Installation

Buoy on TV is the ordinary React Native install with one prop changed. This page is the complete version of Quick Start.

Requirements

Expo Go cannot run a TV app at all — TV is always a prebuild + expo run:* app. That is a property of TV, not of Buoy.

Packages

Install the core, then any tools you want. Installed tools register themselves; there is no list to maintain.

The two TV-specific tools:

Everything else installs exactly as it does on a phone — Network, Storage, Console, Env, Routes, Events, React Query, Redux, Zustand, Jotai are all device-verified on both TV platforms.

Mounting

import { FloatingDevTools } from "@buoy-gg/core";

export default function App() {
  return (
    <>
      {/* your app */}
      <FloatingDevTools
        headless
        licenseKey={process.env.EXPO_PUBLIC_BUOY_KEY}
        externalSync={{ deviceId: DEVICE_ID, deviceName: "Living Room Apple TV" }}
      />
    </>
  );
}

import { FloatingDevTools } from "@buoy-gg/core";

export default function App() {
  return (
    <>
      {/* your app */}
      <FloatingDevTools
        headless
        licenseKey={process.env.EXPO_PUBLIC_BUOY_KEY}
        externalSync={{ deviceId: DEVICE_ID, deviceName: "Living Room Apple TV" }}
      />
    </>
  );
}

headless is required on TV in practice: without it the floating bubble renders, and on Android TV its focusable views join your app's D-pad focus order. See Overview.

deviceName is what shows in Buoy Desktop's switcher. Give each TV a distinct one — an Apple TV simulator and an Android TV emulator running the same app are otherwise hard to tell apart.

Connecting to the desktop

Pass -s <serial> to adb explicitly. A physical phone is often attached alongside the emulator, and an unqualified adb reverse forwards the wrong device.

Host tooling for the TV Remote

Replay is injected from your machine, so the binaries have to be findable:

• Android — adb, part of the Android SDK platform-tools.

• Apple TV simulator — idb, which does not ship with Xcode:

  sh

  Copy

  brew tap facebook/fb && brew install idb-companion
  pipx install fb-idb
  

  brew tap facebook/fb && brew install idb-companion
  pipx install fb-idb
  

Buoy looks for both on your PATH and in the usual install locations, so the packaged desktop app finds them even though a GUI app inherits a minimal PATH. If idb is missing, the Apple TV lane is disabled and the panel says so rather than failing silently.

Recording needs none of this — capture is pure JavaScript and works on retail hardware.

License keys

Headless has no license entry UI — there is no on-device screen to type into. On TV a key can only arrive as the licenseKey prop, typically from an env var. The desktop dashboard works at the free tier; the MCP server requires Pro and will refuse an anonymous-tier TV device.

Don't have a key yet? Grab one at buoy.gg/pricing.