I connected a TCL TV (running Android TV), it popped up in HA and I configured the integration. I am now the proud owner of the following device:
This is not very exciting. Is there a way to control more things from that TV, such as “switch the TV on, start the France Radio app and select France Inter, set the sound level at 60%”.
This would be truly awesome and would allow for very interesting automations - is something like that possible a way or another?
What @jackjourneyman said, plus this:
PRProd/HA-Firemote: Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, Chromecast, Homatics, NVIDIA Shield, onn., Roku, Xiaomi Mi, and Android TV remote control card for Home Assistant
Thank you @jackjourneyman and @chairstacker for the pointers.
My understanding is that these are hacks or remote emulators but that there is no way to directly address apps on the TV? Or, said differently, a way to directly get the list of apps, and then send requests to these apps (such as the one in my question).
I just want to make sure I understand where I am headed if I want to try to create such automations.
What you are looking for is generally referred to as deep linking. I do not have any Android TVs. But, deep linking is a pretty big thing on Roku devices. Having known that, a quick search found another link you might be interested in.
Hacks! 
No, no, no… These are Home Assistant integrations. This is how Home Assistant works.
Yes you can get lists of apps. Look at Android TV Remote.
No, this is not how HA works. You have integrations that provide to HA devices and entities that can be directly addressed, graphed, …
In the case of Android TV you get a few basic entities (not very useful on their own), and then you are left to hacks (sending codes and whatnot) to maybe access a functionality of Android TV.
This is obviously not a problem with the creators of the integration (thanks to all of them, across all the ecosystem), but with how Android TV is closed and not ready for interaction.
Look at Android TV Remote
The screenshot I provided with my question is from Android TV. Is there something else I missed in the list of exposed entities?
