Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

ZMacintosh

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Nov 13, 2008
1,522
802
Upon starting up the Apple TV4 or restarting it, the remote seems to lag for a few moments until its recognized and when it is, it hyper-frantically makes selections if pressed menu or some other remote button.

I tried pairing and repairing the remote...but this occurs on separately Apple TVs and their Siri remotes.
 
...it hyper-frantically makes selections if pressed menu or some other remote button...
The 'hyper-frantic' effect would be the result of repeatedly pressing buttons and swiping around on the touchpad while the remote is being recognized. Try clicking just once and then wait a few seconds until the remote is online. Also, try waving the remote instead to speed up the recognition as the accelerometer and gyroscope send signals to the ATV4.
 
Last edited:
Well the root of the question is why is there such a long delay 30 seconds or longer?

Swiping or pressing menu to establish a connection as suggested, but it does them in rapid fashion, not the way I triggered or input them
 
I press the play button until its shows on the top right hand corner the "Remote Connected" icon.
That usually needs a 2 second press or so. Before i knew this trick it was plain awful - took 30 seconds or so if no buttons are pressed. Must be an badly executed energy saving feature.
 
I press the play button until its shows on the top right hand corner the "Remote Connected" icon.
That usually needs a 2 second press or so. Before i knew this trick it was plain awful - took 30 seconds or so if no buttons are pressed. Must be an badly executed energy saving feature.
I concur. It's annoying to have to press a button to get the remote to connect, when I can just pick up my Harmony and it lights up just from the motion. Since the Apple remote has movement sensors in it, it should be able to do the same thing.
 
Since getting rid of the cable box, the ATV remote is the only one we need and the experience of using it is very much better now.

Naturally, the first thing we do with the ATV remote is to turn on the TV (pushing the home button) and by the time the TV, AV receiver and ATV are all on, the remote is fully connected. Any lag is a complete non-issue now (lost in the few seconds start up time), whereas before (when we had multiple remotes and usually used the TV remote to turn things on) we encountered the lag as mentioned above. At first I thought the rapid response to the 'turn on' command was because it was sent from the ATV remote by IR, but a quick experiment shows it isn't (it works through walls). It seems that when the ATV is off the remote/ATV respond quickly to turn on the ATV and connected devices but the ATV/remote system lags in other actions (possibly the lag is the ATV box getting up to speed and ready to receive other commands).

Short version: no noticeable lag if you use the ATV (and its remote) for everything.

I do of course appreciate that this is completely useless information for most people as for most the ATV is just one of several sources, but hopefully it might be useful to fellow ATV minimalists :)
 
Look slike the newest tvOS update has cleared up this minor glitch.

And yes, @allonym - we use the AppleTV remote to control most items..and works extremely well. perhaps another thread entirely, but the only goofy component we have is an Xbox One S that doesn't communicate well with HDMI - CEC it kind of does whatever it feels...lol
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.