Use Chromecast for keyboard inputs, rather than ADB

[ROBOT0-VT]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
Can't use keyboard without enabling ADB (which increases the device's security risk)

Describe the solution you'd like
The keyboard functionality should use the cast or remote integrations (or another method), rather than ADB; in a similar way to the google TV app

Describe alternatives you've considered
N/A

Additional context
I've had a look at the following similar issues:

• Better Keyboards #55: No mention of ADB
• Slow Seamless Keyboard Input #82: Mentions ADB, but from a performance perspective, not a security one
• Sending Text Commands #4: Original issue for keyboard support, closed
• Issue in underlying python library

I believe this issue should be tracked, and closed once a fix is possible

[Nerwyn]

This is a dead end until someone reverse engineers the Android TV Remote API keyboard commands.

[ROBOT0-VT]

Agreed, but it should still be tracked

[astrokin]

I’ve finally located the option to send text, and I’m hoping to submit a PR soon. If anyone needs this feature urgently, please feel free to reach out to me directly.

[Nerwyn]

Via the Android TV Remote API? That's amazing! Keep us posted! I'll add support for it in this card once it's available as a Home Assistant action.

[astrokin]

@Nerwyn yes. without using ADB. the issue with protofiles using everywhere. they are incorrect.

[Nerwyn]

Do you know if there's a way to trigger a global search without ADB? I was thinking about deprecating keyboard_id since it's only really needed for Android TV with the ADB keyboard, but I may need to keep it if there isn't a way to do so without ADB. Specifically this ADB command:

am start -a "android.search.action.GLOBAL_SEARCH" --es query "${text}"

[astrokin]

the only thing that worked for me was KEYCODE_SEARCH = 84; but on my TV it trigger only voice input, which I did not implemented yet

[astrokin]

feel free to find text input implementation without ADB for Android TV for python and js

[felipecrs]

@astrokin you are amazing. I guess the next step to move this forward is adding support for it in Home Assistant. Perhaps through some special prefix like:

action: remote.send_command
data:
  command: text://Some User Written Text Here Yada Yada

[Nerwyn]

@felipecrs the implementation of Android TV Remote keyboard has been in debate/limbo for a few months now

home-assistant/core#139033

It looks like the HA maintainers are pushing for it to use the Android TV Remote config_entry instead.

action: androidtv_remote.send_text
data:
  config_entry_id: 0adab1e29ef310f1d2a97849c911dddd
  text: hi

[tronikos]

@Nerwyn with 2025.6 you should be able to send text with:

action: remote.send_command
data:
  command: text:hello world
target:
  entity_id: remote.my_tv

[Nerwyn]

EXCELLENT. I'll start working on the next minor version to implement this in the next few days. I do see that home-assistant/core#139033 and home-assistant/core#142438 never closed. Did you have another PR that implemented this? I'm glad you got the remote.send_command syntax approved, I do not understand why the config entry method was being suggested (I would've just had users provide the remote entity and done the config entry lookup using the hass object so it wouldn't have be a problem here, but it would've been confusing for people not using this card).

You rock @tronikos! I only switched from home theater PC to a Chromecast with Google TV and started this project (and Home Assistant frontend open source projects in general) because you implemented the Android TV Remote API into Home Assistant. Now I spend half my free time working on this stuff!

Edit: Very sneaky 😆

[Nerwyn]

I've put out a 4.6.0 alpha to switch Android TV to the new method. It was only a 6 line change so I figured I might as well do that now while I'm excited about it.

We still do need ADB for global search though. While we can pull up the search page using the SEARCH remote command, it pulls up the audio listening dialog and then reverts to text input once that fails after a few seconds and is much slower than sending the text command immediately over ADB.