Apple TV 4 remote inconsistent

You can also try adjusting the trackpad speed...

How to adjust Touch surface sensitivity on Siri Remote

Step 1: Go to Settings → Remotes and Devices → Touch Surface Tracking.

Step 2: You can now choose between two modes of tracking: Fast and Slow. Setting tracking to Fast will require smaller thumb movements to move farther on the Apple TV screen. If you choose Slow, you’ll make larger movements to move a smaller distance.

Watch the light on the ATV when pressing the remote and if it instantly blinks then the ATV is getting the remote commands but is delaying reacting. If that is the case, rule out the remote as the issue.

In that case, double tap the TV icon button and check how many apps may be running in the background. Swipe up to close each one until none are left then launch the one you want. This makes sure the ATV is not lagging because of too many apps running.

Finally consider the app you are using and it may appear slow due to network traffic. It may be waiting for something to download.

Sounds like a bad trackpad. I would return the ATV for another.

If you want to try everything else first, I would

1. Charge remote for 3 hours

2. Run software update on the ATV to make sure you are up to date

3. Restore the ATV.

My bet is the trackpad part of the remote is bad. Mine is always responsive.

I'm inclined to think this is a result of interference of some kind, either on wifi, bluetooth or perhaps even HDMI. Whilst I might be wrong, if I'm not it means that returning the Apple TV for another won't likely make any difference. You might be better testing the remote in another location first.

I am suddenly experiencing the exact same problem.

To troubleshoot I experimented using Apple remote on my iPhone, as well as an Apple TV3 remote.

The AppleTV responds quickly to each one of these devices.

That means the AppleTV4 remote is the problem

I think i can rule out bad remote, I have 2 apple TVs one in bedroom one in living room, the trackpad on both works really bad, reacts only half of the time and suddenly skips forward like it's lagging.. This is started happening after had them for couple months wich tells me it might be a bad software update as it's on both..

that might be it yes, i've got loads of devices around the house, including airport extreme, airport express, nintendo switch some macbooks ipads iphones and many bluetooth speakers and devices *_* gonna be hard to spot where the problem comes from i guess.. the os is 10.2 at the moment.. also the times it's not working properly is random sometimes it does work for a while.

Update : I just found out that the actual ios app remote for Apple TV works perfect correct and smooth as a whistle.. Wich kinda makes me wonder why i bought 2 new Apple TVs for those magic new remotes *_* if it's interference honestly apple should find a solution as I'm pretty sure u know people have some devices in their homes by now.. Never had problems with the old remote on atv 3 neither with the remote app.

The old remote uses IR and the phone based remote uses wifi, the new Apple remote uses Bluetooth. Apple can't do anything about interference from other sources especially those that don't use tightly controlled limits to the frequencies they operate over, it's your responsibility to manage such things in your home.

Have you tried charging the remotes.

I had the same issue here. First I tried to recharge the remote control... then I closed all the apps.... nothing.

It all happened out of the blue! No updates were made... just like that.

The only thing that fixed was to restore the atv4 to factory's default configuration... or redefine it all

Good luck!

Interesting. Killing all the apps fixed it for me. Thanks.

I didn't know the open apps stayed in memory. I had many open after closing them my remote work fine. Thank you.

Had exact same issue, nothing solved this untill i did a factory reset.

but this issue started after I played "real racing 3", not sure if those were related.

I also have this problem, but only when playing videos via Airplay. So this seems to be an issue in tvOS. Hopefully it will be fixed soon. Pretty annoying.