This one's admittedly more than a bit niche, but it deserves noting just the same. If you use Google's Advanced Protection Program on an account that's tied to an NVIDIA Shield TV, you'll no longer be able to sign in to your NVIDIA Shield TV.
Let's back up a second: Shield TV we know all about , of course. The Advanced Protection Program is newish, however. In a nutshell, it's the strongest consumer-level protection you can add to your Google account. It's meant for journalists and political actors and activists and anyone else whose standing may be high-profile enough to turn them into a ripe target for hackers and other bad actors.
The good news is that this isn't something most people will run into. I, however, am not most people.
Advanced Protection — at least on the user side — is pretty straightforward. You'll still have your Google password. And you'll be forced to use two-factor authentication. (Which you really should be using in some form anyway.) Only now the only second form authentication you can use is a physical hardware key. One of those little USB stick-looking things that you plug in and tap to prove that you're really you (because you registered it with your account in the first place) and that you're really there, logging in. In addition to the USB keys, there also are NFC and Bluetooth options, so it can work pretty seamlessly with your phone.
But it also locks out (what for the sake of simplicity I'll call) third-party Google log-ins. Your mail app on your computer? No more. You're back to using Gmail in a Chrome window. Calendar app? Nope. Chrome window.
And while getting back into your phone — either Android or iPhone, both work just fine — takes just a few seconds, logging in to my NVIDIA Shield TV has been a no-go. Connecting my key via USB doesn't work. It won't connect over Bluetooth. So, that's it. The Shield TV still works — you're just not logged in. That means no app updates. No Google Play access. Chromecast still works, though, so you can watch movies and shows that way.
Now the pool of us who have run into this has got to be pretty small. And to be clear, the Advanced Protection Program probably is overkill for most folks. But that doesn't change the fact that it breaks NVIDIA Shield TV, and that's worth noting. I've let NVIDIA know about it, so hopefully we'll see a fix somewhere down the road.
