How to restrict New ATV to just one remote?

That had not been my experience in the past.

Once the remote was Paired, that was the only device it would control.

Just like wireless keyboards.

Once they were paired, they would not show up via Bluetooth to be paired or operate anything else other then the device it was paired with.

If a device in NOT paired, then it is a FREE agent to operate anything other devices within range.

I will investigate more although some of my older computers and remotes have been retired.

My Mac Mini below is set to operate on ANY remote.

Have you looked at the instructions?

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Connect the Siri Remote to Apple TV

The Siri Remote comes automatically paired to your Apple TV. If it disconnects or you get a replacement remote, you’ll need to manually pair it to Apple TV.

You can pair the Siri Remote with only one Apple TV at a time. When you pair a remote, any other paired remote is automatically unpaired.

Pair the Siri Remote with Apple TV. Turn on Apple TV and position the Siri Remote so it’s within 3 to 4 inches (8 to 10 cm) and pointing at the front of Apple TV. Then press and hold the button and the Up button for 2 seconds. When the Siri Remote is successfully paired, an onscreen message appears.

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Aslo, is your old remote "Paired" to your Mac Mini ?

If it is paired, it shouldn't activate other devices that aren't paired with that remote.

Check to see if your Mac Mini is paired with the old remote. Not sure which OS you are running but look in the System Preferences-> Security & Privacy ->Advanced -> Remote Pairing

Make sure the old remote is paired with your Mac Mini and give that a try.

Let us know if anything works for you.

sime_au wrote:

Just my two cents on this!

I'm in Australia, so had mine plugged in a fair few hours before a lot of others - and obviously came into this (and a few other frustrations) rather quickly.

Of course, it being so knew - I didn't try with the discussion forums, but instead went to the support pages and to look at the manual...

Alas! The Apple TV 4 does not exist. No mention of it on their manual pages, limited information on other support pages - so no help to be found!

...

Read here: http://help.apple.com/appletv/#/atvbd7b38b34

Winston Churchill wrote:

However you can't pair a silver remote with the Apple TV 4.

As of tvOS 9.1 (it could change but why) the ATV4gen responds to all/most remote sequences including pairing and unpairing however that's not what you want. You want IR ignore after pairing. From my AVS post (paraphrased):

• Unpair using M+L (just in case)
• Pair using M+R.
• Disable (most) IR with M+S.

Note that if you mask other ATVs in view of the remote they will all be in the same state. My AVS post is specifically about having an ATV3gen and ATV4gen which is my circumstance. When you get it right the ATV4gen will triple blink when you use the aluminium remote.

As of tvOS 9.1 (it could change but why) the ATV4gen responds to all/most remote sequences including pairing and unpairing however that's not what you want. You want IR ignore after pairing. From my AVS post (paraphrased):

• Unpair using M+L (just in case)
• Pair using M+R.
• Disable (most) IR with M+S.

Note that if you mask other ATVs in view of the remote they will all be in the same state. My AVS post is specifically about having an ATV3gen and ATV4gen which is my circumstance. When you get it right the ATV4gen will triple blink when you use the aluminium remote.

That did it! Thanks!

It doesn't feel like it's working or doing anything, but once you get the M + S step done, indeed, the IR no longer works on the ATV 4. Therefore, the silver remote no longer controls the ATV 4.

It should be noted as you stated that any active devices that employ IR will also be disabled possibly, so I shut down my Mac mini that is next to the ATV 4 before doing this. Now only the Mac mini is paired with the silver remote.

Thanks again!

I have this same issue.

I have my Mac mini using the silver apple Remote and I was able to pair it to the Mac mini and have the ATV 3 gen ignore it. So i have one remote for my Mac mini and one for the Apple TV 3rd gen.

now i have the new ATV reacting to all the remotes. I can't find anyway to ignore or unpair remotes. very annoying. I almost purchased some items by accident because i hadn't realized that the old remote was controlling the new ATV. so now i have had to put "require password" all the time to avoid buying things by accident.

I think this looks like an overlooked apple feature by everyone developing the New ATV. Something they can fix very quickly in an update. but i suspect most Apple dev don't use Mac mini and ATVs at the same time o the same system like we do.

Apple if you read this please update this small needed setting. it really limits my use of the New ATV and I'm not going to renounce my Mac mini System setup either. Im sure they are few thousand people doing the same thing or that will be doing it in the future so we really need this setting. thank you

Nope. The Siri Remote is not the only remote that the ATV supports.

