Shield TV’s Android TV 11 update shows up in recovery images as launch nears

Ben Schoon | Dec 16 2021 - 7:17 am PT

Android TV 11 hasn’t rolled out to many devices, but it really looks like Nvidia is about to push the update to its Shield TV lineup. After two other leaks in recent memory, Nvidia briefly posted the recovery images for the Shield’s Android TV 11 update this week.

Spotted by Redditors and the folks over at XDA, Nvidia’s download center briefly posted the recovery images for Android TV 11/Shield Experience 9.0 for the Shield TV lineup. These recovery images are technically meant for restoring the device if something were to go horribly wrong, as they require a factory reset among other roadblocks to be installed. It’s not a simple OTA.

However, the mere existence of these recovery images tells us that Android 11 for the Shield TV line is coming up very soon. The images have since been removed from Nvidia’s website as well as from the company’s servers. Direct links to the files no longer work in any capacity, but at least one user did install the update and found that it brought Android TV 11, Shield Experience 9.0, and the September 2021 security patch.

Importantly, this latest bit of evidence also corroborates findings from earlier this month where the Google Play Developer Console hinted that the entire Shield TV lineup would be updated. True to that, recovery images were found for every single Shield TV, from the 2015 model all the way up to 2019’s “tube” and Pro models.