This is a translation of a foreign article, so there may be mistranslations.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/01/inside-nvidias-10-year-effort-to-make-the-shield-tv-the-most-updated-android-device-ever/

Shield TV's 10-Year Effort, Support Won't Stop Going Forward: New Hardware Possibilities Open

Interview with Andrew Bell, Vice President of Hardware Engineering at Nvidia

"It might sound a bit selfish, but we made Shield for ourselves." Ryan

It took a very long time for Android device manufacturers to commit to long-term update support. Samsung and Google only recently decided to provide seven years of updates for flagship Android devices, but just ten years ago, even the most expensive Android phones or tablets were lucky to receive just one or two updates. So how is an Android-based set-top box released in 2015 still thriving?

Nvidia released the first Shield Android TV in 2015, and according to Andrew Bell, the company's vice president of hardware engineering, supporting these devices was a 'labor of love.' And the Nvidia team still loves Shield. Bell asserts that even when support for Shield appeared to wane, Nvidia never gave up, and has no plans to stop anytime soon.

The Soul of Shield

Gaming was central to Nvidia from the start, and that focus gave birth to Shield. Bell, who has worked at Nvidia for 25 years, said, "Almost everyone who worked at early Nvidia genuinely wanted to make a gaming console."

But Nvidia didn't have what it needed at the time. Before gaming, cryptocurrency, and AI turned Nvidia into the trillion-dollar company it is today, Nvidia had a startup spirit and budget to match. When the conception of the Shield device began at the company's research lab, it was seen as an important way to gain experience with 'full-stack' systems and all the complex issues that come with managing them.

Bell explained, "Making a gaming console was quite complex. Of course, we needed a GPU that we knew how to make." "But beyond that, we also needed a CPU, an OS, games, and a UI."

Through acquisitions and partnerships, Nvidia's legendary gaming console pieces gradually fell into place. In 2007, by acquiring PortalPlayer, Nvidia secured the CPU technology that would become the Tegra ARM chip, and thanks to rapid success in the GPU field, was able to establish the partnerships needed to secure games. But the UI was still missing. This didn't change until 2014 when Google expanded Android to TV. The company's first Android mobile attempts had already been released in the form of Shield Portable and Shield Tablet, but what Nvidia really wanted was a box that connected to the TV.

Bell told Ars Technica, "It might sound a bit selfish, but we made Shield for ourselves." "We wanted a really good TV streamer with high quality and performance without being in the Apple ecosystem. We made a few prototypes and were so excited. [CEO Jensen Huang] said, 'What about releasing this and selling it to people?'"

The first Shield box in 2015 had a strong gaming focus that encompassed both local and cloud-based (GeForce Now) gaming. The base model only included a game controller, and the remote was sold separately. According to Bell, Nvidia eventually realized that the gaming aspect wasn't as popular as expected. The Shield refresh models in 2017 and 2019 focused more on the streaming experience.

Bell conveyed, "In the end, we said, 'Maybe the soul of this device is a streamer for gamers.'" "We understand gamers through GeForce, and we know they care about quality and performance. Many third-party devices like tablets and set-top boxes were going the budget route. But we were the only company that said, 'Let's target people who really want a premium experience.'"

And Shield was truly premium. Even years after its launch, it provides a level of audio and video support not found on other TV boxes. Shield TV started at $200 in 2015, and the price you still have to pay to buy the Pro model today is still the same. However, Bell mentions that the driving force behind bringing Shield TV to market was passion. The team didn't know if it would make money, and in fact, on initial production runs they lost money with each sale. The 2017 and 2019 refreshes were intended to address this profitability issue while emphasizing Shield's streaming media capabilities.

Passion for Product Support

Update support is essential for internet-connected devices. The same goes for phones, tablets, set-top boxes, and anything else. When updates stop, the device falls out of sync with platform features, new bugs emerge (that will never be fixed), and security vulnerabilities arise that can affect safety and functionality. The support warranty period attached to a device is basically equivalent to that device's shelf life.

"As consumers who buy phones or tablets, we've all been frustrated with devices being updated just once or twice and then that's it!" Bell said. "In the early stages of making Shield TV, we decided to make this for a long time. We had a conversation with Jensen, and when I asked 'How long do you want to support this?', Jensen answered 'For as long as we shall live.'"

In 2025, NVIDIA celebrated 10 years of Shield platform support. Even the original box launched in 2015 is still being maintained through bug fixes and occasionally added new features. It has been updated from Android 5.0 to Android 11 in the meantime. No Android device—not a single one across phones, tablets, watches, and streaming boxes—has ever come close to this level of support.

The best example of NVIDIA's passion for support is, believe it or not, a 2-year gap in which there were no updates.

Over the course of dozens of Shield TV updates, there were several times when fans worried that NVIDIA had abandoned the box. Especially in 2023 and 2024, there were no public updates for Shield TV, but in 2025, over-the-air (OTA) updates resumed.

