Remote Lag? Apple TV 4K

I had this issue and was finally able to fix it.

I have two Apple TV 4K devices, 32 and 64. Both were having the lag issue regardless of which remote (I even tried my 4th Gen ATV remote) or ATV. I recently finished my basement and my TV (65in LG OLED) is hanging on the wall and behind that wall is my utility room where I keep all my AV equipment. The equipment, including the ATV 4K, sits roughly 2-3 ft high on shelving units. Also on that wall I have 3 monoprice Alpha in-wall speakers.

I noticed that whenever I had the lag issue, it would improve if I moved closer to the wall separating the viewing room from the utility room. This told me that it there was a signal strength issue or interference issue. I tested the signal strength idea first. I took the ATV 4K off the AV self and moved it on a horizontal 2x4 I had running between wall studs. This moved the ATV 4K directly behind the TV and right up next to the drywall. This moved the ATV about 2 feet closer to were I sit to watch TV so in theory, the signal strength should improve thus reducing the lag affect if signal strength is the issue. The result: The lag was worse. Much much worse. Eureka!

I then moved the ATV 4K directly down to the floor. Same distance from the viewing area but as far away from the TV as I could possibly get it. The result: NO MORE LAG! I continued to use the remote for the next few hours and the lag issue never returned.

tl;dr

I fixed my AppleTV 4K remote lag by moving the the ATV 4K away from my LG OLED TV. Specifically, so that the TV wasn't directly between the ATV 4K and where the remote would be used.

Note:

It is possible that it was a combination of TV, Speakers, Receiver, IR Repeater, Network Switch, Speaker wires, Power Strips, etc that combined to cause the interference but in my opinion, the LG OLED was the biggest cause of remote lag.

After 2 weeks of contact with apple support, their engineers admitted to some infrequent issues when not using a shielded hdmi cable. They recommended the belkin they sell, or any cable marked “compatible with Dolby Vision”.

A quick google finds quite a lot of forum threads that discuss the “remote lag” issue and that the belkin cable solves this, but i haven’t seen anyone answering why it works. Shielding is a reasonable answer.

I asked the support personnel to request that this issue gets added to their problem solving guide, and also communicated as a recommendation to customers as well as retailers - who sometimes bundle cables with the ATV 4K. He said he would take this up with his managers. He maintained that the problem was infrequent.

Funny enough, this is correct! The 4K setting was unusable unless using the remote app. However, after I changed the cable to the Belkin cable, the remote works beautifully! So strange that this was all due to a cable. Happy it works now though.

Unbelievable. I had been having the same issues and was convinced it was because i had the AppleTV mounted on the back of my TV out of sight. I finally remounted it near the top of the TV but still had the same issues which prompted me to search for known problems. I bout two AppleTV 4K’s one for a TV in my bonus room and one for my bedroom. The tv in my bedroom is a 4K capable TV. The TV in my bonus room is NOT 4K capable. I never had any issues with the remote in my bonus room. But my bedroom remote was almost unusable. I found this thread and changed the setting to 1080P HDR on my AppleTV and voila. The remote now functions perfectly. Come on Apple, its time to fix this otherwise there is no point in having a 4K capable AppleTV.

I also have this issue. Replaced 4 Apple TV 4s with new 4k units but might be going back to the prior versions based on remote lag. It was driving me crazy until I found that changing it to 1080p from 4k might solve the trick. Crazy enough, this did it. However, now I'm not sure why I upgraded my units if I can't reliably run the remote while outputting 4k. Hope a fix is coming soon.

Just to follow up on my situation. I purchased the Belkin cable and it fixed the issue.

I called Apple to express my complaint that the protocol they require for complete functionality are nowhere to be found and if I needed a certain cable it should be included or clearly stated.

I was not refunded for the cable but the rep did make it right.

Interestingly enough, the issue is resolved when using the Remote app, even when broadcasting in 4K.

I submitted a support case with apple last week and we think we found a solution to this issue. The issue is caused by not having an HDMI 2.1 cable. The only cable that is HDMI 2.1 is this one sold by Belkin(Link below). I previously tried 6 different new HDMI cables and none of them worked. After 48 hours of testing this cable appears to have resolved this issue.

Belkin Ultra High Speed 4K HDMI Cable (2m) - Apple

Seems like this has been an issue since release, a couple months now. Pretty disappointing given that I’ve come to trust in overall quality’s Apple products. I’m going to test my other units to see if this is the same across all my Apple TV 4ks. Having to NOT run 4K content just to make the remote useable is quite frustrating. I’m currently running 1080p 60hz HDR.

As a point of reference, I’ve been working with Apple Support on this exact issue for well over a month. I called again today, and asked about the lag issue and the lady thought I was crazy for even thinking it was the cable. We went through unpairing and repairing the remote as well as a full factory reset which as we are all aware does not fix the problem. Their solution is to swap out my the entire Apple TV unit.... I told her to just google Apple TV 4K remote lag and she would see the issues. She was friendly and understood my concern, but said she is limited in her solutions. Bottom line, calling up and expecting them to send us a free HDMI cable free of charge is not as easy as it sounds. They would rather replace it verses addressing the issue. And so I continue kicking the can down the road...

Hi,

Same issue. Connected to a Samsung 4K TV. 2016 model. Pretty high end.

Replaced cable with high caliber cable. No fix.

Moved another working 4K Apple TV into the same spot. It malfunctioned as well. Was working in its other location.

Moved it all over the place behind and above the TV. No fix.

Brought to Apple authorized service center. They restored to defaults. Briefly worked. Then no.

Thing runs terribly actually. Drops the WiFi all the time. Changed all my WiFi settings including swapping out three routers.

It seems like the device is thinking too hard and basically overloads.

Will go with 1080p HDR setting.

Was hoping this would go away after the software update a couple weeks ago but no. I have zero expectation this will ever be fixed unfortunately.

Have a 2018 model Samsung Q9F coming this month. Bought a new Apple TV 4K to attach to it. Hope it works.

Thank you for your response. You inspired me to add some more detail to my case.

When I resolved to demand the cable from Apple, I was already using a replacement unit. Sending cables to all of us is surely cheaper for Apple than the pointless activity of replacing entire units, right?

I agree that it is counter-intuitive that a cable would impact performance of Bluetooth. That said, its kind of uncharted territory with the plethora of video formats these devices are capable of displaying, so errors might be hard to intuit.

Good luck!

I have theee 4K Apple TVs with same issue. My brother also has an Apple TV 4K with the same issue. One thing we have in common is the same Sony X850 TVs. Anyone else have this TV?

I couldn’t agree more. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of traction about it. I’m not sure if I have a defective unit or if it’s software. It’s driving me crazy and it doesn’t make sense to have made the upgrade since I’m always in 1080P sdr all the time now anyway

Yes same here with a Sony x850, remote lag makes the upgrade a waste. Have all Apple for home automation since inception but they are losing across the spectrum now, need some innovation delivered that works