdb connect 192.168.1.50

# Build a signed package (use the name of your certificate profile)
tizen package -t wgt -s MyProfile -- .

# Install it (use the device name shown by `sdb devices`)
tizen install -n Haven.wgt -t <device-name>

sdb and tizen live in tizen-studio/tools and tizen-studio/tools/ide/bin.

Troubleshooting

• The TV doesn't show up in Device Manager: check that Developer Mode has your computer's IP, restart the TV, and make sure both are on the same network.
• "Install failed" or a certificate error: the certificate must be a Samsung certificate that includes your TV's DUID. Recreate it while the TV is connected.
• An app won't open from Haven: some built-in Samsung apps can't be launched by other apps. Open them from the Samsung menu instead.
• The edges of the screen are cut off: open Settings → Screen Size and press Left until everything fits (usually around 95%).
• No weather: the TV needs internet access, and a city must be selected in Settings.

Using Haven

Remote	Action
Arrows	Move around
OK	Open an app or button, or change a setting
Left / Right on a setting	Change the value
Back	Close a screen, or exit Haven from the home screen
Any button	Wake from the screen saver, stop the timer alarm, skip the startup animation

Favorites: open All Apps → Edit Favorites and press OK on an app to add it to or remove it from the dock.

Customize

Everything lives in a few plain files. No build step and no frameworks.

File	What's in it
index.html	Page layout and the startup logo
style.css	All styling and animations
app.js	App logic: apps, dock, settings, weather, timer, screen saver, remote navigation
wallpapers.js	The landscape wallpapers, drawn as SVG in code
config.xml	Tizen app settings (name, ID, permissions)
logos/	App logos used for the tiles
fonts/	Bundled fonts, so Haven works offline

Common tweaks in app.js:

• DEFAULTS: the default settings, for example hour12: true and units: "f" for the US
• DEFAULT_FAVS: which apps go in the dock on first launch
• HIDDEN: apps you never want to see in Haven
• CITIES: add your own city as "Name": [latitude, longitude]
• LOGOS: add a logo for an app. Put an SVG in logos/ and add a line such as "my app": { f: "myapp", bg: "#000", s: 60 }. On the TV, apps without a logo here use the icon the TV provides.

How it works

• Haven is a regular Tizen web app (HTML, CSS and JavaScript). It uses the Tizen APIs to list installed apps (tizen.application.getAppsInfo) and to open them (tizen.application.launch).
• Settings and favorites are stored on the TV with localStorage.
• Weather comes from Open-Meteo and refreshes every 30 minutes.
• The wallpapers, the startup chime and the timer alarm are all generated in code, so there are no image or audio files to download.

Limitations

• Samsung doesn't allow third-party apps to replace the home screen or start automatically when the TV turns on. Haven is an app you open yourself.
• The frosted-glass blur needs a fairly recent TV. On older models the panels are see-through instead of blurred.
• Switching HDMI inputs and turning the TV off need permissions that Samsung only gives to partners, so Haven can't do those.

Credits

• App logos come from Simple Icons (CC0), SVGL, Wikimedia Commons and the services' own websites. All logos are trademarks of their respective owners and are only used to show which app a tile opens.
• Fonts: Inter and Inter Tight, Instrument Serif and Nunito, all under the SIL Open Font License.
• Weather data: Open-Meteo (CC BY 4.0).

Haven is an independent project. It is not affiliated with Apple or Samsung.

License

The Haven source code is released under the MIT License. Fonts and logos keep their own licenses, listed above.