Bell explained, "To the outside, it may have seemed like we went quiet, but in fact, it was one of our biggest development projects."

Surprisingly, the origin of that effort goes back to the time of Nintendo Switch's launch. Shield uses NVIDIA's custom Tegra X1 Arm chip, the same processor that Nintendo chose in 2017 for powering the original Switch. Shortly after launch, modders discovered a chip flaw that bypassed Nintendo's security measures and enabled homebrew (and piracy). An updated Tegra X1 chip (also used in the 2019 Shield refresh model) solved this issue for Nintendo, but NVIDIA's 2015 and 2017 Shield boxes were using the same vulnerable version of the chip.

Initially, NVIDIA was able to deploy regular patches to defend against the security vulnerability, but by around 2023, Shield needed more than that. At that time, owners of 2015 and 2017 Shield models discovered that DRM-protected 4K content often wouldn't play. This was due to the same bug that had affected the Switch years before.

With new products free of vulnerabilities on the market, many companies might have simply accepted the loss of functionality in older products. But NVIDIA's passion for Shield remained the same. Bell consulted with Jensen Huang (whom he calls NVIDIA's #1 Shield customer) about what the promise of "for as long as we shall live" meant, and the team received approval to spend all the time needed to fix the vulnerabilities in the first and second generation Shield TV.

According to Bell, it took about 18 months to resolve because they had to build a completely new security stack. He explained that the Android update itself was not as big of a task compared to DRM security, and added that some partners weren't too keen on re-certification of older products. The Shield team felt they had to keep the promise to customers who bought the box expecting certain features, so they fought to the end.

In February 2025, NVIDIA released Shield Patch 9.2, a broad rollout after 2 years. The changelog included a humble one-liner: "Added security enhancements for 4K DRM playback." It meant that the Tegra X1 bug was finally resolved on 2015 and 2017 Shield boxes.

The refresh version of the Tegra X1+ in the 2019 Shield TV was free from these DRM issues, and NVIDIA has still not stopped working on that chip. The Tegra X1 was incredibly fast back in 2015, and compared to today's average smart TV, it's still quite performant. The chip has actually outlived several components needed for manufacturing. For example, when the memory for the Tegra chip was discontinued, the team immediately set about validating a new memory supplier. Even today, NVIDIA continues to iteratively improve the Tegra X1 platform and support continuous updates for Shield.

Bell said, "When operations reaches out to say that a part has run out, we immediately put engineers on it tonight to find a new part."

The Future of Shield

Nvidia has kept its promise by supporting all versions of Shield for so long. But it's been over six years since new hardware was released. Isn't the Shield starting to run out of steam?

Bell says no. Because people are still buying Shields, Nvidia is still producing the 2019 Shield. In fact, sales volume has remained largely unchanged over the past decade. The Shield Pro is a high-priced set-top box at $200, so Nvidia tried price cuts and promotions, but the effect was minimal. The non-Pro Shield in 2019 was one such effort. The base model was originally priced at $99, but the MSRP eventually settled at $150.

Bell explained, "No matter how much we lower the price or do marketing, a certain number of people show up every week and buy Shields."

This consistency is significant for Nvidia. Bell says that Nvidia has "no plans to discontinue" Shield production or updates "anytime soon." He also said that the possibility of Nvidia releasing new Shield TV hardware in the future remains open. Nvidia's Shield devices were born from engineers in the research lab tinkering with new concepts, but most of those experiments never saw the light of day. For example, Bell said his team had created several updated versions of a Shield tablet and a Shield Portable (some of which can be seen circulating on eBay), but they were never officially released, and he mentioned that work on Shield TV continues.

"We're always playing around in the lab to discover new things," Bell said. "We've been trying out new concepts for Shield and will continue to do so. If we find something really exciting, we'll probably push it forward."

So what might a new look be like? Video technology has advanced since 2019, and the current Shield doesn't fully utilize some of the latest formats. The priority would be to add support for VP9 Profile 2 hardware decoding, which enables HDR video on YouTube. Bell said that a refreshed Shield would prioritize the AV1 format and HDR 10+ standard, and would also include support for the latest Dolby Vision profiles for those with personal media collections.

And there's the giant Netflix button on the remote, which is too easy to press by mistake. If adding new video technology is the first task, then fixing the Netflix button would be the second task in a theoretical new Shield. According to Bell, Nvidia doesn't receive any money from Netflix for the large button. In fact, it was added due to the requirements of Netflix's certification program, which was very strong in 2019. He thinks that Nvidia could compromise with a smaller "N" button in a refreshed model.

But does Bell think he'll get the chance to make a new Shield TV with a smaller Netflix button? While he didn't predict the future, there was definitely interest.

"We always talk about it—I really want to do that too."

▶ Source: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/01/inside-nvidias-10-year-effort-to-make-the-shield-tv-the-most-updated-android-device-ever/