How to develop a React Native App for TV

By Anisha Malde & to using React Native for TV.

, our guide focused on this. However, during our post-launch discussions, we realized there were still developers who wanted to know how to set up a bare React Native (RN) project for TV. That’s why this article will explore how to set up your bare RN project and expand on how to set up your project to build for multiple platforms.

Expo or Bare React Native?

There are two different ways to get started with TV development: Expo and Bare React Native. Your choice between these approaches will depend on several factors such as project complexity, performance needs, and the specific TV platforms you are targeting.

Building a TV App With Expo

Expo presents a quicker route to TV app development by reducing the complexity of setting up your development environment. It offers out-of-the-box support for multiple platforms (web, TV, and mobile) and pre-configured build processes. Expo is ideal for getting started quickly! 🚀

How to get started

You can find more information in this .

Building a TV App With Bare React Native

On the other hand, Bare React Native can offer developers more control and flexibility. It is ideal for projects that require specific libraries or have unique performance requirements.

How to get started

If you are starting a Bare React Native project, the easiest way to ensure your project is configured for TV is to use the and all the required configurations for Android and TvOS.

Adding TV Support to an Existing Project

If you have an existing React Native project and want to add TV support, you need to handle these configurations to extend it to build TV apps. Note that the above template takes care of this for you.

1. Update package.json dependencies

"react-native": "npm:react-native-tvos@latest"

This enables your project to use a fork of React Native, react-native-tvos, with the changes needed to support Apple TV and Android TV.

💡 You cannot use this package and the core react-native package simultaneously in a project however using the fork doesn’t prevent you from creating your ‘regular’ mobile builds.

2. Update Android Manifest

• For Android TV applications you need to ensure that your app is declaring a on adding TV support.
  
  
  

  
  

  💡 We recommend adding these changes to the TV apps' Android manifest only. If your app is targeting different build platforms in addition to TV, you still want to make sure that the platform domain features, e.g., touchScreen is required on the mobile build.

  
  

  
  
  

  We explain how you can structure your app to have separate manifests below.

  
  
  

  *3. Update Project.pbxproj *

  
  
  

  Update the iOS project file to define support of TVOS according to the

  
  
  

  Check Oskar’s article for details on a and differentiate Android TV and Android Mobile specific feature sets on the build flavour level and then by

  
  
  

  Whether you choose the Expo route or the Bare React Native approach, adding TV support to your app requires just a few steps. We hope this helps you get started on your TV development journey. Check out the guidebook for more tips and tricks on building for TV using React Native. If you have any questions or requests for content you'd like to see in the book, please leave a comment below ⬇️

  
  
  

  

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