Just got my nvidia shield tv- I have to say I was really disappointed at how terrible the initial experience was. I'm a pretty tech saavy guy, this is my 6th android device. I have an Android phone and tablet, both of which had fairly smooth onboarding processes.

I plugged the device directly into my router with an ethernet cable and turned it on. Ok, immediately I had a problem- the controller had arrived uncharged. I actually happen to have a programmable harmony remote that works with the shield so I was able to use that instead for the setup.

Next, it made me have to pair my device with a google account- I tried to use the "phone or computer" pin method. I tried with several different devices (a mac, another android phone), all connected to the same router, and every time it said it couldn't find my tv. I even tried restarting the nvidia shield not ethernet connected to the router and connecting via wifi, in case that would somehow make a difference, nothing worked.

So instead I switched to the method of entering my password- which I was really loathe to do- I have a custom google domain, and a very long, secure password which was agonizing to enter into the soft keyboard using a third party remote. Then, it told me I had to enter my 2-factor auth code, and the dialog didn't even work! It was a web view with no keyboard. I googled and found that this is actually a common issue with other people with 2fa on their account. FORTUNATELY, that forum also suggested a work around, which is to use a one time app password .

So that finally worked.

Now that it's set up I'm pretty happy with the device- it's my Plex/Netflix/HBO Go machine and I'm going to play around with the games later. But I just needed to vent about how horrible my out of the box experience was, and hopefully this helps anyone else who runs in the same issue jump straight to the one time password solution.