THE PERSONAL EDIT 02 / TECH & CURIOSITY
REA — REVERSE ENGINEER ANYTHINGWhat if you could
fix the tech that
annoys you?
My TV used to lag. Then I tried CleanYourTV.
Same hardware. A much better experience.
After: faster to navigate.
Easier to control. Finally.
Tap Before / After to explore an illustration of my experience.
This is not a recording or a speed benchmark.
01 / THE MOMENT IT CLICKED
I changed the experience.
I kept the TV.
Slow navigation. Laggy controls. Small frustrations that kept interrupting something as simple as watching TV.
After I tried CleanYourTV, my television felt faster, easier to navigate and much simpler to control. The lag I’d been experiencing was gone in my everyday use.
The project uses Android’s debugging tools to disable selected preinstalled packages and install a simpler launcher. Its creator describes developing the original cleanup with Claude Code.
That was useful AI, right there in my living room. It made me curious about REA: a tool that helps developers look deeper into how software works.
My TV experience comes from CleanYourTV; I’m not claiming REA powered that cleanup.
Reverse Engineer Anything connects AI coding agents to tools that inspect applications, Android packages, compiled programs and runtime behaviour.
You can ask an agent to investigate a feature and help build a version for your own project. REA supplies evidence from the software; the agent interprets it and helps write the implementation.
“How does this work?
And what could I do with it?”
Testing still matters. Recovering one feature is a different achievement from replacing a whole application.
03 / PUBLIC CODE. REAL POSSIBILITIES.
Okay, so what are
people making?
Three projects that explicitly describe using REA.
A Microsoft utility.
A version of your own.
Hexgrab’s creator studied Microsoft’s PowerToys Color Picker using REA, then built an independent Windows utility: pick a pixel, copy its HEX colour.
The author reports fewer than 750 lines of C# and eight of nine findings fully correct when checked against PowerToys’ public source.
Meet HexgrabA new remote.
The TV you already own.
MiTV-Remote credits REA for studying Xiaomi’s undocumented MiLink protocol from television firmware.
The result: remote-control apps for macOS, Android and iOS. Navigation, volume and text entry, with physical-device and simulated tests documented separately.
Explore MiTV-RemoteSpecific hardware.
New possibilities.
OnlyTCL publishes custom applications, a minimal launcher and optimisation tools for particular TCL Android TV hardware. Its research workflow includes REA.
The author reports improved playback on the targeted setup. That’s a device-specific result, with potential worth investigating.
Look inside OnlyTCL04 / WHY THIS STAYS WITH ME
“I wish this
worked better.”
That sounds like a place to start.
My TV didn’t become a different device. It became easier to enjoy. That small improvement changed how I look at the technology around me.
REA makes the next question interesting: what could we understand, adapt or build if we had better tools to investigate it?
I’m excited to find out.
With curiosity, Sailee
Curious about the evidence? Sources & a little context +
Sources checked on 26 October 2026. Project results are attributed to their authors; I haven’t independently run those projects. My CleanYourTV experience is personal testimony, not a measured benchmark.
- REA: official source & capabilities ↗
- CleanYourTV: project & explanation ↗
- Hexgrab: implementation & findings ↗
- MiTV-Remote: protocol & compatibility ↗
- OnlyTCL: research & reported results ↗
And those Office alternatives? WordCraft, GridCraft and DeckCraft are public projects, but the sources checked don’t establish that REA built them. Their development and compatibility gaps still matter.
Use REA with software you own or are authorised to study. The AI-generated banner and original interface illustrations are conceptual artwork, not product screenshots.