How to change the city in the TV or Xiaomi: all the ways

Changing the city in Xiaomi devices is a seemingly simple procedure, but it affects a range of functions, from displaying local time and weather to the availability of regional services and content recommendations. Many users find that after buying a Mi TV or Mi Box, the system automatically detects a city with errors, or offers options from another country, in some cases, this leads to incorrect weather widgets, disruptions in the airtime schedule or even blocking individual applications.

In this article, we will look at all the current ways to change a city, from standard settings to hidden methods for devices with limited options. We will focus on the regional restrictions that can arise when you manually select a location, and explain how to avoid typical errors (for example, when the list of cities is empty or the system returns old data). If you are using Xiaomi Mi TV 4A/4S/5 Pro, Mi Box S or other models on Android TV, the instructions below will suit all of them with minor differences in the interface.

Why it is important to set up a city in Xiaomi TV

At first glance, the wrong city may seem like a trifle, but in practice, it affects:

• 🌤️ Weather widget – displays data for another region, making the forecast useless.
• ⏰ Time zones – the wrong time zone knocks down schedules of records, alarm clocks and notifications.
• 📺 TV program – on-air channels can show a broadcast grid for another city.
• 🎬 Content recommendations – services like Netflix or Prime Video offer movies that are relevant to another location.
• 🔒 Application availability – some services (e.g, IVI Okko restricts content by region.

In addition, on devices with Google TV (such as Xiaomi TV A2 2026), an incorrect city can block the installation of applications from Google Play if their distribution is geolocated, and in rare cases, this even leads to errors in syncing Xiaomi account.

Method 1: Standard change of city through settings

This is the easiest method that works on most Xiaomi devices with Android TV or Google TV. Suitable for models of Mi TV 4/5/6 series, Mi Box S, Mi TV Stick and others.

Instructions:

1. Open Settings (the gear icon on the home screen or the Settings button on the remote).
2. Go to Device → Date and time (on some models, the path may be System → Date and time).
3. Turn off the option Automatic time zone determination.
4. Select a time zone and manually specify your city from the list. If your city is not, choose the nearest major one (for example, Omsk can be specified instead of Novosibirsk if they are in the same time zone).
5. Save the changes and restart the device (optional, but recommended for settings).

After that, the weather widget and other services have to update the data, and if the city hasn't changed, check if the settings have gone wrong after the reboot - sometimes the system returns an automatic determination.

Method 2: Change the region through a Google account

If the standard method didn’t work, the problem could be with a Google account, and many users don’t know that Google’s regional profile settings override the device’s local settings, especially for Mi Box and Google TVs.

To change the region in your account:

1. On your computer or smartphone, open myaccount.google.com.
2. Go to the Personal Data section → Home address.
3. Update your country and city. If your city isn't on the list, pick the nearest major city.
4. Save the changes and wait for the synchronization (can take up to 24 hours).
5. On Xiaomi TV, log out of your Google account and log in again.

Important: When you change region to Google, some apps (like YouTube TV or Google Play Movies) may temporarily restrict access to content, and this may affect the payment methods associated with your account.

Method 3: Manual editing of configuration files (for advanced ones)

On some Xiaomi firmware (especially older models or custom builds), the city and region are stored in system files that can be edited manually.This method requires ADB access and command line knowledge, so it is only suitable for advanced users.

Step-by-step:

1. Activate USB debugging on your TV: Go to Settings → About TV. Find the Build Number and click on it 7 times until the message "You're a developer" appears. Go back to Settings → For developers and turn on ADB debugging.

USB

CMD

Terminal

adb connect [IP- TV address]:5555


adb shell




su




setprop persist.sys.timezone Europe/Moscow # Replace with your time zone (list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tz_database_time_zones)




setprop persist.sys.locale ru-RU # Local (for example, ru-RU for Russia)




reboot

After the reboot, the device must use new regional settings. If the commands do not work, check root rights (some firmware requires unlocking the bootloader).

💡

Before editing system files, back up your current settings with the adb backup -apk -obb -shared -all -f backup.ab command. This will help restore data in case of an error.

Method 4: Reset to factory settings (if nothing helps)

If all previous methods failed, the last thing you can do is completely reset the device, which will delete all user data, but it will return the region settings to the "out of the box" state, and after resetting, you can re-specify the city when you first set up.

How to reset Xiaomi TV or Mi Box:

1. Open Settings → Device → Reset (or Settings → System → Reset).
2. Choose Delete all data (sometimes called Restore Factory Settings).
3. Confirm the action and wait for the process to be completed (it will take 5-10 minutes).
4. After the reboot, go through the initial setting by specifying the correct city in the region selection phase.

If the problem persists, use ADB to manually specify the time zone (see Method 3).