Using a VPN on a television has always been harder than it should be. Remote controls are blunt instruments, on-screen keyboards are tedious, and most VPN interfaces were designed with a mouse and keyboard in mind - not a living room. ExpressVPN's latest update to its Apple TV app addresses this gap directly, with a rebuilt home screen, faster access to saved locations, an expanded protocol selection, and a built-in speed test, all available now through the App Store.
Why TV Remains a Stubborn Problem for VPN Design
VPN applications have matured considerably on mobile and desktop platforms over the past decade. Connection toggles are responsive, protocol switching is straightforward, and speed diagnostics are increasingly standard. Television operating systems have lagged behind, partly because VPN providers have historically treated them as secondary platforms, and partly because the interaction model - a remote with a directional pad and a handful of buttons - makes even simple tasks feel cumbersome.
Apple TV, running tvOS, sits in a more capable position than most smart TV platforms. It supports a proper App Store, allows developers to build native applications, and handles background processes reliably. That makes it a viable environment for a full-featured VPN client, rather than the cut-down workarounds users face on platforms that require router-level configuration or manual proxy settings just to get encrypted traffic flowing through the device. Still, even capable hardware cannot compensate for interfaces designed without television use in mind.
What the Update Actually Changes
The redesigned home screen consolidates the controls people reach for most: the connection toggle, the currently selected server location, the active protocol, the most recently used location, and any saved favourites. These elements now occupy a single screen built around the constraints of remote navigation, so the most common actions require the fewest clicks. The visual layout mirrors the iOS app, which matters for users who move between devices - consistency reduces the cognitive overhead of switching contexts.
Favourite locations are not a new feature, but their placement on the home screen is. Previously, accessing a saved location required entering the Locations menu. Now those locations appear as quick-access tiles on the first screen the user sees. For someone who connects to the same two or three servers regularly - a home country location for streaming, a different one for privacy, perhaps a third for a specific service - this removes several steps from what should be a routine action.
The protocol expansion is the more technically substantive change. The app previously offered Lightway, ExpressVPN's proprietary protocol built on the WolfSSL library, alongside an automatic selection mode. The update adds WireGuard and OpenVPN in both UDP and TCP configurations. WireGuard has earned a strong reputation in the VPN industry for its lean codebase, which makes it easier to audit for security vulnerabilities and generally faster to establish connections. OpenVPN is the long-standing standard - battle-tested, widely trusted, and compatible with environments where newer protocols may be restricted or unreliable. TCP mode in particular is useful on networks that block or throttle UDP traffic, as it routes through a transmission mechanism that most firewalls treat permissively. Most users will have no reason to touch these settings manually. Automatic protocol selection handles the decision competently under normal conditions. But the option to intervene matters when a specific network is misbehaving, when a connection stalls without explanation, or when a user has specific reasons to prefer a known protocol over a proprietary one.
The built-in speed test rounds out the update. Rather than relying on a separate browser-based tool or subjective impression, users can now benchmark server performance from within the app. This is directly useful when a streaming connection degrades or a particular server location feels slower than expected - it provides an objective basis for switching rather than guesswork.
The Broader Shift Toward VPN Usability on Living Room Devices
The push to make VPNs functional on televisions reflects a broader shift in how people use these tools. Streaming geography restrictions remain a primary driver of consumer VPN adoption: licensing arrangements mean the same platform frequently offers different libraries in different countries, and location-switching via a VPN is the most common method for working around those boundaries. As more viewing moves to televisions rather than laptops or phones, VPN providers face real pressure to make the television experience match the standard users expect elsewhere.
There are also privacy dimensions worth acknowledging. Smart television platforms collect significant amounts of viewing data by default - automatic content recognition technology, in particular, monitors what is displayed on screen and transmits that data to platform operators and third parties. A VPN does not neutralise this data collection directly, since that traffic often originates from the television's own operating system rather than through a routable tunnel. But for content accessed through apps running over the VPN connection, it does obscure traffic from the internet service provider and encrypts data in transit, which remains meaningful protection on networks where passive surveillance or traffic logging is a concern.
The update is available immediately. Existing ExpressVPN subscribers can apply it through the App Store on their Apple TV device with no additional configuration required.