It happily works with previous Apple IR remotes too - both the original white plastic and the later metal models, as well as learning remote controls with Apple TV/Apple Remote profiles. I'm using an older white plastic Apple remote for navigation as the Siri touchpad is too hit-and-miss for quick text entry...

The issue is that you can't pair the Apple TV to the specific remote as you used to (each Apple Remote presumably has a unique code which can be ignored, if the remote is not paired, or used, if the remote is paired)

AIUI pairing is a function of the Apple TV software, not the remote (the remote doesn't know it is paired).

Looks like Apple have dropped the ball on this too, alongside no iOS remote, no Apple Watch remote, no Bluetooth keyboard support etc.

Another post elsewhere on this matter suggested covering the IR receptor on the new Apple TV 4 so the silver/white IR remote can't connect.

So I covered the front of the ATV 4, just to the left of the white activity light from top to bottom, with a strip of black electrical tape. It works! The silver remote no longer activates the ATV 4 and since it's black tape, you don't notice that well.

Hi Joesph,

thank you for that. but unfortunatily I have the silver remote for the mac mini paired only with the Mac mini and had another silver remote that was paired to only the apple tv Gen3. both work great with the device it was paired just as expected. then came the apple TV 4 that just ignores it all and if i use any of the other two silver remotes they will operate apple tv 4 as well as the device it that the silver remote was paired with.

the pairing is controlled by the device not by the remote. since the Apple TV 4 doesn't have a pairing option for only one remote like the mac mini and the ATV 3 it just listens to every remote.

currently the black tape might be the only option. great solutions in the short term until apple updates their software thank you Pairof9s.

i am having the same trouble in my multi apple device setup. There's seems to be no way around the conflict if one wants to use an IR remote and have the atv ignore ir commands from other apple remote ids. we need this addressed by Apple or the new atv can go out on the curb.

@Joseph,

Yes, that would (& should) be the manner in which to prevent this. However, the Apple TV 4 does not operate (currently) in this manner...it links with any IR Apple Remote, regardless of whether that remote is paired elsewhere. I've tried it with all 3 of the ATV/mini silver remotes we have and each can operate the ATV 4, even though each is paired with their respective device.

As mentioned earlier, this will require an Apple update and as such, having each of us send feedback to alert their development.

Joseph Kriz - I think you've misunderstood how IR Remote pairing works. Unlike Bluetooth - which is a two-way communications standard, the IR remote is a send-only device. The way pairing an IR remote works is totally different to a Bluetooth product.

The Apple IR remote control has no what it is paired to (or if it is paired). The pairing works because every Apple IR remote has an 8 bit Device ID, so that every button press is sent with an ID for that remote. A different remote will send a different ID. (There are 255 different IDs. If you are unlucky enough to have two IR remotes with the same ID it is possible to change the ID of one of them by a button combo on the remote)

More details here : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Remote#Technical_details

By default Apple receiving devices - Apple TV 1-3s, Mac Minis and other Apple IR devices - ignore the ID and accept input from any Apple Remote irrespective of its ID.

When you pair a remote to an Apple TV 1-3, Mac Mini, or other Apple product with an IR receiver, you are simply telling the receiving product to ignore codes received from any remote with an ID other than that you have paired it with. The remote will still work and control an unpaired device, so the rule is normally that you need to pair every receiving device with a different remote to ensure you avoid interference. (You can't assume that a paired remote will only work with a single device once paired - you have to pair all receivers too)

The issue with the Apple TV 4th generation is that it doesn't have the ability to pair to a specific IR remote BUT does have IR remote functionality built in. So if you have an existing Apple TV or Apple IR remote controlled product, even if you have paired the product to a specific IR remote, your Apple TV 4th gen will also respond to it.

This should be a straight forward thing to fix in a software update though. It's just surprising it wasn't spotted during testing.

Steve Neal wrote:

By default Apple receiving devices - Apple TV 1-3s, Mac Minis and other Apple IR devices - ignore the ID and accept input from any Apple Remote irrespective of its ID.

Yes, that is correct.

I did not say it correctly.

I have several computers, and devices.

3 white remotes and one Silver remote.

The remotes are paired to their own devices and will not operate other devices because those other devices are already paired with another remote.

The instructions clearly state that the remote comes already paired as I showed on the first page.

Strange that it is not working the way all the other devices work.