In August, Nvidia confirmed that it was going to skip the Android 10 update for the Shield TV lineup. A few months later, we learned that the company was beta testing a new version of Nvidia Shield Experience 9.0 based on Android 11. While the company didn’t share many details about the new update at the time, but it appears it will soon be making its way to Shield TV devices.

Last week, Nvidia released recovery images for Nvidia Experience 9.0.0. The company has since removed the images from its website but it appears the links are still working, meaning you can try out the new software right now ahead of the stable rollout. Shield Experience 9.0.0 based on Android 11 will be available for the Shield TV 2019 Pro, Shield TV 2019, Shield TV 2017, Shield TV Pro 2015, and Shield TV 2015.

Shield TV 2019 running Shield Experience 9.0.0

If you own any of the above devices and would like to try out the new update, we have provided recovery images below for you to manually install the update. Note that you'll need a PC with Fastboot and ADB binaries installed in order to flash the update. For step-by-step instructions on how to enter Fastboot mode on your Shield TV and flash a recovery image, check out Nvidia's documentation.

Download Shield Experience 9.0.0 recovery image for your Shield TV

The new update is based on Android TV 11 and includes September 2021 security patches. Nvidia hasn't shared an official changelog for Shield Experience 9.0.0, so we don't know about what new features and user-facing changes the latest update has to offer.

As far as Android TV 11 changes are concerned, Nvidia Shield TV owners can look forward to many improvements including native support for controllers like the Nintendo Switch Pro, Steam Controller; low latency media decoding, a new Tuner Frame Framework, and more.

We don’t know when Nivida plans to roll out Shield Experience 9.0.0 to the Shield TV lineup. But considering that the recovery images are out now, it shouldn’t be too far away.