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Why can't I use the Home App Automation to automatically turn on my Apple TV?

I have searched the net and all I see is that I cannot use automations to turn on my Apple TV via HomeKit. This is nuts, completely insane. Can some one here help me figure out how to do this because it certainly is not intuitive by combing through the Home App. Any Apple specialists, pls don't say...I understand you want to learn more about how to use the Home app....if you're going to reply, pls be pertinent to my specific question, otherwise it's a waste of everyones time, including yours.

Posted on May 1, 2023 1:09 PM

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Posted on May 6, 2023 1:50 PM

The Scene I created was dead simple. I didn't specify any audio selection (since you didn't originally specify that goal). To refresh my memory, I just deleted/recreated the Scene using only the ATV4K accessory - set to "Play". I tried to save it then, but it did prompt me to "choose audio" as you reported. I simply selected "Resume Audio". Since there was no audio playing when I turned off the ATV4K, it merely turned on.


Apple needs to fix the "Select Audio" function in home kit. It demands you have an Apple Music subscription to even try to use it, and when you have an Apple Music subscription and then select, say, an album, it fails to work. As a test, I created a scene using only a stereo pair of HomePod minis to play audio, selecting a classic rock album in Apple Music (not my home library), and it played something totally different and random after a surprisingly long pause. Adding an Apple Music selection to the ATV4K Scene got closer, but it only queued my selection in Apple Music in the background - it did not start playing, as specified in the Scene, nor did it switch to Apple Music (in the foreground). It appeared to fail completely with the Apple TV turning on and sitting quietly on the homescreen.

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

May 6, 2023 1:50 PM in response to Bgnmarty

The Scene I created was dead simple. I didn't specify any audio selection (since you didn't originally specify that goal). To refresh my memory, I just deleted/recreated the Scene using only the ATV4K accessory - set to "Play". I tried to save it then, but it did prompt me to "choose audio" as you reported. I simply selected "Resume Audio". Since there was no audio playing when I turned off the ATV4K, it merely turned on.


Apple needs to fix the "Select Audio" function in home kit. It demands you have an Apple Music subscription to even try to use it, and when you have an Apple Music subscription and then select, say, an album, it fails to work. As a test, I created a scene using only a stereo pair of HomePod minis to play audio, selecting a classic rock album in Apple Music (not my home library), and it played something totally different and random after a surprisingly long pause. Adding an Apple Music selection to the ATV4K Scene got closer, but it only queued my selection in Apple Music in the background - it did not start playing, as specified in the Scene, nor did it switch to Apple Music (in the foreground). It appeared to fail completely with the Apple TV turning on and sitting quietly on the homescreen.

May 3, 2023 1:35 PM in response to Bgnmarty

Hello Bgnmarty,


You can't use an automation to turn on an Apple TV, because an automation like that currently does not exist.


However, you could create a Shortcut and run that with “Hey Siri” instead. While we’re unable to help set one up since each customer’s devices are different, the Shortcuts User Guide can get you started: Shortcuts User Guide - Apple Support


If you would like to see an option like this added to the Home app, you can make that suggestion to Apple through their feedback site here: Product Feedback


Cheers!

May 6, 2023 5:34 AM in response to bgmeek

Thanks for your reply bgmeek!

Sorry for the late reply, I was on travel for a few days but am now back and have attempted to set up the Scene and Automation per your reply .. ..but failed miserably. I'll attach a few screenshots so you can see the errors I get but it's getting hung up on wanting me to select audio even though I did not checkmark my HomePods. See screenshot 1.

I named the Scene "Apple TV On At 5:45PM", refer to screenshot 2 & 3 to see the failure msg when I attempted to test the Scene. It keeps trying to include Audio when I am only selecting the Apple TV.

Screenshots 4 & 5 were for the Automation that it seemed to accept but would never actually work. Maybe you can see what I'm doing wrong or post your own screenshots of the process or a bulleted paragraph of how you did it. Thanks!


May 6, 2023 2:35 PM in response to bgmeek

Thanks again bgmeek,

I'll edit my Scene and change it to 'Resume Audio' since it for some reason demands to use the audio even though I didn't want to. I'll let you know how it goes.

I hear you, when I play music on my Mac, I use the Music app but I play the music that's on my NAS as I don't have an Apple Music membership. However, when I was trying to create the Scene above and it kept asking me to select Audio, the only audio it presented to me was either Apple Music or Ambient Sounds - ugh, this is useless for me.

May 6, 2023 3:18 PM in response to bgmeek

Ok, I just tried it again, it works. The magic was in selecting "Resume Audio". So I created a new Automation that did not involve a Scene and simply told it to turn the Apple TV on and for audio I selected Resume Audio. It worked! So I deleted the Scene I had created and will just use the Automation instead.

Thanks much bgmeek, you solved this for me!

Why can't I use the Home App Automation to automatically turn on my Apple TV?

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