AndroidTV Autoplay Hulu Series where you left off

Configuration
1

I was looking at how to get an script to start playing a hulu series on my android tv based Chromecast with Google TV.

I found a lot of incomplete information about using adb to start com.hulu.livingroomplus/.WKFactivity . All the information I found was suggesting the use of the VIEW intent. Which will autoplay an episode, but not a series. Instead it will just take you to the series page. There were suggestions about pressing the center button with adb after it loaded. But this didn’t reliably work either. GoogleTV is able to launch hulu and play the series right away without any shenanigans. So I knew there had to be an intent that would work properly.

With some adb commands, dumping the manifest from the hulu apk, and a mostly unrelated reddit post I’ve discovered the correct intent and data to send to start and autoplay a series on hulu.

adb shell am start -n com.hulu.livingroomplus/.WKFactivity -a hulu.intent.action.PLAY_CONTENT -e content_id bobs-burgers-fdeb1018-4472-442f-ba94-fb087cdea069

The content id is just from the url, https://www.hulu.com/series/bobs-burgers-fdeb1018-4472-442f-ba94-fb087cdea069

I couldn’t find this info anywhere, so I’m posting it here in hopes that someone else searching for it won’t have to dive into the adb docs and get a lucky hit on reddit to autoplay a series.

Also is there a simpler way to launch a hulu series on androidtv?

2

I just wanted to drop in and thank you for this. It was exactly what I was looking for. And i mean exactly - I wanted to create a button to play the next episode of Bob’s Burgers, and you delivered in spades.

3

I’ve been down the rabbit hole of adb commands, too, so I can totally relate. Kudos for your detective work in finding that intent! It’s awesome how you pieced things together and got the autoplay working. Sharing your solution here is a real lifesaver for folks like me who might stumble upon this challenge. I would also like to share this guide - how to watch Hulu in Saudi Arabia. I hope you find it handy.