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gigatoaster

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Jul 22, 2018
1,762
3,701
France
Hello there

is it possible when I turn the Apple TV on, automatically turn off the lights? How?
 
Is your TV homekit compatible? You can easily trigger an automation that turns off lights when the TV turns on.

If it's not, you'll need to look at homebridge. With homebridge you have a couple options.
--If your TV is supported, you can use homebrige to add it to homekit, and then trigger off TV power as above.
--get the appleTV enhanced plugin for homebridge, you can then trigger using the power state of the aTV.


using the TV as a trigger will also trigger the automation if you use a source besides the aTV, it will also allow you to select inputs using homekit/scenes if that something you want to do.

 
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Thanks. My TV is Panasonic and pretty old, but I have an Apple TV. Maybe I could use it for the trigger?
 
I haven’t tried this yet but thinking outside the box here… you may be able to use a smart plug that has energy monitoring, like the Eve Energy, then create an automation that turns off the lights when the smart plug detects energy being used. HomeKit doesn’t have this type of trigger natively but I’m pretty sure the Eve app does (and other third party HomeKit apps like Home+ and Controller).
 
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My Apple TV is not recognised in Eve.
IMG_0070.png
 
they were suggesting an eve energy plug, a physical device to control the power going to your TV. You won't necessarily use it to turn the power going to your TV on and off, but they let you monitor power usage in real time, so you should be able to tell from that if the TV is on or not. You have to use the eve app to create that automation, since the home app won't let you trigger on power usage.

the aTV won't show in the eve app. it doesn't support multimedia devices. I'm pretty sure it just started supporting TVs with iOS 18.

Is your TV smart at all? the plugin says "This plugin should support ALL the TV models supported by Panasonic's own "Panasonic TV Remote TV 3" mobile app"


So right now it sounds like your options are
--trying eve energy, and seeing if power usage change will work for you. I have an extra one at home, I can try it on my TV (LG OLED) to see if it works, but might be a couple days.

--homebridge
-- with a Panasonic plugin if your TV supports it
-- with an appleTV plugin.


The eve energy will be the easiest to set up.

Homebridge with the Panasonic plugin will give you the closest to a native homekit TV, as you'll be able to control power and inputs using homekit. You could also trigger different scenes if you change from HDMI1 to HDMI2.
homebridge will require you to be running a computer 24/7, a raspberry pi will work. Or it's also supported on some NAS devices. you can also run it on any windows, Mac, or linux computer as long as it's awake all the time.
 
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It’s too overkill for a simple trigger…thanks for the idea but I don’t have the time and the motivation to do homebridge. I’m not a developer, just a potato user. I’d like something just simple.
 
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if apple exposed the appleTV's standby/awake status in homekit it wouldn't be an issue. wouldn't need AI at all.
My thoughts exactly. I have all HomeKit TVs with my AppleTVs. I’m always asked why I have both and this is the reason. For automations and out of home control (turning on a TV when away to make it look like someone is home.
 
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My thoughts exactly. I have all HomeKit TVs with my AppleTVs. I’m always asked why I have both and this is the reason. For automations and out of home control (turning on a TV when away to make it look like someone is home.

Same. I won’t even consider any TV that’s not a HomeKit TV.
 
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Same. I won’t even consider any TV that’s not a HomeKit TV.
I didn’t expect much when I first started buying them but they’ve been surprisingly very solid in HomeKit. I have a few Vizios and one Hisense (needed that 100” that Vizio doesn’t offer lol). These “budget” TV’s have a bad rep for some reason. I see a lot of complaints about them in forums and Reddit but combined with an AppleTV and in HomeKit, I have zero issues/complaints. DSE has been almost non existent across the board too.
 
I didn’t expect much when I first started buying them but they’ve been surprisingly very solid in HomeKit. I have a few Vizios and one Hisense (needed that 100” that Vizio doesn’t offer lol). These “budget” TV’s have a bad rep for some reason. I see a lot of complaints about them in forums and Reddit but combined with an AppleTV and in HomeKit, I have zero issues/complaints. DSE has been almost non existent across the board too.

I have two Vizios. I love them. They work so well with tv. But you’re right about people seem to really hating these TVs. I haven’t experienced any of the complaints on either TV. We are big TV people so they literally come on when my alarm goes off. Gotta love the personal “When Waking Up” automation. I guess if I just had to complain about the TVs it’d be that their speakers suck. But that’s not an issue for me because I have OG and 2nd Gen HomePods acting as the TV speakers.
 
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I have two Vizios. I love them. They work so well with tv. But you’re right about people seem to really hating these TVs. I haven’t experienced any of the complaints on either TV. We are big TV people so they literally come on when my alarm goes off. Gotta love the personal “When Waking Up” automation. I guess if I just had to complain about the TVs it’d be that their speakers suck. But that’s not an issue for me because I have OG and 2nd Gen HomePods acting as the TV speakers.
Yeah I believe a lot of the complaints came from the baked in smarts that I don’t use. It’s all AppleTV + HomePods (or soundbar). Wonderful combo.
 
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