Stop paying for the rental of a secondary TV box and take advantage of the TV package included in your Internet subscription by directly installing your ISP’s TV application on Android TV or on an Amazon Fire Stick.
Like the majority of French people, you have undoubtedly subscribed to an Internet access offer that also includes telephony and a TV package. If these TV channels, accessible from the dedicated box are included, operators sometimes ask to pay a rental to obtain the main TV box, and a supplement for a secondary TV box.
For example, at Orange, for a secondary TV decoder, the operator charges between 10 and 40 euros for activation costs. At Bouygues Telecom, it will take 8.99 euros per month for a secondary Bbox while SFR offers the Multi-TV option for 3 euros per month. If these paid options have the merit of existing, they are however not necessarily mandatory to take advantage of the channel package included in your subscription.
Some Internet service providers indeed offer a dedicated application that can be installed on a smartphone, or even better, on a TV box that you already have in your possession. Enough to allow you to access your ISP’s TV channels without having to pay for the rental of its dedicated box.
Which ISPs offer a compatible application?
The four main operators unfortunately do not all offer a suitable solution. Bouygues Telecom or Orange are probably the least permissive. With these two operators, your possibilities will therefore be quite limited. They both offer a TV app for Android, but it’s only suitable for smartphones. It is normally possible to install it on an Android TV/Google TV device or on an Amazon Fire Stick, but it does not work. In the best case, if the application launches and correctly displays the programs currently being broadcast, navigation using a remote control will be very limited. In fact, the application will be almost unusable, it being originally intended for use from a touch interface.
Since last summer, Orange has nevertheless taken a step forward. The operator offers an Orange TV application for connected TVs. But this is limited to only Samsung connected TVs from 2018 or more recent. Above all, to be able to access Orange TV from your connected TV, the activation of the option must be requested from Orange. And if it is included with the Orange livebox Open Up and Max offers, Orange and Sosh customers with another offer will have to pay. Because in addition to providing the television, subscribers will have to pay a payment of 5 euros per month to watch Orange TV… on their television.
As surprising as it may seem, the Amazon application store does indeed offer an Orange TV application. But this one is unfortunately not intended for French users. It is in fact only reserved for Orange… Spanish subscribers!
To watch the channels included in the TV package of your Orange or Bouygues subscription on a secondary television, you will only have one solution. You’ll need to launch the TV app on their smartphone, then “cast” the content to your connected TV, Android TV box or Amazon Fire Stick.
If you subscribe to Free or SFR / Red by SFR, however, you can rejoice. The two operators are among the most permissive.
For its part, Free offers a multi pay TV option and provides a dedicated application. It can be installed on Android TV / Google TV, on Samsung TVs or even on Apple TV, as well as on an Amazon Fire Stick. This app is OQEE.
The application obviously allows you to access your favorite channels, but it also allows you to have direct control, to record your programs, to access the Replays of certain channels, or to access video services. on demand.
If you have an Android TV / Google TV device, you can find it directly in the Google Play Store. If you are using a Fire TV device, however, you will need to install the application on an Android smartphone in order to then transfer it to your Amazon Fire Stick.
As for SFR / Red By SFR, the operator has two applications. The first, SFR TV 8, is intended for exclusive use on smartphones or tablets. To take advantage of the channels included in your SFR / Red by SFR TV offer on your Google TV / Android TV device or your Fire TV, you will need to turn to the application SFR Play. Only problem, if it was until now available in the Google Play Store on Android TV / Google TV, it seems that SFR suddenly removed it from download a few weeks ago. And it could be that the recent marketing of its home Android TV box sold for 69 euros (or 3 euros per month for rental) is not completely foreign to it. And for good reason, it includes the famous SFR Play application. Therefore, if you cannot download and install the application from the official channel, you will need to retrieve the APK installation file to install it manually.
How to install an application from an APK file on Android TV?
If you have a Smart TV, a box or a Google Chromecast running Android TV / Google TV, you can, as on any Android device, manually install an application from its installation file in APK format.
This practice, also called Sideloading, consists of sending the APK file from a computer, smartphone or tablet to your Android TV / Google TV device. Once received on your device, you can run it directly using your remote to install it. All you have to do then is connect to the TV application of your Internet service provider using your usual login credentials.
Installing an application from an APK file on Android TV / Google TV is not very complicated. You will find the procedure in our step-by-step available on this page.
How to install app from apk file on Amazon Fire TV?
The case of Amazon Fire TV devices is a bit more complex. Fire OS, the operating system that powers Amazon’s Fire Sticks, is based entirely on Android. Therefore, it is possible to install applications there from an APK file when you cannot find what you are looking for in the Amazon Appstore. If there are several techniques to achieve this, the simplest to implement remains in our opinion that which consists in transferring an application already installed on an Android smartphone. This will allow you to upload your application from the Google Play Store, or retrieve an installation file in APK format and then transfer it to the Amazon Fire TV device.
Here again, the manipulation to be carried out is not insurmountable. You will find everything you need to get there in our dedicated tutorial accessible on this page.