Kodi 18 on Android TV will have voice search and recommendations

Kodi on NVIDIA Shield TV
Kodi on NVIDIA Shield TV (Image credit: Android Central)

Kodi 17 Krypton hasn't been officially around for long but work is already well underway on the next release. Version 18, Leia — named after everyone's favorite princess — is in the development stage right now and the dev team has given us a sneak peek at what's headed to Android TV: Voice Search and recommendations.

It's a neat addition that makes Kodi even better to use on Android TV as your central media center. So far you've had to go inside the Kodi app to find content, but with Leia, you'll be able to speak into your remote and find it in a flash. Content found within Kodi will be displayed alongside other sources such as Google Play and Plex.

The other nice new feature coming specifically to Android TV is recommendations. On your home screen you'll now get recommendation tiles based on random unwatched movies in your collection and recently watched TV shows that have new episodes available. With a single click you're straight into Kodi and ready to go.

The video up top gives you a full run through of what you can expect when version 18 hits, but if you're keen to take a look right now, you can. Head over to the Kodi downloads page and grab the latest nightly build of Leia to install on your Android TV and try it out for yourself.

Richard Devine