Routing a TV box through a VPN globally kills local IPTV, breaks Chromecast, pushes smart-home traffic through a foreign exit, and trips DRM on apps that probe geolocation aggressively. With per-app split tunneling on Android TV you mark just the apps you actually need on the VPN — typically YouTube and a couple of streamers — and leave the rest on the LAN.
The TV remote workflow is the unsung challenge. D-pad navigation through a list of apps to toggle the tunnel must be quick and reversible. The QPOL TV client puts the toggle one press from the home screen, with the active state visible in the status overlay. No deep menus, no typing.
A practical pairing tip for TVs: use the share-from-mobile flow to redeem a voucher, instead of typing the code with the on-screen keyboard. The mobile app generates a one-time pair code; the TV client picks it up over the local network (or via the share service); the voucher activates on the TV without anyone typing 32 characters with arrow keys.
Latency matters more on TV than on phones because video streams are sensitive to it. Pick a node that's geographically close. A 30 ms node makes 4K streams fluid; a 200 ms node makes the same content stutter even on great bandwidth.
When something doesn't work — an app refusing to play because it detects "VPN", a stream that won't switch resolution — the answer is usually one of three: switch nodes, exclude the app from the tunnel, or pair with an alternative. The starter balance is sized for exactly this kind of testing without commitment.