Dreamer

Dreamer is a one-time purchase. There is no subscription and there are no ads, now or later: you pay once and get the full app.

Check the Play Store for the exact price in your location.

Dreamer currently shows images from these sources, all free to use under public domain or open licences:

• Wikimedia Commons: featured and quality pictures, mostly nature, animals, fractals and fireworks.
• ESA/Webb: images from the James Webb Space Telescope.
• ESO: the European Southern Observatory.
• NOIRLab: astronomy images from the US National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory.

The images are hosted by these publishers, and each one is credited to its author in the app.

Dreamer currently has these categories:

• Animals: wildlife from around the world.
• Buildings: architecture from around the world, inside and out.
• Clouds: towering storm clouds, glowing sunsets and seas of fog.
• Fireworks: bursts of light over cities, harbours and night skies.
• Fractals: endlessly detailed mathematical shapes, from the Mandelbrot set to 3D renders.
• Minerals: crystals, gems and rocks in close-up.
• Nature: landscapes and natural scenery.
• Space: galaxies, nebulae and other views of the universe.

You can choose which categories to show in the app. More categories and images are added over time.

Dreamer currently includes 171 hand-picked images across 8 categories, all in high resolution.

More images are added over time, and the app picks them up without needing an update.

Dreamer is available in these languages:

• English
• Dutch (Nederlands)
• French (Français)
• German (Deutsch)
• Italian (Italiano)
• Portuguese (Português)
• Spanish (Español)

The app, as well as the titles and descriptions of the images, follows the language of your device and falls back to English if yours isn't listed.

Yes, but they differ in how you enable it. Both run the same Android TV operating system, but Google TV is a newer interface on top of it, and it hides third-party screen savers.

• Android TV (the classic interface, found on many TVs and set-top boxes): fully supported. Go to Settings → Device Preferences → Screen saver and select Dreamer.
• Google TV (such as Chromecast with Google TV or newer Sony Bravia sets): Dreamer works, but it is not listed in the screen saver settings, so you need to enable it with a one-time adb command from a computer. See the next question for the steps.

Not sure which one you have? If your home screen is built around recommendations and rows of content from your apps, it is most likely Google TV. If you can pick Dreamer in the screen saver settings, you don't need the extra steps.

On older Android TV versions, you can simply go to Settings → Device Preferences → Screen saver and select Dreamer.

However, on modern Google TV interfaces (such as Chromecast with Google TV or newer Sony Bravia sets), the native UI filters out third-party screen savers and only shows pre-approved system backgrounds (like Google Photos or Ambient Art), so Dreamer might not be selectable there. You can bypass this limitation by setting Dreamer as the screen saver directly in the secure system settings, using adb (Android Debug Bridge) from a computer:

1. On the TV, open Settings → System → About and tap the build number 7 times to enable Developer options. Then turn on USB debugging (or network debugging) in Developer options.
2. Connect to the TV, e.g. adb connect <tv-ip>:5555, and accept the authorization prompt on the TV.
3. Run these commands:

   adb shell settings put secure screensaver_enabled 1
   adb shell settings put secure screensaver_components be.norio.dreamer/.dream.DreamerDreamService
   adb shell settings put secure screensaver_activate_on_sleep 1

4. Optionally, set how long the TV must be idle before the screen saver starts (here 1 minute, in milliseconds; this applies system-wide):

   adb shell settings put system screen_off_timeout 60000

These settings are changed outside the Settings app, so a factory reset or a major system update may revert them. If Dreamer stops appearing, run the commands again.