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I use STube (SmartTube) and it's pretty good. It has ad blocking, integrated sponsorblock, various amenities, and support for casting. I think it also works without logging in.
I am not sure if it works on any Android tv or just on Amazon firestick, but the stick is its primary target. You may need to stick to the beta, as google gets more aggressive with ad blocking, it's updated pretty often.
Don't bother with an RPi, it will cost more troubleshooting than it's worth (in this usecase).
Since you're using Android TV already, I'd recommend configuring it to remove the ads via the use of a custom launcher, and install SmartTube Next for an ad-free, account-free YouTube.
In the case of the Hisense TV I picked for my grandparents, I found that Android TV kept wanting to revert to the default launcher, so used Launcher Manager to keep Projectivity Launcher as the default. While you can uninstall system apps via ADB, they tend to come back automatically, making the 'hide app' option of Projectivity Launcher useful to remove bloatware from the menu.
There's also apps that can remap the remote buttons to open custom apps. Couldn't get it to work on the Hisense TV due to there being a glitch with enabling accessibility options, but seemingly it works in most cases. Also note that unless you're able to root the Android TV installation (also couldn't do it for the Hisense TV) and install the SmartTube Bridge app, the Google Assistant button will still try to send all voice commands to the default YouTube app, so voice searches need to be done in the SmartTube app directly.
If you also want movies and TV shows, I'd also recommend installing Stremio with the Torrentio addon. While it needs a paid debrid account to be useful (about 3€ a month in the case of Real-Debrid), it's a suitable catchall replacement for Netflix, Disney+, and other streaming services.
If you are up for self hosting some cool open source software…
I use tubearchivist to automatically download new videos from my subscriptions and then use Jellyfin + the tubearchivist plugin to organize them.
Now all my you tube videos show up as organized, ad free shows on my personal streaming service!
This sounds like something I’d consider for my homelab. Do you mind elaborating more on the pipeline? How does it look like to prune watched content? Or you keep it forever?
I don’t prune my YouTube content, so I don’t have first hand experience, but tubearchivist supports auto deleting content after X time period after it has been watched.
I think if you are watching through Jellyfin rather than tubearchivist, you’ll need to enable synchronization so Jellyfin can synchronize watched status back to Jellyfin.
For those wondering the same but for ios, the “Unwatched” app is my holy grail.
It might help to mention what type of tv you have.
Thx, I've added a bit of clarification to my original post. I've currently got a Android TV, but that may be up for change later this year, so any external solution like a stick or RPi=based solution would be up for consideration as well.
Personally, I hooked up a micro PC to my TV to use it as a giant monitor. I use a small wireless keyboard and mouse to control it from the couch.
Then I use Firefox with uBlock Origin (and Proton VPN) to block ads while I access YouTube from a browser on my TV.
I'm very anti-advertisement, so I don't even watch TV anymore. My TV is a glorified streaming PC; I stream all my shows and movies online and block ads that way. No commercial breaks!
I also built my own Plex media server and ripped all my DVD and Blu-ray discs to it (and even some old VHS tapes!), so I can stream my own media from anywhere; through my phone, tablet, laptop, etc. I primarily use it to watch my movies and TV shows on my living room TV.
I also ripped all my old music CDs to mp3 and added them to Plex, so I now have my own ad-free music I can listen to on the go. I stream it through the Plexamp app on my phone, which I connect to my car's Bluetooth. It's like ad-free radio, except I can play whatever I want to listen to in the moment.