If you’ve bought an Android box, or really any other streaming device, you’ll already know one important thing.

They don’t come with a manual.

They might…IF YOU’RE LUCKY come with a little leaflet that explains where to put the cables, but that’s usually it.

It’s the same thing if you have a PC. It’s easy to find someone who’ll sell it to you, but it’s up to you to figure out how to use it on your own.

Consider this your Android TV Box setup instruction manual. 🙂

Step 1: How to hook it up

This is the fun part. Ripping open the box and hooking everything up.

Really, I love this part. This is where you’re still excited about getting cutting the cord and getting a new toy.

So let’s go over really briefly how to hook up your new Android box or streaming device.

It’s only two connections really – three in some cases.

First is the HDMI cable. There’s usually one in the box. If not, you can find one on Amazon here. Don’t get fooled into buying some super expensive, shielded HDMI cable with gold plated connectors for $50 or $100. Just stop.

Find the Amazon Basics cable for however long you need it and you’re done. You shouldn’t pay more than $1 per foot for the cable. If you have a lot of corners that you have to squeeze around or an angry cat that likes to chew wires, then and only then opt for a braided cable. Otherwise, cheap is good.

Second is the Ethernet cable. This one is optional. You can go wireless and that’s OK. Ethernet is faster and if you’re going to be streaming 4K, then you need all the speed (bandwidth) you can get. If you have the option, go wired Ethernet. If that’s not an option, you can still go wireless.

Personally, I like to get a flat ribbon Ethernet cable. They take up less space and you can hide them easier. There’s no difference in performance. As long as you go with at least Cat 5e, then you’ve essentially future-proofed your wiring.

The final connection is the easy one. Power. Find an outlet and plug it in. Just don’t overload your power strip and set the house on fire.

Step 2: Choose your network

Before you can do anything else, you need to connect to the Internet.

Some manufacturers make you chose how you’re connecting the device before you even get to the home screen. If I’m being honest, I think that’s the way to go and more manufacturers should do it that way.

If yours doesn’t, then you’re going to need to do it manually.

Head on over to the Settings screen and click on Network. From there you’ll be able to turn on Ethernet or Wi-Fi and select your network.

Step 3: Add your Google account

Once you’ve hit the power button for the first time, the first thing you should do is enter in your Google account.

Why?

This starts the process of updating any preinstalled apps and syncing any data you want to have follow you from device to device.

For those of you that are super-protective of your privacy and don’t want any of your data on your Android box, that’s OK too.

Just create a different Google account specifically for this box. You’re going to need to do this to download any apps from the Google Play Store and get updates.

If you’re really dead-set against including any personal information on your device, you can skip this step and go straight to…

Step 4: Install the Aptoide App Store

Aptoide TV is an alternative Android app store that has a ton of different apps to choose from.

Even if you mostly use the Google Play Store, Aptoide gives you access to a bunch of different apps that Google may not like. For example, if Google and Amazon are fighting (like they normally are), you might only be able to find some Amazon apps on Aptoide.

Either way, it gives you more options to choose from. Options are good, right?

Step 5: Get any updates

This is one of the most important steps and its one of the most overlooked.

Update. Your. Device.

Seriously.

This goes for every device you own. Not just the streaming kind.

Manufacturers come out with security updates and feature updates constantly. If you’re not updating your devices, you’re missing out.

Worse still, you’re putting your system at risk.

So I’ll warn you now, getting updates is different for every device. It’s usually found in an app, but it could be buried deep in the settings screen. It just depends on how the manufacturer sets up the device.

Here are some of the more popular places that they’ll make you go to update the device:

• In the Settings menu under About there is usually an option for System Upgrade. On the NVIDIA Shield TV you can also set system upgrades to auto-download when available from this screen.
• In the All Apps tab you’ll probably find apps called something like System Update or Update & Backup or simply Updater.

Step 6: Google Play apps

Now that the system updates are done, here comes the fun part.

Let’s get some apps.

You can install apps in both the Google Play Store or the Aptoide TV app store in much the same way.

No matter which one you decide to use, you should double check that your existing apps have all been updated. Hopefully we started the process earlier when you entered your Google account information, but let’s double check.

For the Google Play Store

Open the Google Play Store and click on the three horizontal bars in the upper left hand corner. This will open the side menu. You’re going to want to click on My Apps & Games.

This pulls up a list of all of your installed apps and will tell you right away if there’s any updates available. If so, go ahead and click on Update All. This will probably take a few minutes do download and install everything, depending on how many apps came pre-installed.

Personally, I don’t want to be bothered doing this ever again, so I set the apps to update automatically whenever there’s a new version.

Back on the side menu (click the three horizontal bars again) you’ll see a Settings section near the bottom. Click on that.

Under the General tab, you’ll see Auto-Update Apps. Inside there you’ll get a couple of different options to turn auto-update off completely, only update via Wi-Fi or to update at any time. I enable Auto-update apps at any time. Now you never have to worry about if you’ve got the latest version of an app or not.

For the Aptoide TV app store

If using Aptoide TV is more your thing, then it’s easy to keep things updated as well. Aptoide TV has a cool feature that lets you see how many updates are available as soon as you open the app.

On the side menu, scroll down to My Apps and you may see a little red circle with a number in it. In my case, it says ‘5+’. That means I’ve been slacking and I have more than five apps that need to be updated.

A quick swipe to the right and I can see exactly which apps they are and also have the option to update them all at the same time.

Step 7: Setup a VPN

If you want to keep your streaming private…

If you want to get access to content anywhere in the world…

Then you need a VPN.

Seriously. It’s not something you should play around with any more – especially if you’re streaming from a source that you’d prefer authorities not know about.

There are a LOT of different options if you’re looking for a VPN for streaming. Personally, I use IPVanish.

No VPN is perfect – and Ill argue with anyone who tries to tell you differently.

But, what I like about IPVanish is that it lets me (in the US) stream content from other countries (like Canada) and lets my fiancée who is overseas stream content from the US.

This is what I believe: No company should limit what I can watch just because of where I live.

A VPN lets me get around their limitations. For me, that’s well worth a couple of dollars a month.

Android TV box setup next steps

So where do you go from here?

I deliberately didn’t mention anything about Kodi or Plex in this new version of my Android box Setup Guide. That’s a whole other setup guide.

Here’s a couple of suggestions for what to do next:

• How to setup Kodi…the right way
• Kodi VPN crash course: Do I need a VPN for Kodi?
• Cord cutting guide: What’s the best streaming service?
• How to do 4K streaming the right way

No matter what…enjoy the ride!