We just released an update to Channels that adds an HTTP API to let you control and query the Channels app.

Full confession: it's partially been there for a while, that's how the Play To features work from iOS 😝, but now it's more fleshed out and publicly available and documented!

Control from anywhere and from anything.

You can now do things like pause, resume, or stop your video remotely from something else. Do you dabble in home automation? Now you can control Channels with it! Do you hate that streams don't stop when your TV is turned off? Integrate Channels into your home automation and now you can. I've been doing this for months, heh. It's great.

It's important to know and remember that the API will be as available as the platform it's running on allows. For tvOS this means only when Channels is open and active. For Android and Fire TV it will work if Channels is active or backgrounded, but only if it has been launched at least once.

Control all of your things.

The API is super simple. All endpoints respond with the current status of what Channels is playing. It even advertises over Bonjour so you can find it easily.

You can learn more about what you can do in the documentation.

But wait, there's more.

Not only is the Channels API available today, we also whipped up a couple of API clients so you can integrate Channels with any of your projects even faster. There's a Python package and Ruby gem ready to go.

If you're a Home Assistant fan, you'll be excited to hear that a Channels component has already been added to it and is now available.

You can learn more about the Channels API on our site. We hope you have fun with it!