The app
What is Castaway TV?
A media player for Fire TV and Android TV. It puts live TV from your own IPTV playlists and on demand titles from your own Stremio-protocol add-ons behind one home screen, one search box and one continue watching row.
It is sideloaded, not sold in any app store, and it is free to install.
Does it come with channels, films or TV shows?
No. There is no channel list, no catalogue and no library in this app, and there is no server of ours behind any of it. It ships empty on purpose.
To watch anything you add your own playlist link or provider login, and your own add-ons. Whatever account those need is configured in them, not here.
So what do I need before it is useful?
Either an IPTV playlist you already have, in M3U or Xtream Codes form, or one or more Stremio-protocol add-ons, or both. Two metadata add-ons come pre-installed: Cinemeta for titles, posters and episode lists, and OpenSubtitles for subtitles. Neither one resolves a stream, and nothing else is ever bundled.
Does it download or share files?
No. There is no torrent client in the app. An add-on hands back a direct link and the player plays it; an entry with no playable link is dropped before it reaches a screen.
Why is it not in the Amazon or Google store?
In one week of March 2026, thirty six players in this category were removed from Google Play and the App Store on a single rights holder complaint. A sideloaded app is not exposed to that. The trade is that you install it yourself, which takes about two minutes.
Money
What is free, and what is Castaway Plus?
Free is the whole on demand half with nothing held back: unlimited add-ons, catalogs, details pages, search, the source picker, auto-play picking the best source, subtitles and continue watching. On the live side it is one playlist, today's guide, favourites and recents, and multiview with two tiles. Household sync is free. There are no ads at any tier.
Castaway Plus is $14.99 a year for the household: unlimited playlists merged into one channel list, the full seven day guide with catch up, four multiview tiles, autoplay next episode, Surprise Me, full source preferences, your own channel order with renamed and hidden channels, and profiles with a parental PIN.
The line by line version is on the price section of the front page.
How does the fourteen day trial work?
Every fresh install runs as Castaway Plus for fourteen days. There is no card, no account and no button to press, because it is already on. Around day eleven the app mentions quietly that the trial is ending, never during playback.
On day fifteen it steps down to the free tier and keeps working. Nothing you added is lost and nothing you watched is forgotten; the Plus features stop and the rest carries on.
What does "per household" mean?
One purchase covers the house, not one TV. Up to six devices is printed as a norm rather than enforced as a lock, so putting it on the stick in the spare room is not a decision you have to think about.
Charging per device in this category mostly generates support tickets about device limits. There is no support desk here to absorb those, and nobody has ever praised a device cap.
Is there a monthly plan?
No. At this price a monthly tier nets less than the annual after processor fees and triples the billing surface for nothing.
What is Founder?
$34.99 once, capped at the first five hundred households: everything in Plus for as long as the app exists. It is capped deliberately so it can never become a promise the app cannot keep.
Do I type a card number on the TV?
No. The TV shows a short code and a QR. You pay on your phone and the TV picks it up on its own. The licence is then verified on the device rather than against a server, so a bad night for our host is never a night you cannot watch television.
Nothing is on sale yet. Until a checkout opens, install it and the fourteen days start by themselves.
Refunds?
Purchases will be sold by Lemon Squeezy as merchant of record, so a charge, a receipt or a refund is handled by them and their checkout carries the contact details for it. Anything about how the app gates a feature is ours.
Any paid subscription or premium upgrade unlocks application features only; it does not include, or provide access to, any channels, streams, or media content.
Practical
Do I need an account?
There is no account. No email, no sign-in, no password, and nothing to cancel later. The app does not have a user record because there is no server holding one.
What does it collect?
No analytics, no telemetry, no ads, no advertising SDK and no crash reporting service. Watch history, favourites and settings stay in local storage on the device. The full detail is in the privacy policy.
How does household sync work if you have no server?
Your watch progress, favourites and settings are encrypted on the device and stored as an unreadable file in cloud storage you own and control. The key never leaves your own devices. We never receive the file and could not decrypt it if we did. It is optional and off until you turn it on.
Which devices work?
Verified on the Fire TV Stick 4K and the Fire TV Stick 4K Max. Other Android TV devices running Android 6 or newer may work and are untested. TV and remote only: there is no touch support and no phone app.
How do I install it?
Downloader, and the code 2439353. The whole walkthrough is on the install page.
How do I remove it?
Go to Settings › Applications › Manage Installed Applications › Castaway TV and choose Uninstall. Everything the app stored goes with it, and there is nothing to cancel because there was never an account. If sync was on, the encrypted file in your own cloud storage stays yours until you delete it.