Add AppleTV to HASS

Configuration
1

Hi all, I am trying to add my AppleTV to HASS, as described here: https://home-assistant.io/components/apple_tv/
I need to retrieve a loginid. The easiest way should be to call the apple_tv_scan under the apple_tv domain, listed under services.

But I don’t have the option to select apple_tv over there. How am I supposed to do this?

2

Add apple_tv: to your configuration and restart HA, then the services should be there.

1 Like
3

I tried that But then i get a invalid config message.

4

I found out that the only wat to get the apple_tv_scan service, is by addind apple_tv: to my config, and including the login_id: with fake data. But if I do the apple_tv_scan, no devices are found. Also with atvremote scan I get no results.

The thing that did kind of work, is apple_tv_authorize. When I did that a pin code appeared on my tv screen and after enteirng that I got a success message. But that was not enough to get it working.

Home sharing is enbaled.

5

Got it working! The trick was disabling Home sharing, and enable it again.

6

What version HA did you use? The issue with not being able to add just apple_tv: was fixed in 0.54. The authorize-thing is only for AirPlay, so that makes no difference in itself. Biggest problem as I see it is that Bonjour/zeroconf is not very reliable. In a lot of cases the device is not found and I’m not really sure how to fix that.

Regarding disabling and enabling home sharing, that is a good trick that seems to work for a lot of people. I should add that to the documentation.

7

I’m on version 0.53.1. But one of the things I treid is updating my Home Assistant. But now you are speaking about version 0.54. So I don’t really get that. I was asuming I was on the latest version.

I did not know any other people had the same solution of disabling and enabling home sharing. I came up with that myself. Could have saved me a lot of trouble if I read it somewhere lol.

8

Adding

apple_tv:

to my configuration.yaml file in 0.58.0 gave me the apple_tv domain and services on the little remote services view on the HASS UI… however, even though I have home sharing enabled, it still doesn’t find my Apple TV.

I’ve tried disabling and reenabling home sharing, and rebooting.

If I use the pyatv - atvremote CLI command, it discovers my Apple TV, but it says that home sharing is disabled and does not give a login ID.

$ atvremote scan
Found Apple TVs:
 - Apple TV at 192.168.86.61 (home sharing disabled)

So, I tried using atvremote pair, and that gave me a login ID (in a different format than the examples, but it was still a login ID).

$ atvremote pair
Use pin 1234 to pair with "pyatv" (press ENTER to stop)
Using pairing guid: 0xABC2809CA8188XXX
Note: If remote does not show up, try rebooting your Apple TV

Pairing seems to have succeeded, yey!
You may now use this login id: 0xABC2809CA8188XXX

I added that to my config, to find media_player.apple_tv and remote.apple_tv in my devices list, but HASS is still unable to connect to or control the apple tv.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

9

What do you see in the error log? Can you control the Apple TV using atvremote with the login id you got from pair?

10

Hi! I seem to have the same problem as @broox…

For me, atvremote pair does not make anything appear on the TV so I can not get any further there either… (I assume the pin should be put in on the TV?)

I’m running Hassio with 0.61.1 and a Apple TV 4.

Which error log were you asking for @postlund?

11

The reason for atvremote not finding the device is because Home Sharing is disabled in some way. By “in some way” I mean that something is not working as intended and it’s likely a bug or unintended behavior in tvOS (or you have actually disabled it). It seems like others have seen this too:

I had the same issue and disabled HS, rebooted and enabled it again. Has been working flawlessly on my device for over a week. Results seems to differ for different users and I do not know that else to do other than keep trying. I’ll see if I can get some time and start working on the MRP support again, that would remove need for HS altogether.

2 Likes
12

Aah, thanks! Did the same and then it was discovered!

1 Like
13

I had issues setting up my apple TV so I created a wiki from all the material and info I gathered, hope this can help someone else.

Thank you to the community.

14

Disabling HS -> restart ATV -> restart Hass.io -> Enable HS = Working!!!

Thanks Guys

15

I notice that there are a number of dependencies required (build-essential libssl-dev libffi-dev python-dev) per the instructions here.

How do I install these dependencies on Hass.io installation?

16

It should work out-of-the box in Hass.io, no need to install anything else.

17

Thanks @postlund.

I am trying to follow the instructions here for ‘Scanning for devices’… i don’t see an option for selecting Apple_TV as a domain.

Could someone please advise?
Thanks!

18

The Apple TV component is probably not loaded, try adding apple_tv: somewhere in your configuration.

19

Thanks - I will add the following to configuration.yaml… is that what you are suggesting?

apple_tv:
  - host: 192.168.1.138

I was confused since I could not complete the balance of the configuration variables listed on the tutorial page.

20

You only need to add:

apple_tv:

In order to use the scan service.