Android

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Home icon grey.png   ▶ Devices ▶ Android
Looking for information on the XBMC remote control app for Android? See Official XBMC Remote/Android.
Attention talk.png Read this page and still need help? Check out the XBMC for Android support forum.

XBMC for Android is a full port of the complete XBMC application to Google's Android operating-system. With the Android NDK (Native Development Kit for Android) XBMC runs natively under Android as a Native Activity application. The initial aim for the Android port is to get XBMC working on inexpensive Android set-top-boxes. Phones and tablets have limited support as well.

Main topics

Other Android-specific wiki pages for topics, guides, and advice. For everything else standard XBMC pages will normally apply.

icon HOW-TO:Install XBMC for Android
HOW-TO:Install XBMC for Android
icon Android FAQ
Android FAQ
icon Android hardware
For most high-definition videos (1080p or higher resolution), hardware video decoding is necessary for smooth video playback on most Android devices. Therefor this article contains a list of SoC chipset hardware, (SoC stands for "System on a Chip" which contain the CPU plus GPU and VPU circuits combination, and is also known as a "chipset"), as on Android platforms this SoC chipset is what can playback common video codecs smoothly using Kodi/XBMC.
icon Developing XBMC for Android
Developing XBMC for Android
icon How-to's
icon Tips and tricks
Boost performance, troubleshoot, enhance, and more.
icon Helpful applications
icon Device specific info
icon Touch controls
Touch gestures can be used to control Kodi on touch screen type devices such as those for Android and iOS and is installed preconfigured with default touch actions.
icon Random notes

Requirements

Stop hand.png It is highly recommended for users to not make any hardware purchases in anticipation of running Kodi on Android without first researching the device you want to buy. Before you do buy, make sure multiple people have verified that it works! If in doubt, do not buy any hardware!
  • Kodi v17 and later requires Android 5.0 or higher.
  • x86 (Intel) or a NEON-compatible ARM-processor, (for example: Nvidia Tegra 3 and newer are fully supported by Kodi, while Tegra 2 and older are not).
  • The main aim for the Android port of Kodi is to foremost target media-players/set-top-boxes/sticks that connect to a large screen television and uses a standard remote control as its main interface device, (that is the same market as for HTPC).

How-to's

Assorted how-to's related to the video library that have been added to the wiki:


HOW-TO:Change data location for Android
As of v14, Kodi supports a backdoor to specify the location of your settings folder, which includes the userdata folder and add-ons. It is the equivalent of using environment variables on other platforms
HOW-TO:Install Kodi for Android
This page describes how to install Kodi, either from an app "store" such as Google Play, or manually from an APK file.
HOW-TO:Install Kodi on Fire TV
This page describes some of the methods to install Kodi onto an Amazon Fire TV (box) or Fire TV Stick. The Fire TV uses Kodi for android and does not require root. All Fire TV products allow sideloading, so no hacking or modification is required to install Kodi.
HOW-TO:Launch Android apps
Android apps can be launched from within Kodi by going to Programs -> Android programs. It is even possible to launch Android apps from shortcuts on the main menu for skins that supports custom home items.
HOW-TO:Use external players on Android
To use an external player on Kodi for Android you simply need to make a playercorefactory.xml file in the userdata folder.


Tips and tricks

  • Note: Remember that hardware video decoding, which will be required on most devices for smooth video playback, requires XBMC v13 or higher.
  • Avoid using wireless. A lot of Android boxes and "sticks" have weak wifi, even those that advertise as being wireless-n. It may be possible to use a USB-to-ethernet dongle on some devices, or even a USB wifi adapter that has a better wifi radio than what is built-in.
  • Switch to a different network protocol to see if that has any effect, i.e. SMB/CIFS, NFS, FTP, WebDAV, etc.
  • Try sharing the media on another device to rule out a device-specific (or network) issue.
  • Turn off thumbnails, XBMC -> Settings -> Video -> File and deselect 'generate thumbnails'.
  • H.264 videos encoded with Hi10P profile will not work on most Android hardware as some (most?) ARM processors are not powerful enough to software decode it, and no hardware decoders exist for it. As faster ARM CPUs come out this will get better, but don't expect miracles from the average Android box.
  • If RSS feed is enabled, disable it in settings. This can make the main menu a bit faster.
  • Running out of disk space storage, or want to try tweaking caching and other performance settings to achieve faster response times? See HOW-TO:Reduce XBMC disk space for help on modifying how XBMC handles images.
  • Running a Rockchips device? Maybe check out SPMC.

Helpful applications

Some helpful XBMC related Android applications, as suggested by the community. This list should not be seen as any kind of official endorsement by XBMC.

Name Description Requires
root?
Link
Link2SD Good for moving XBMC userdata to the external SD card, in case you are getting low on internal memory. Yes link
full!screen If you are using XBMC on a Android 4.3 or lower, you can use full!screen to hide the "nav buttons", allowing for full screen playback of videos. (Note: XBMC on Android 4.4 should support immersive mode, allowing this switch to full screen to happen automatically) Yes link
AnTuTu CPU Master (Free) Allows for disabling CPU power saving features for some Android devices, which could speed up the device. ? link
Rescan Media ROOT Some Android firmware have a media scanner enabled, which can slow things down on some devices. This application will allow you to disable/enable the media scanner. Yes link
Startup Manager (Free) Allows XBMC to open at startup. ? link
SendLog Useful for sending system logs to XBMC developers when trying to troubleshoot issues. If someone asks you for a "Log Cat" or a "crash log", this application will get that log. Yes link
Ted (Text Editor) Free and open source text editor that is useful for editing various XBMC files, such as keymaps and advancedsettings.xml No link
XBMC Launcher Set XBMC (and various forks) as a Launcher without having to mod the APK ? link
XBMC Updater Easily update or install XBMC without having to manually sideload No link

Device specific info

Here are a few device-specific guides/help areas that the community has provided.


Random notes

Feel free to place various notes, tips, and links here. As this section of the wiki gets more organized, those notes will be properly sorted. Consider this like a dumping ground for when you're not sure where to put something.