Google TV Streamer review: The new 'big hub' of your home

The alternative launchers available for set top boxes are pretty good. Biggest feature is they're completely ad-less.

100% they'll start showing ads.

I use Flauncher. It works pretty well and is a simple grid of icons. With some ADB commands it can be set as default, which I did on my Shield

Amusingly the old Android TV Chromecast (or whatever stupid name they gave it) was actually one of the better boxes for customisability. You could side-load apps so could install a custom (ad-free) launcher and 3rd-party clients like smarttube. You couldn't really get much better than that without running something like a proper Linux OS on a RPi.

Hoping this one will be similarly OK for tinkering (not that I need a replacement any time soon!)

They'll also start paring features out of the device as soon as it's convenient for them, like they did with the OnHub as soon as Google Home devices launched. I'm still salty about the OnHub, they flat out neutered a multifunction device down to a big WiFi AP because they just didn't want people using any of the smart home or speaker functionality once they had other products to sell.