When "Control TVs and Receivers" is enabled, can only the home button on the remote switch my TV to the Apple TV?

Question

When "Control TVs and Receivers" is enabled, can only the home button on the remote switch my TV to the Apple TV?

I have an Apple TV 4 with "Control TVs and Receivers" turned on. Several other devices are connected to my TV as well, including some game consoles. I'd very much like to use the volume buttons on the Siri remote to change the volume on my TV, but as soon as I press them or any other button, the input automatically switches back to the Apple TV.

I definitely want this to happen when I press the home button, as using that to return to the Apple TV is very natural. And I most definitely want the Apple TV to turn my TV on and off. But I can't use the volume buttons with other devices because it changes the input.

Is there any way for me to fix that, other than turning off "Control TVs and Receivers"?

(I suspect the answer is no, since this is the sort of power user feature that Apple doesn't usually include, but I'd figure I'd ask anyway.)

Apple TV, tvOS 9.1.1

Posted on Feb 11, 2016 12:47 PM

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Answer 1

Feb 12, 2016 2:59 AM in response to Brian Kendall

Yes you are correct.

I'm not really sure how such a feature would work, how would it know when you wanted to the controller with another device or with the Apple TV.

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Answer 2

Feb 12, 2016 10:11 AM in response to Winston Churchill

Well I suppose for the buttons other than the volume buttons or home there's no way to tell. But for the volume buttons, they do the same thing regardless of what the input is: send an IR signal to the TV for changing the volume. There's really no reason they need to switch the input to the Apple TV, and frankly I think it makes the remote less versatile.

Then again, Apple probably wanted to keep things as simple and intuitive as possible, and having the Siri remote always 100% of the time control the Apple TV and only the Apple TV is simpler than having it be able to control other devices too. I was just hoping I could reduce the number of remotes for my TV to the minimum possible.

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