This tutorial will show you how to use the Arctic Zephyr skin on Kodi to show the latest episodes from your shows in Exodus according to your Trakt.tv lists.
Back when I used to use Genesis or SALTS, I primarily used Kodi by browsing the video library with the “library integration” feature that was available in those add-ons. I even wrote tutorials on How to Merge Kodi Streaming Add-ons into the Video Library and how to Sync Genesis TV & Movie Libraries Across Multiple Kodi HTPCs.
However, these days, I’m using Exodus which doesn’t have library integration. The developer of Exodus, lambda, left out the library integration feature on purpose because the tight integration with Trakt.tv is so much better.
I agree with the statement that Trakt.tv is better. However, one feature that I missed by not having library integration was the ability to browse my favorite shows (from a streaming add-on) in the Kodi video library.
Now that I’m using Exodus, my video library is empty and useless.
Well, that doesn’t mean I can’t have an awesome Kodi home screen that dynamically pulls in new episodes from my favorite TV shows as configured in my Trakt.tv account. Here’s a tutorial on how to do it.
Install the Arctic Zephyr Skin in Kodi
It’s in Kodi’s official repository, so you should find it in the “Get more” list when looking at the Skins in Settings > Interface > Skin.
There are some other Kodi skins that support the kind of feature I’m using, but my favorite one is Arctic Zephyr because it just looks so nice and clean and I love the layout of the home screen, especially the Spotlight widget feature we’ll use in this tutorial.
Configure Your Home Menu
Before we dig in to the fun stuff, you should clean up your home menu to only show the menus you want.
When you configure the skin, select “Customize Home Menu” to remove the menu links you don’t need. Then, you might want to set one of your links to point directly to your subscription list page within Exodus. Here are the screens you need to navigate through to find it.
Set The Source of the Spotlight Widget to Exodus New Episodes
Now let’s configure the home screen fallback widget. When in Skin Settings, go to Home and select Fallback Widget. Even if it’s already set to Spotlight, select it again. Choose Spotlight in the popup.
Then, it will have you browse to the page within Kodi that it will use to feed the Spotlight Widget.
We’ll use the New Episodes page in Exodus which gets the most recently aired episodes from your favorite TV shows as configured by your Trakt.tv account.
It might also be a good idea to check the box to allow widget reloading in order to prevent the home screen from showing old information.
Enjoy a Beautiful Kodi Experience
If you go back to your home screen, you should see an awesome shelf of new episodes that looks something like this.
When you go up to select a show, an info panel appears above that showing the episode details. Select it, and the video automatically starts playing (if you have Exodus’ autoplay setting on, that is).
FYI, to get that auto-play feature to work reliably, you should sign up for Real Debrid. it will make your experience pretty flawless avoiding the dreaded dead links.
Also, another thing I recommend to anyone using Kodi to stream is a VPN service. Read my post about the reasons why Kodi streamers need a VPN.
If you have any questions or comments about this tutorial, please feel free to leave them down below. Thanks!
Hi Nathan,
Nice article.
I was trying to install the Artic Zephr skin but don’t seem to be able to find in the standard kodi repository as mentioned in the article. Tried to google it but can’t seem to find this skin. Do you know what happened to it? I don’t know if its available with the kodi version I’m using.
Kodi Version = 16.0
LibreElec = 7.02
RaspBerry PI 3.
Lui, it should still be there. I just checked and I’m still seeing it there. Here’s how to navigate to it…
– Settings
– Add-ons
– Install from repository
– Kodi add-on repository
– Look and feel
– Skins
– Arctic: Zephyr
– Install
Nathan,
That’s the path I took and there is no Arctic: Zephyr skin in the standard Kodi Repository. Is it possible it was taken out for Kodi Version 16.0? Is your version 16?
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/71e6977f71488e84cfbdd45d9ed494f68e7ee4dfea609c5d3172485835d57429.jpg
Same here. I also run Kodi 16 and it is noth there either!
I had to upgrade to Kodi 17 to get Arctic: Zephyr skin. For some reason its available in Kodi 15, and 17 but not Kodi 16.
That’s strange. But glad you were able to get it!
No, I’m using Kodi 17. However, I wonder if it has been pulled because I’ve been seeing messages popup in Kodi occasionally that say there was an error updating the Arctic Zephr skin. I’m still seeing it when I browse the repository, but that might just be because I have it installed.
Can you name some of the other skins offering this? I have been looking for this for months but can’t find a lot about his topic.
I’ve been able to do it with Aeon Nox, but with some modding of the files. But, it was buggy and difficult to get it to work right, and when it does, it doesn’t look quite as nice as Arctic Zephr.
As Lui Di Matteo mentioned, if you upgrade to Kodi 17, you should be able to get Arctic Zephr.
Why can’t you access Kodi favorites in the Zephyr Arctic skin?
You can add a favorites menu item to the main menu.
I just tried adding Artic zephyr and I get a failed message- unable to install a dependency
Are you on Kodi 17.1?
I tried again a couple times, restarted and was going to try again and it was there. Same thing happened on my IPad, a couple attempts with errors, but then worked- thanks, love the set up
Awesome!
I can’t get the menu to have thumbnails or pictures of movies and shows. This is all new to me! Everything I have done so far has been easy….until this skin.
I’ve verified within the past week by doing this exact same setup on another Kodi device. It still works fine. Did you add the fallback widget, pick Spotlight, and then navigate to the folder where you have your recently episodes? Do you have an idea of where you got stuck in the instructions?
Hi,
Can we make it show new episodes in the TV shows section and new movies in the movies section?
Absolutely, instead of the default fallback widget, you can specify different widgets per menu item.
For some reason, I don’t have a cursor for Arctic Zephur
Arctic Zephyr is intended for use with a remote or keyboard, not a mouse. If you prefer a mouse, then you should use a different skin. But, I really love sitting back on my couch and using my Logitech Harmony remote to navigate Kodi.