I'd love to have greater control over the software stack on my TV, but what you're describing seems awfully overwrought.
It’s in the settings of SmartTube under the name "remote control"
Edit: fine, you all convinced me. The very first thing it did on the very first video I played was "sponsor block," jumping over 30 seconds of a video that didn't contain any sponsored material. Fantastic stuff.
The video in question was the new Technology Connections video about freeze dryers.
Sponsorblock is amazing, as it lets you skip not only sponsored segments, but so much more: intros, self promotion, non essential parts of videos, and tons of other things.
As for SponsorBlock, it'll block all kinds of things. It's up to you, the user, to not expect software to read your mind, and to learn how your software works so you can configure it the way you want. With SmartTube, you can configure the SponsorBlock functionality to only skip things you want skipped, and not skip things you don't want skipped (such as intros, outros, self-promotions, etc.), or you can even just turn it off altogether if you want. It's really quite simple.
If you've got an Android TV (natively, or a TV) then this is a great UX for finding and playing youtube content directly on the TV, no mobile device needed.
It also has a bunch of improvements over using the Youtube app on your phone - Adblocking, and Sponsor Blocking being two major benefits.
I was until recently paying for Youtube Premium and it was getting increasingly frustrating trying to watch most content for the number of intrusions into the content. From "This video brought to you by <the same 30 vpn/site builder/audiobook> companies" to "Hey, just to interrupt - do you know that 90% of people don't subscribe to this channel?"
Putting SmartTube on the device took about 15 minutes, most of that was finding a browser that would let me download a file without showing a million ads.
I just followed the instructions on the webpage, after installing the "Downloader" app from the Play Store. The hardest part was entering the SmartTube URL into Downloader using the on-screen keyboard and TV remote control. Kind of a pain, but totally worth it. After that, the SmartTube app can be updated inside the app easily.
SmartTube lets you watch YouTube without the ads or sponsor segments, and without messing with other devices. You just start the app, and use the TV remote control to navigate and select and play videos.
If this SmartTube thing is anything like Invidious, then it will work great until it falls flat on its face, and then I'll have to spend an hour figuring out if my stuff is broken or if SmartTube is broken. It will inevitably be SmartTube, and I'll have to have this conversation with my wife:
"Why isn't the TV working?"
"oh you have to use the normal YouTube app for a while, the other thing broke"
"oh, can you fix it?"
"I can't, we have to wait for someone else to fix it"
"When will it be fixed?"
"No idea."
And then, 2 weeks later, it'll start working again, but it will be extremely unreliable, and we'll both find it so annoying that we'll both stop using it. I did this shit with Invidious, I did this shit with my own fork of Signal, etc etc. I have enough needy computers, I don't need my TV to become another one.
Obviously, you haven't tried it. Any moron could use SmartTube, it's no more difficult than the official client (probably easier, in fact).
The initial setup is probably a bit beyond a typical totally non-technical person unless they're dedicated enough to just read the directions (most people these days aren't), but once it's installed, it's a breeze.
>"oh you have to use the normal YouTube app for a while, the other thing broke"
This happens from time to time because YouTube makes some change which breaks things. In my two years of usage, every time this has happened, there was already an update waiting for me in the main menu. I just applied the update and all was well again.
I've only been using SmartTube about a year and YT changes have caused it to (partly) break only once in that time and all I needed to do was update to the latest version (which is one-click inside the app itself) and it was fixed. Also, I was a several months out of date on versions and the fixed version had been available for weeks already.