A recent update to the YouTube app has made an interesting change to how most TVs approach entering sleep mode. The update sets YouTube as the primary screensaver, overriding other options you may be used to – but can it be turned off?
Why you’re suddenly seeing a YouTube screensaver
Across a few platforms, including Google TV and even Apple TV, a YouTube update has set Google’s video-sharing platform as the default option for the device’s screensaver. What you might be used to is Google TV’s Ambient Mode, which showcases art gallery or aerial photos. In some cases, those are no longer showing up in place of YouTube’s selected galleries.
This comes after the YouTube app seemed to change the interval of time it took for the ambient wallpaper to kick in, coming down to just 5 or even 3 minutes of inactivity before it would appear. The most surprising bit of all of this is the fact that users on Apple TV see the same change, as opposed to the Aerial screensavers users are used to.
YouTube’s TV app is surprisingly invasive
For an unknown reason, YouTube’s change to Ambient Display takes over the TV’s OS and doesn’t give an option in-app to disable it. Going through the YouTube app on both Apple TV and Google TV offers no solution to changing Ambient Display in any capacity. Within Google TV or even Apple TV’s own settings, options are also pretty limited.
The unfortunate part about Google TV is that even if you set Ambient Display to appear at its lowest interval – 5 minutes – there is still a good chance YouTube’s screensaver will kick in before that. On Apple TV, the solution to this issue seems to be to set the Aerial screensaver to appear after 2 minutes of inactivity.
So, no, you can’t turn off YouTube’s screensaver, and on Google TV or Android TV, it looks like the workaround used for Apple TV doesn’t work to the same effect. The only solution to this odd problem is to uninstall YouTube on your TV operating system, but most users likely wouldn’t want to do that.
YouTube needs to add options to the app to disable or manipulate the Ambient Display screensaver. Overriding the main OS’s screensaver is not the experience that most users want, as YouTube’s option offers a 50/50 experience.
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