TiviMate Setup Guide (2026): The Best IPTV Player for Android TV & Firestick

TiviMate is the player people move to once they want IPTV to feel like a real cable box: a full-screen guide, quick channel changes, favorites, recording, and a layout you can tune to the pixel. The catch: it is Android-only. This guide goes from install to a fully organized IPTVLOAD playlist on Android TV, Google TV or Firestick, then compares it with IPTV Smarters Pro.

What TiviMate is (and what Premium adds)

TiviMate is an IPTV player for Android, Android TV, Google TV and Amazon Fire TV. Like IPTV Smarters Pro, it contains no channels: you add a provider's playlist and TiviMate turns it into a guide that looks and behaves like a premium cable box. Its reputation rests on a fast, genuinely full-screen guide, quick channel changes, and an interface where nearly everything can be customized.

The free version is fully usable: one playlist, the EPG, the guide and all playback settings. Premium, a small one-time or yearly fee paid to the developer (not to your IPTV provider), unlocks the features that make TiviMate special: multiple playlists, favorites, scheduled recording, catch-up, picture-in-picture, custom channel order, hidden categories and more.

Request your IPTVLOAD free trial before you start. The login arrives in one to three minutes, no card required, and gives you 24 hours with 18,000+ live channels to see what TiviMate can do. IPTVLOAD also publishes its own TiviMate guide.

Install on Android TV and Google TV

On any Android TV or Google TV device (Chromecast with Google TV, Nvidia Shield, Walmart onn. boxes, and Sony, TCL and Hisense Google TVs), open the Google Play Store, search for TiviMate IPTV Player and install it, checking that the developer name matches the official listing; copycats exist. IPTVLOAD's Android TV tutorial covers the same steps.

Install on Firestick and Fire TV

TiviMate is not in the Amazon Appstore, so you sideload it:

1. Install Downloader from the Appstore, then allow it under Settings › My Fire TV › Developer Options › Install unknown apps.
2. In Downloader, enter the download address shown on the developer's official website and install the APK. Download from nowhere else; unofficial “TiviMate APK” sites bundle adware.
3. Open TiviMate from Your Apps & Channels.

If Developer Options is missing or Downloader says “Install blocked”, our Firestick free trial guide walks through every menu. A Fire TV Stick 4K or 4K Max handles the full guide comfortably; the Lite works but feels slower.

Add your playlist with Xtream Codes

1. On first launch choose Add playlist, then Xtream Codes login.
2. Enter the Server URL from your IPTVLOAD email, including http:// and the port, for example http://example-server.com:8080.
3. Enter the Username and Password. Both are case-sensitive.
4. Select Next. TiviMate connects, counts the channels and downloads the guide; with a lineup this large, give it a minute or two.
5. Name the playlist (for example “IPTVLOAD”) and press Done. The guide opens.

TiviMate also accepts an M3U URL, but Xtream Codes adds movies and series with artwork, catch-up and automatic EPG, so use it whenever the provider offers it.

EPG setup for US time zones

With an Xtream Codes login, TiviMate pulls the EPG from the provider automatically; there is nothing to paste. Settings › EPG controls how often it refreshes, and once a day is fine. The time offset matters more: guide data is usually published in one time zone, so a show that is live right now may appear an hour or more away in the grid. Open Settings › Playlists, select your playlist, open its EPG source and adjust the time offset until the current program lines up with the screen; Eastern, Central, Mountain and Pacific viewers each need a different value. A channel showing “No information” simply has no guide data from the provider.

Organizing channels: favorites, groups and layout

Favorites

Long-press a channel in the guide and choose Add to favorites. With Premium you can create several lists (Sports, News, Kids) and set one to open by default, so power-on shows the ten channels you actually watch.

Hiding categories and channels

A lineup of 18,000+ channels includes countries and languages you will never watch. Open Settings › Playlists, select your playlist and untick whole categories; they vanish from the guide but are one tick away if you change your mind. Individual channels can be hidden the same way.

Custom channel order

Switch a group's sort option to manual and you can move channels up or down with the remote, so your local stations and go-to networks sit in the first ten slots.

Guide layout

Under Settings › Appearance you can change the number of visible channels, the hours on the timeline, logo and font size, colors, and whether a live preview plays in the corner while you browse. Spend five minutes here; it is why TiviMate feels so much better than stock apps.

Recording and catch-up (Premium)

With Premium, TiviMate records to the device's storage (or a USB drive where supported). Highlight a program in the guide, press select and choose Record, or schedule a future show the same way. Two cautions: recordings are made from the live stream, so a buffering stream produces a buffering recording, and a Firestick's internal storage fills up fast.

Catch-up works on channels the provider has enabled; they show an icon in the guide, and you can scroll back to earlier programs and play them on demand. IPTVLOAD offers catch-up on supported channels, so test it during your trial.

Picture-in-picture

TiviMate can shrink the live stream into a small floating window when you press Home, so a game stays visible while you browse other apps. It is a Premium feature, enabled under Settings › Playback; if the option is greyed out, the device's operating system rather than TiviMate is blocking it.

Settings for smooth playback

Open Settings › Playback. Three options solve most problems:

• Decoder. Hardware uses the device's video chip and is the default. If you see audio with a black screen, a green tint, or stutter on specific channels, switch to software, which uses the CPU instead.
• Buffer size. If streams pause for a second every few minutes, raise the buffer one step. A larger buffer adds a moment of start-up delay but smooths over Wi-Fi hiccups.
• Stream format. This one lives under Settings › Playlists › your playlist. MPEG-TS is the default and starts fastest; HLS can be more tolerant of a weak connection. Switch and compare on the channel that gives you trouble.

If buffering persists, the problem is almost always the network rather than the app; our 12 buffering fixes go through it in order.

Troubleshooting TiviMate

Playlist will not load or “Login failed”

Retype the server URL, username and password by hand, checking for http://, the port number, and O versus 0. If the details worked earlier, your 24-hour trial may have ended; a subscription uses the same login. If the server is briefly busy, wait five minutes and retry.

EPG is empty

Update it manually under Settings › EPG and wait a minute or two. If only certain channels are blank, the provider has no data for them.

Buffering

Move the device to 5 GHz Wi-Fi or Ethernet, raise the buffer size, and change the decoder. Then follow the full buffering guide.

Black screen with sound, or no picture at all

Switch the decoder first, then the stream format. If a single channel stays black while others play, that feed is down on the provider's side; report it to IPTVLOAD support.

TiviMate vs IPTV Smarters Pro

	TiviMate	IPTV Smarters Pro
Platforms	Android, Android TV/Google TV, Fire TV	Fire TV, Android, iPhone/iPad, some Samsung and LG TVs, Windows, Mac
Price	Free; Premium is a small one-time or yearly fee	Free
Guide	Full-screen cable-style grid, deeply customizable	Standard list and grid views
Recording	Yes (Premium)	No
Catch-up	Yes (Premium), on supported channels	Yes, on supported channels
Multiple playlists	Premium	Yes, as separate user profiles
Multi-screen	No	Yes, two to four channels at once
Best for	The main TV on Android TV or Firestick	One free app on every device, including iPhone and Smart TVs

Our honest take: TiviMate is the better living-room experience and Smarters the better everywhere-else app. The same IPTVLOAD login works in both, so most households end up with TiviMate on the main TV and Smarters on phones, tablets and the bedroom TV.

TiviMate FAQ