Spatial Audio for Apple TV 4K

According to this Apple page, Spatial Audio is available on the following devices:

iPhone 7 or later or one of these iPad models:

iPad Pro 12.9‑inch (3rd generation) and later

iPad Pro 11‑inch

iPad Air (3rd generation)

iPad (6th generation) and later

iPad mini (5th generation)

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211775

Apple TV is not mentioned.

i really hope apple will introduce it on apple TV, even if i need to buy a new one, i love the effect, i understand why it cannot work 100% with current apple TV cos the apple Tv's doesn't have a accelerometers or Gyroscope on them and it doesn't make much sense, but i'm quite confident they could even do some software magic to localise the apple TV more precisely and even if when u turn your head the sound will stay the same, not emulating the real world , i love the added depth of spatial audio and it's a bummer to see it not supported on Apple TV for now... cos most of the time the ideal condition to watch a movie is at home and sometimes you need to wear headphones.. so keep your finders crossed.

It doesn’t follow when you move the iPad. It follows when you move your head. Try it. Start watching facing forward. Keep your head stationary and move the screen to the side. No change. Put it down and move your head. It uses the accelerometer in the AirPods Pro.

I'd gladly forfeit spatial audio on any other Apple device I own but the Apple TV 4K. I enjoy watching movies late at night and don't want to wake the missus. I'm curious as to why Apple has not added the feature or have mentioned nothing about it coming in the future

yeah let's hope apple is working on it, cos in fact the apple TV doesn't need accelerometers or gyro... and yup a sort of " one time calibration " would do the trick, i think it's coming, but not sure if our Apple TV's will get it.. maybe they wait for the next one .. but i do not really see what it can brings to the table... in terms of features...

Almost right. I would say bluetooth 5 is the magic here. Since Bluetooth 5 is capable of establishing multiple connections at the same time, each Airpod is connected to the playing device. It is even possible to track the distance to each connected device and with that data it would be possible to track the movement of the head. So I guess both devices have to have Bluetooth 5 for spatial audio to work. No way around a new apple tv in this case

Confirmed! So really, the only thing keeping Apple from doing spatial audio over AirPods Pro and Apple TV 4K is that they either have not gotten around to it, or they want to save it for AppleTV 8K or whatever they call their next one.

Agreed. I don't care if my mobile device audio is spatial, but it'd be great on my Apple TV 4K and M1 Mac mini. My best guess is that it works with accelerometers in the playback device, and the Apple TV and Macs don't have accelerometers. My hope is that we'll be able to attach an AirTag to our screen and that will tell the headphones where the audio source should be.

I don't know about other people, but my Apple TV 4K doesn't sit anywhere near my screen, much less front-and-center. The relative positioning isn't so important as much as it is uncorking the rest of the audio channels.

The problem is the AirPods doesn’t know where your TV is, so it doesn’t work

I found out however, the only way to enjoy spatial audio on the big screen is to connect your iPad to the TV via HDMI adapter, and place the iPad right in the center just under the TV. One caveat is that the iPad screen has to be on, if you put the iPad screen to sleep the spatial audio will immediately turn off (you can hear immediate difference when you press the power button)

i think you have to adjust the sleep settings to keep it on though, and dial the screen brightness to its lowest.

it’s a little annoying to do it when you’re 8 feet away from the TV, but if you have a desktop large monitor setup, it works fabulously.

Short answer is that while it is not supported, it could be if Apple chose to do so. There are a myriad of ways to achieve it.

At the low tech end, Apple could simply remove the head tracking feature from the spatialization function. It would still be the best spatialization tech on the market other than the $4000 Smyth Realizer.

At the high tech end, there is nothing prohibiting a method to detect where the screen location is....because when one does the pairing, one is looking at the screen!

Somewhere in the middle would be enabling Airplay to send video to the ATV and audio to the Airpod Pros, using methods like the above, or allowing the user to specify the direction of the screen semi-manually ("point the phone at the screen") upon initial use.

as the your tv is not moving, a one time calibration thould do the trick I think

Excluding the AppleTV without a valid reason or alternative is by far the dumbest thing they did in 2020

The Apple TV 4K has BT 5...

Alternatively, you can grab a lightening AV adapter to connect your iPhone (or iPad) to your TV. I just posted a video showing this. https://youtu.be/LAreWxHWRmQ