Looking for a remote that will work with an Apple TV

I have recently increased my usage of my AppleTV and the remote is driving me crazy. Can anyone recommend a compatible remote?

Use your iPhone?

Hi Betty!

Use an iOS device and run the remote app on it. It works very much the same but gives you a keyboard when doing search.

HTH,

Dave

We published an article about one such remote back in October.

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Thank you Adam. That’s exactly what I’m looking for.

Thanks again!!!

The Function101 remote is quite good and solves a lot of the design flaws of the Apple TV remote. But note that there are a couple occasionally used functions that the Apple remote does that the Function101 one won’t, so you’ll still need to keep the original around.

Glenn may have mentioned this in the review. None the less, it’s a small price to pay for a more functional remote that works for 98% of what you need it to do.

And my original order got a little messed up (they charged me but didn’t ship due to an internet glitch) and the Function101 customer support was very responsive and helpful. Quality all around.

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I received the function101 remote yesterday and it is working great.

Thank you and thanks to Adam.

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I purchased the Function101 off of Tidbits’ review, too. I like it but would LOVE it if the buttons would illuminate like the Xfinity Remote does when I pick it up. In a dark room, it is hard to remember which button does what!? :wink:

I use my Harmony remote. While my model is no longer made any IR based model will work. Occasionally I miss the touchpad and Siri. I also use my iPhone’s Remote Control app at times for scrubbing.

We use our Harmony remote as well. There are full integrations for it, so it shows up as another device and is easily integrated into an activity like “Watch Apple TV”.

Logitech discontinued its entire Harmony line last spring, and it appears the market for universal integrated remotes has collapsed because of cable-cutting and streaming. Logitech claims they will support the Harmony cloud infrastructure indefinitely, and I have no reason to doubt it because they have kept their Logitech Media Server alive for the Squeezebox/Ultimate Ears platform for the past 5 years since they pulled out of that market.

If you were able to find their remotes on secondary markets, they will still work and they do what’s needed for Apple TV.

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Wow! Are you able to still connect and sync the Harmony? My life has been an “adventure” since mine will not work anymore. Which model are you using? I have Apple TV and Sony components and they do not even talk to each other well. HDMI is supposed to control things, but I have been on the phone with Sony support so many times, I just gave up.

The Apple controller turns the system on (receiver and TV) but I have to use the TV remote to turn everything off.

You should check the CEC settings (Bravia Sync or similar) on the Sony TV and/or receiver to see if it sees the Apple device and if in fact it can control it assuming that is what you want. Some devices on HDMI are not CEC fully capable. For example, when I switch on my DirecTV box, the tv will turn on if it wasn’t and switch to the correct input, but when I turn off the box, the tv stays on and does not switch back to the previous input like other devices do such as a Sony UHD player.

We’re using a Harmony “Elite,” which consists of a hub, a remote with an OLED screen, and it also included a couple of IR “blasters” for behind-cabinet remote IR receivers. While I was checking out the Harmony app in order to respond about connecting and syncing, I found that the hub connects to all our home control hubs (we have Lutron in particular, but it connects to other hubs like SmartThings and Philips).

Yes, it completely does connect, and the only fly in the ointment is for USB-based remotes. The Mac app for configuring those is 32-bit and (say it with me) Logi does not plan to update the app to 64-bit. Same with the Elite and other hub-based remotes, but it does appear that Logi will maintain that for some time to come. They also mention on their Web site that the USB-based remotes can be configured through a Windows computer…so if that’s what you’ve got, Ray, there does still appear to be a supported way to do that.

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CEC is a grab-bag of features that nobody seems to have completely implemented. Most of the time, I find only a few minor features being supported by each device, and they’re not consistent.

For instance, in my personal experience:

  • A Dish Network set-top box will power-on or wake-up an attached TV (tested with an LG and a TCL set) when it powers on, and it will direct the TV to change input sources.
  • But when I turn off that same box, it does nothing to the attached TV. I must power it off or change source on my own.
  • Turning off the TV will cause my (Sony) Blu-Ray player to power off. But no other devices seem to respond to it.
  • Turning on the Blu-Ray player does nothing, but it will tell the TV to change inputs once it starts playing video content from a disc. Turning off the player does nothing to connected devices.
  • At my parents home, if I power-off their Blu-Ray player (also Sony), their TV (Samsung) will automatically switch to the source it was showing before the player was powered on. But the same doesn’t happen on my sets.
  • My Apple TV will tell the connected TV to power-on when it wakes from standby and it will power-off- the TV to sleep when it goes to sleep. Unfortunately, it’s a bit of a pain to change this configuration, so if I want to switch inputs away from the Apple TV, I really can’t turn it off without power-cycling the TV. (But if I ignore it and let it go to sleep while the TV is showing something else, the TV will remain on.)
  • None of my devices send volume control changes to anything else - or if they do, the requests are ignored. I always need multiple remote controls (or a properly configured universal) in order to adjust volume from a device’s remote.

I wish there would be some consistency with how CEC behaves with real-world devices, but so far I have yet to find any. It’s pretty close (but not quite) to the point where I’m going to just disable it altogether and manage each device directly with their separate remote controls.

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I have a Harmony One which was discontinued a few years before Logitech dropped Harmony remotes completely. My setup is simpler than it used to be since I dropped cable and the DVR. Now it is just the TV (plasma, so older) and Apple TV, HomePod Minis, Sony soundbar, and Blue-ray player. 99% of the time it is just TV, Apple TV and HomePod Minis. I keep the soundbar just for the Blue-ray player.

I turned off CEC a while ago because it was mucking up everything. With CEC on the soundbar volume was set to 0. So the Harmony One programming and CEC were conflicting with each other. I’d be tempted to try CEC again whenever I upgrade the TV. I would love to remove the Soundbar completely but the Blue-Ray player needs it, as does the turntable which I have not used for years.