VintherOS
The Samsung home screen is built to sell: sponsored rows, autoplay and tracking sit between you and the app you wanted. VintherOS replaces it with a calm, fast launcher. I designed it in Figma as a full system of screens, components and variables, generated the app’s styles from those variables, and got it running on a real Samsung TV — including the remote’s Home button.
Brief
Our living-room TV is shared by the whole family, guests and a PS5. Most of the time we just want Netflix, DR TV or the console — but Samsung’s Smart Hub puts ads, trailers and recommendation rows in the way, and tracks what we watch.
The goal: a home screen that does one thing well. Get you to what you want to watch in as few clicks as possible, look calm on a big screen, work with nothing but the remote, and never show an ad.
My role
I owned it end to end: research into what a Samsung TV actually allows, the design system and every screen in Figma, the token pipeline into code, and installing it on our TV.
The code started as a fork of CleanFrame (MIT) by Nathan Clark. The design, the system, the features on top and the Home-button work are mine.
Approach
- Designed for the remote, not the mouse. Every screen works with arrows, OK and Back. Focus is big, glassy and obvious from the sofa, and nothing needs typing — even HDMI ports get their names from a list.
- One system from Figma to the TV. Colours, sizes and glass materials are Figma variables. The app’s styles are generated from them, so a change in Figma ships to the TV.
- Glass without the cost. TVs have weak graphics chips, so blur and glass are rendered ahead of time for each wallpaper. The TV only animates position and opacity, which keeps every focus move instant.
- Inputs that feel like apps. I explored three ways to reach the PS5 — in the dock, a top-bar Inputs button, or inside All apps — and made the dock the default, with a live preview of what’s on HDMI and a setting for the other two.
- Owning the Home button. Installing an app is easy; making the physical Home key open it is not. I found a way on Tizen 6 that needs no rooting, by repointing Samsung’s own key-routing rule, with a tested way back to stock.
Outcome
VintherOS runs every day on our living-room TV. Home opens it, the PS5 is one click away with a live preview, and there isn’t a single ad. It speaks Danish and English, ships with fifteen wallpapers plus our own photos, and starts with an animation of the snowflake mark.
It’s also how I like to work: a real design system in Figma that code is generated from, and decisions tested on the actual device — not just in a frame.
