Apple's AirPods Pair Automatically With Apple TV in tvOS 11

[geoffm33]

Who needs one of those when you can just stick a Babel Fish in your ear

• BabelFishAir
• AirBabel
• iBabel

Oh, and through Apple Magic™ you only need one to produce stereo sound

 

[Modernboy]

I just hope selecting AirPods as output will no longer be buried deep inside tvOS menus.

In fact, if you have multiple devices paired with the AirPods that switch should be placed into the AirPods themselves. Like, "hey Siri, connect AirPods to Apple TV", or something similar.

I was curious about this. I haven't paired my AirPods with my Apple TV yet, but I was thinking you should be able to easily choose a sound output if you have multiple options. Maybe in the remote app. If you have to dig into menus to switch outputs that is a terrible experience.

 

[Mac 128]

Does this apply to Beats headphones that also have the W1 chip? Also does this work with the 3rd gen ATV? I would love this feature on the TV in my bedroom that doesn't have bluetooth connectivity.

Most likely yes it will work. AirPods simply get more clicks than Beats when it comes to articles like this. AirPods and Beats with W1 chip both work exactly the same way. Apple would actually have to prevent Beats from working this way. If the AirPods can be manually paired to the ATV 3 now, then I suspect they will still be pairable manually if not automatically. On the other hand if the ATV 3 needs an update to provide this functionality, then no it likely won't.

Does your TV have an audio output of any kind? If so, just buy a $20 BT dongle for it.

 

[raymanster]

Over the past few months travelling through the London rush hour I have yet to see a single person wearing these. See plenty of the free ones that come with the phone and loads of over ear cans, but none of these. Has anyone in the UK actually bought these? Not having a go at the product, just curious.

I'm in the UK and I bought a pair last week. They are usually out of stock everywhere, so you have to use a website like istocknow.com. You can set up an alert and it will email you when your selected stores are in stock. I was monitoring stock for a couple weeks and noticed Apple stores in London seem to get a fresh batch in each week. Same for John Lewis and Curries.

Going back on topic, this is good news as I'm hoping to get the latest AppleTV in the next few months. So I could use this while everyone is asleep etc.

 

[smoking monkey]

Looking into the future, a really cool feature they could add is multilingual playback. Imagine streaming a movie that's in English. Someone, say a friend, wants to listen in Spanish. They pop in their AirPods and are good to go. No need for distracting substitles.

Good idea, but I have to disagree with you re movies.

Animation - Great.
Other movies and TV shows - No. Dubbing destroys a movie.
Guides tours - Great.

 

[macfoxpro]

Love my pods. Guess I need to pair to the ATV for some binging House Of Cards whilst the wife is sleeping.

 

[DiceMoney]

Looking into the future, a really cool feature they could add is multilingual playback. Imagine streaming a movie that's in English. Someone, say a friend, wants to listen in Spanish. They pop in their AirPods and are good to go. No need for distracting substitles.

Or two or more people at the same time watching a movie, but everyone receiving audio to their separate headphones.

Or even, if only one person has headphones, and send the audio to both headphones, and through the TV speakers at the same time, if the other person doesn't have headphones or doesn't want to.

I rather watch a movie with headphones, because dialogue is much clearer with them.

 

[jimac]

The 4th gen. Apple TV works not only with Airpods but also with Beats Solo3 headsets, which like Airpods are also equipped with Apple's W1 chip. Besides the Solo3's 40 hours listening time they also work over an extended range -- I just walked across the street from my house, MUCH further than 40 feet, and could still hear my Apple TV fine! Very useful if you're listening to your TV alone. I don't know if there's any way to connect two headsets to one Apple TV.

 

[Mac 128]

The 4th gen. Apple TV works not only with Airpods but also with Beats Solo3 headsets, which like Airpods are also equipped with Apple's W1 chip. Besides the Solo3's 40 hours listening time they also work over an extended range -- I just walked across the street from my house, MUCH further than 40 feet, and could still hear my Apple TV fine! Very useful if you're listening to your TV alone. I don't know if there's any way to connect two headsets to one Apple TV.

Any sync issues at all? Since Apple doesn't license aptX, I wonder if their sync schemes are sufficient to maintain 40ms or less lag.