Dominate Hotel TV — Installation Manual
For onsite IT staff installing the Hotel TV kiosk app on a new or factory-reset Android TV.
Before you start
You will need
- A Windows laptop with WiFi
- The hotel WiFi network name (SSID) and password
- The TV's remote control and a clear view of the screen
- The room number the TV will be installed in
- About 5 minutes per TV
How long does each TV take?
Around 5 minutes total. The longest part is the TV's setup wizard (~3 minutes with the remote control). Once Network ADB is enabled, the installer does everything else in about 30 seconds.
Phase APrepare the TV
This part must be done with the TV remote control. There is no way to skip it — the TV needs to be on a network and have Network ADB enabled before the installer can talk to it.
1Factory reset (only if the TV has been used before)
If this is a brand-new TV still in the box, skip this step and go to step 2.
If the TV has been used before, you must factory reset it first. The Hotel TV kiosk mode requires "Device Owner" rights, which Android refuses to grant if any Google account is signed in.
- On the TV remote, press Home, then open Settings.
- Go to Device Preferences → Reset → Factory data reset.
- Confirm and wait for the TV to reboot. This takes about 2 minutes.
2Walk through the first-time setup wizard
When the TV finishes rebooting, it will show its first-time setup wizard. Walk through it as follows:
- Pick a language (English).
- Connect to the hotel WiFi network. This is the only chance to do this through the wizard — once the kiosk app is installed it will lock down the network settings.
- If asked to sign in to a Google account: skip this step. Look for "Skip", "Use TV without Google account", or just press Back. Do NOT sign in.
- Skip everything else (location, terms, app suggestions) until the wizard finishes.
Do not sign in to a Google account
If a Google account ends up on the TV, the installer will fail with "Device owner could not be set" and you will have to factory reset and start over.
3Enable Developer Options
Android hides Developer Options by default. To turn them on:
- Open Settings → Device Preferences → About.
- Scroll down to the Build entry (it's the last item).
- Click OK on the Build entry 7 times in a row.
- After the 7th click, the TV will show a small message saying "You are now a developer".
4Turn on Network ADB
"Network ADB" is what lets the installer talk to the TV over WiFi.
- Press Back until you are at Settings → Device Preferences.
- You should now see a new entry called Developer Options. Open it.
- Turn on ADB debugging (it may be labelled "USB debugging" on some TVs — same thing).
- Turn on ADB over network. You should see an IP address appear, for example 192.168.1.42:5555. You don't need to write this down — the installer will find it automatically.
The TV is now ready.
Leave the TV on and on this screen while you run the installer. Move to your Windows laptop.
Phase BRun the installer on your laptop
Make sure your Windows laptop is on the same WiFi network as the TV. If they are on different networks (e.g. laptop on hotel guest WiFi, TV on hotel staff WiFi), the installer will not find the TV.
5Download and launch the installer
- On the laptop, open this page (you are reading it) and click the red Download HotelTvProvisioner.exe button near the top.
- Save the file somewhere you can find it (Desktop or Downloads).
- Double-click HotelTvProvisioner.exe to launch it.
If Windows shows a SmartScreen warning
Click "More info", then "Run anyway". This warning appears for any new EXE that hasn't been widely downloaded yet — it is safe to proceed if you downloaded the file from ota.mndev.co.za.
6Click through the welcome screen
The installer opens to a Welcome screen explaining what it will do. Read it, then click Start.
The next screen ("Prepare the TV") is a reference for what you just did in Phase A. If the TV is already prepared, click The TV is ready — find it.
7Pick the TV from the discovery list
The installer scans the local WiFi network for Android TVs with Network ADB enabled. After 1–2 seconds, your TV should appear in the list, showing the brand, model, and Android version, for example:
Skyworth SWTV-22TGS-4K (Android 11) — 192.168.1.42:5555
Click your TV to select it. If you have multiple TVs to install, just pick the one you're working on now — you will run the installer once per TV.
The TV will show an "Allow USB debugging?" prompt
The first time the installer talks to a TV, the TV pops up a small dialog asking
"Allow USB debugging from this computer?". On the TV remote:
- Tick the box that says "Always allow from this computer".
- Click OK / Allow.
Once selected, click Use this TV.
8Configure brand and room number
The "Configure this TV" screen asks for three things:
- Brand: Usually auto-detected — verify it shows Skyworth or TCL correctly.
- Room number (required): Type the room number this TV is in, e.g.
