Managing soundbar volume with Siri remote.

I was finally able to get my Apple TV 4 volume control to work with my Samsung HW-J470 soundbar.

If the audio signal into the soundbar is that of fiber optic from the TV and learning must be used, the volume control will not work. But, utilizing the HDMI in and out on the soundbar for the Apple TV I can successfully use volume control. With that being said, I am only able to use the volume control while the volume control setting is in Auto.

I hope this helps.

This is a bug. The AppeTV has been around for some time but TVos is new. There isn't anything magical about IR. My harmony remote works just fine with my Samsung soundbar and since the calibration within the AppleTV understands IR commands from soundbar remote there isn't any reason this shouldn't be working. My guess is AppleTV needs to teach the remote the IR commands it learned from the original remote and that process is not happening. Apple will fix it.

I hope you're right, but that doesn't explain why _most_ remotes I've used are also unable to control my Samsung sound bar. My TiVo remote can't, and the remote feature of the Wii U can't either.

My Harmony can control the Samsung sound bar so that gives me hope this should work.

Also when I am inputting volume commands I see the ATV light flash with each press, these commands should be going to the Sound Bar and not the ATV. This could be a design choice to give visual feedback however.

It is pretty shocking nobody in QA tested the ATV against a Samsung sound bar it isn't like they are niche player in the space.

Maybe this is a giant conspiracy against Samsung 😮

Same problem with Samsung HW-F450. I also have hdmi from atv4 to TV and then optical from TV to soundbar. One interesting thing that I noticed happened right after having "taught" my siri remote how to control volume and it not working. I can hold a volume button on my Harmony remote and see the vol level display changing on the soundbar. While doing that and then pressing a vol button on the siri remote; it interrupts the signal. Doesn't change the volume, but interrupts the Harmony's volume IR beam. So my guess is that the siri remote is using the right code, but for whatever reason, the soundbar doesn't understand it. Hope for a fix soon. I just bought the atv4 two days ago and this is annoying but not totally unexpected. I couldn't get my cable remote to work with the soundbar either. My Harmony remote was a wonderful investment 🙂

Is it possible we've got this wrong? Is it possible that the AppleTV can ONLY control 3rd-party media devices via the CEC (or whatever that's called) protocol - i.e. through HDMI? That would explain why those w/ HDMI-enabled soundbars work fine, while the connected-via-optical do not.

I'm not convinced that the Apple Remote is even connecting via IR in the first place - mine is able to communicate w/ my Apple TV even if I'm physically between the two devices or if I'm behind a wall - isn't IR line-of-sight?

I'm starting to believe that the Apple TV v4's ability to control media devices relies solely on HDMI connections to devices that support CEC.

Using the original remote that came with the samsung sound bar, enable anynet. Then set the volume control on the Apple TV unit to auto. Worked for me after reading all over the Internet for tips.

Same problem here.

Sonos Playbar

Philips TV.

Unfortunately, no one from Apple reads these, but if they do, that's not really the answer.

What you describe works for any CEC-enabled sound-bar that supports a HDMI connection. What's being described in this thread is the TV's ability to learn IR commands and use the remote to send the IR volume commands to the Samsung sound bar independent of HDMI CEC commands. In my case, that's the ONLY option to control volume. The model I have doesn't support HDMI, only optical audio from the TV. This is good, because it introduces less HDMI switching into my configuration, but since the TV remote can't get the IR codes right for the Samsung sound bar, I'm stuck with 2 remotes and no ability to change volume with the TV remote.

Everybody:

Submit this feeback to Apple - maybe they'll actually realize that this is an issue to be investigated.

http://www.apple.com/feedback/

After a call to Apple support, and their troubleshooting steps, they basically have no idea how to fix it.

It would seem that the Apple TV remote has a set IR database that it can use, and Samsung systems are not included in this IR database. You'd think that Apple would simply be able to update the remote firmware and IR database to fix this, as Logitech does all the time with their Harmony remotes. (which is honestly the best remote I've ever bought, bar none)

TL;DR- Apple should be able to fix this, instead they are relying on HDMI-CEC systems for the volume control feature with no planned update to the IR database.

The Apple TV remote has an IR blaster specifically to control other devices (TV's, Receivers, Etc), the remote itself connects to the Apple TV using Bluetooth 4.0 which is how you can use it in the other room. Also, when you first turn on the Apple TV, it will tell you the remote is connected.

Soun like this may be my option! I never noticed the HDMI inputs on my soundbar subwoofer before, but sure enough there are two of them! Perfect for TiVo Mini and  TV! I'm assuming this allowed you to ditch your optical cable as well?

thanks

I have the same problem, unable to control the volume of my samsung soundbar (Model: HW-J25). I just got off the phone with apple support, here's what they explained to me.

1. The Apple TV (4th gen) does not actually send IR signals to control other devices.

2. It uses the "Learn device" feature to map the IR signals (hence the successful learning of the device), but sends the signals via HDMI (CEC).

So in my setup, the TV's output is sent to the soundbar via Digital Optical cable. Because there is no HDMI connection tunnel back to the Apple TV, it cannot control the soundbar. The tech also informed me to keep an eye out for ATV updates, and perhaps the engineers at Apple will allow the ATV to control other devices using IR alone.

Until then, i'll be changing the volume with my Samsung remote 😟

Apple help us!

Just to follow up, this may save some of you 🙂

If you're soundbar is Bluetooth capable (can be used as a bluetooth speaker) you can have the Apple TV connect to it via Bluetooth. Once the connection is made, and the device is set as the ATV's audio output, you can control the volume with the Siri Remote. Of course the master volume is still controlled by the Samsung Soundbar (meaning if you have the master volume all the way down, you won't hear anything), but the Siri Remote can change how much output is being sent to the soundbar. I think this is a good workaround.