Meet Estuary and Estouchy, The New Default Skins for Kodi 17 and Beyond

I’ve only known XBMC / Kodi since the open source media center started to show up on ARM based Android and Linux mini PCs around the mid of 2012, and in most devices the default skin called Confluence was used with Kodi/XBMC. It has been used as the default since 2009, and Kodi developers have decided a refresh would be good for Kodi 17 Krypton which will feature two new skins: Estuary for media players and HTPCs, and Estouchy for devices with a touchscreen such as smartphones and tablets.

Estuary - Click to Enlarge
Estuary – Click to Enlarge

Estuary does away with the horizontal menu found in Confluence, and instead moves the main menu options to the left. Several widgets have also been added for movies and TV including Random, Recently added, In progress and, Random, and similar options are available for Music too.

The media library has also changed the way it displays movies and TV show information, and if the default color is not your preferred choice, you’ll be able to easily change the background color to orange, green, gray, etc… Find out more about Estruary in the trailer video.

Estouchy looks quite similar, but designed for touchscreens, and with a little less features due to the smaller screen size.

Estouchy - Click to Enlarge
Estouchy – Click to Enlarge
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11 Comments
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marios
8 years ago

the on screen keyboard looks nice

LioricZ3
LioricZ3
8 years ago

The xbmc/kodi devs don’t get it (and probably never will). Its obvious they don’t understand what a fluid user experience is, nor how they can implement it graphically (and not even mention about a “pleasant” UI) Incoherent behavior, some things via menus, others via dialog boxes, other via endless levels of list after list, others via controls that slide from the side, and not only that but laid out in a way to make it the more annonyingly possible experience for the user I (seriously) tried several times to like kodi, but there is no way, after all the unstability,… Read more »

Bogolisk
Bogolisk
8 years ago

Is there a backport of Estuary to Kodi 15?

Jay
8 years ago

Check out AeonMQ6. It’s already what Estuary looks like, a bit heavy on resources though.

Phil Freeman
Phil Freeman
8 years ago

@LioricZ3

A TV can be both a monitor for a computer and a media device, so I’m afraid that it is you that doesn’t get it.

Harley
Harley
8 years ago

@LioricZ3 Well you are a troll when post like than instead of a contructive manor, which btw should be done on the Kodi community forum instead of on some blog which is not affiliated with team Kodi. There are dozens and dozens of skins by other independent skinners for Kodi, so you can change to a different skins if you don’t like the default skins made by Team Kodi members. Kodi is open source with a very flixible GUI layout engine, so the answer obviously is that you should just create a skin for Kodi on your own and then… Read more »

mdel
mdel
8 years ago

well it’s about time they dump confluence

@Harley
i believe that LioricZ3 like many basic users (yeah my turn to troll), cannot stomach having to actually do something to get a “good” experience with their toy.

And i must say, keeping confluence as the default skin for so long has probably been one reason why people would be turned down by Kodi.
But LioricZ3 should also know that you can do much much worse as a media interface and many established industry leaders don’t shy away from doing so !

Oded
8 years ago

Esturay is looking nice, but it has problems: 1. The large progress block in “paused view” at the bottom of the page hides subtitles. 2. LazyTV for some reason is incredibly slow under Estuary (works fine after I changed back to confluence) 3. The new “settings” process, with a button that takes you to a menu to access audio or video settings is needlessly long, and also causes the confluence skin to break – so even if it is not removed, it is no longer usable 🙁 4. The flat bright cyan everywhere really hurts my eyes. I wish there… Read more »

James Wilson
James Wilson
8 years ago

How do you get estuary ?

Khadas VIM4 SBC