101 or Suite 3A.
- Cast server (optional): Leave blank if you don't know. The hotel can configure this later from the app's Settings → Cast Server.
Click Provision when ready.
9Wait for provisioning to complete
The installer now runs about a dozen steps in sequence:
- Downloads the latest Hotel TV app from this server
- Installs the app on the TV
- Sets it as the Device Owner (kiosk mode)
- Makes it the home launcher (so the TV always boots into Hotel TV)
- Disables Google's launcher, screen saver, sleep timers, HDMI CEC, and similar TV-side automation
- Applies the room number
- Verifies that all of the above stuck
This takes about 60 seconds. Each step shows a green tick as it completes. Do not unplug the TV or close the installer during this time.
When all steps are green: the TV is provisioned. Click Finish.
Phase CVerify it worked
10Check the TV
Look at the TV. You should see the Dominate Hotel TV home screen — not the Google TV launcher.
If you don't, wait 30 seconds (some Skyworth panels take a moment to switch launcher).
Check that:
- The room number shown on the TV matches what you typed in step 8.
- Pressing the remote's Home button always returns to the Hotel TV home screen, even from inside Netflix/YouTube.
- The TV doesn't go to sleep after a few minutes (it shouldn't — sleep is disabled).
11Check the portal
On your laptop, open https://ota.mndev.co.za. Within about a minute of the TV's first boot, it should appear in the device list with its room number.
If it doesn't show up after 2 minutes, see "TV doesn't appear in portal" in the troubleshooting section below.
You're done with this TV.
Click Provision another TV in the installer (or close it) and move on to the next room.
Troubleshooting
The TV doesn't appear in the discovery list
Causes, in rough order of frequency:
- Laptop and TV are on different WiFi networks. Check the laptop's WiFi icon and the TV's Settings → Network. They must match exactly.
- "ADB over network" got turned off. On the TV: Settings → Device Preferences → Developer Options → ADB over network. Toggle it off and on again.
- The hotel WiFi blocks device-to-device traffic. Some hotel networks isolate clients. If you suspect this, connect both laptop and TV to a phone hotspot for the duration of provisioning.
- Click Scan again in the installer.
"Device owner could not be set" / "Failed to set device owner"
This almost always means a Google account got signed in to the TV at some point. Android forbids granting Device Owner once an account exists.
Fix: factory reset the TV (Phase A step 1) and start over. When walking the setup wizard, do not sign in to a Google account.
"TV is not responding" / connection lost mid-provisioning
The TV briefly dropped off the network. This sometimes happens right after Device Owner is granted because the TV restarts adbd.
Fix: close the installer, run it again, pick the same TV. The installer is safe to re-run — already-completed steps will be detected and skipped.
"Allow USB debugging?" prompt doesn't appear on the TV
If the Hotel TV app is already installed (i.e. you're re-provisioning), the kiosk mode may be hiding the system dialog.
Fix: on the TV, navigate to the Hotel TV app's Settings, click "Device Info" 5 times — this temporarily exits kiosk mode. The ADB authorization dialog should now appear.
The TV boots to Google's launcher instead of Hotel TV
This is usually because the Hotel TV app didn't manage to claim the home launcher slot in time on first boot.
Fix: on the TV remote, press Home. Android will offer a chooser — pick Hotel TV and tick "Always".
If the chooser doesn't appear, re-run the installer against this TV.
The TV doesn't appear in the portal device list
The TV reaches out to the portal when it first boots into the Hotel TV app.
- Confirm the TV is connected to the internet (open any settings menu on the TV; if your WiFi shows "Connected", it has internet).
- Reboot the TV: unplug for 10 seconds, plug back in.
- Wait 2 minutes. The TV registers on first boot.
- If still missing, the room number may be a duplicate — try a different one.
Skyworth TVs only: the TV restarts unexpectedly
Skyworth panels have aggressive HDMI-CEC and "no-signal auto-off" behaviour that can cause phantom shutdowns. The installer disables these, but if you're seeing reboots:
- Do not use the TV's software reboot (Settings → Restart). On Skyworth this can corrupt the window manager. Always power cycle by unplugging.
- Verify the TV is not connected to any HDMI source that might be sending CEC standby commands.
Need help?
Contact MN technical support and include:
- The TV brand and model (visible in the installer's discovery list)
- The room number you tried to assign
- A screenshot of the installer at the point it failed (Windows: Win+Shift+S)
- The hotel name