Third Party Remote

[ukms]

Hi All

I use an app on my Apple TV that requires using the Red, Blue, Yellow, Green shortcut buttons.

Can anyone recommend a good quality third party remote that will control the Apple TV and give me these buttons ?

Thanks.

 

[waw74]

if your TV has HDMI CEC, and the TV remote has those buttons, then you should be good to go.

I have an LG, I had configured the port in the TV's connection settings, and they were't working for me, but when I cleared the setting, they worked fine

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Many universal remotes have those 4 "color" buttons on them, all the way down to sub-$10 ones like this one. There are also more deluxe universal remotes that can "learn" commands onto some or all buttons. So even if they lack the 4 color buttons, other buttons could "learn" to be those 4 color buttons. Such remotes can be handy if any link in your own chain doesn't support CEC or CEC doesn't work well with the various components in your own setup. With some programming, such remotes can basically replicate what CEC is supposed to do... as you wish it would do it.

AppleTV can "learn" commands from just about any remote, so your existing remotes have a good chance at working as you wish. If your TV or other remotes have those buttons, use the AUX or similar mode and let your AppleTV learn the button pushes on that remote and then it can be your remote that also controls your AppleTV.

The usual casualty of going with ANY remote other than using Apples (or an iDevice) is you lose Siri voice command capability. So if that is important to you, you need to make the AppleTV remote work- or keep it (or an iDevice) handy for that one use. Personally, I rarely bother with Siri and favor a traditional remote- universal & learn with macros- from Universal Remote Control Inc.

 

[waw74]

Many universal remotes have those 4 "color" buttons on them, all the way down to sub-$10 ones like this one. There are also more deluxe universal remotes that can "learn" commands onto some or all buttons. So even if they lack the 4 color buttons, other buttons could "learn" to be those 4 color buttons. Such remotes can be handy if any link in your own chain doesn't support CEC or CEC doesn't work well with the various components in your own setup. With some programming, such remotes can basically replicate what CEC is supposed to do... as you wish it would do it.

AppleTV can "learn" commands from just about any remote, so your existing remotes have a good chance at working as you wish. If your TV or other remotes have those buttons, use the AUX or similar mode and let your AppleTV learn the button pushes on that remote and then it can be your remote that also controls your AppleTV.

The usual casualty of going with ANY remote other than using Apples (or an iDevice) is you lose Siri voice command capability. So if that is important to you, you need to make the AppleTV remote work- or keep it (or an iDevice) handy for that one use. Personally, I rarely bother with Siri and favor a traditional remote- universal & learn with macros- from Universal Remote Control Inc.

how do you teach the appleTV the color buttons via IR?
to me, it looks like it only asks to learn navigation, volume and power.

as far as I know, the appleTV doesn't support color buttons on IR. Meaning you have to use HDMI-CEC if you want to use them in an app.

Yes, you could program the aTV to responds to the colors on a remote as navigation, but that would be horrible to use, and still won't get the OP what they were asking about. It's not about just pressing the color button on the remote.


I've got one app that supports them, channels DVR, it lets you configure the colors to quickly jump to guide, recorded programs, or any of several different screens in the app. This is on top of using the regular navigation arrow buttons.

in the documentation for channels, looks like you must use CEC or a bluetooth keyboard to get the color buttons. They do mention a couple third party remotes that connect to the appleTV as if they were a bluetooth keyboard. They mention F1-F4 map to the colors in their app, not sure if that would apply to other apps.

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