With these tricks, you’ll be able to channel surf with Channel Up & Channel Down, start a recording directly while watching live TV, change the channel by entering its channel number, and even create shortcuts to sections of the app.

• Remote Shortcuts
• HDMI-CEC
• Bluetooth & Harmony Hub Remotes

Remote Shortcuts

Channels lets you configure shortcuts to jump to different sections of the app. These shortcuts can be triggered by the colored buttons on remotes or by the F1-F4 keys on a keyboard. You can configure the shortcuts in Settings > General > Remote Shortcuts.

These shortcuts can be triggered directly with the colored buttons via remote controls over HDMI-CEC or with function keys via keyboards. Here’s how they map.

• F1 = Blue Button
• F2 = Red Button
• F3 = Green Button
• F4 = Yellow Button

Read further to learn how to connect your remote in a way that allows these colored buttons to work with your Apple TV.

HDMI-CEC

Modern TVs support a system called HDMI-CEC. Button presses on the official TV remote will be sent as commands to your streaming device. While HDMI-CEC control is somewhat of a standard, your mileage may vary in terms of which button commands are set to your device. In our testing, this has been confirmed working on at least LG, Samsung, and Sony TVs.

This means you can just use the remote control that came with your TV, or any universal remote that controls your TV, to control your streaming device to get a couple extra button commands.

You may find that these buttons work with your TV’s remote:

• Channel Up
• Channel Down
• Record
• Last Channel

Button Mappings

Here’s a list of what you should expect the buttons on your remote will do.

Navigation

• Channel Up - Page up in the Guide
• Channel Down - Page down in the Guide

Watching TV

• Channel Up - Channel Up
• Channel Down - Channel Down
• Record - Toggle recording
• Last Channel - Jump to last channel

Configure HDMI-CEC

Each TV manufacturer uses a different brand name for HDMI-CEC. You may need to enable the corresponding setting on your TV before the remote buttons are passed through to your streaming device.

For example, on Sony TVs, you may need to change the Device Control Keys option on the TV before certain button commands are allowed through.

HDMI-CEC Brand Names

• AOC - E-link
• Hitachi - HDMI-CEC
• LG - SimpLink
• Loewe - Digital Link or Digital Link Plus
• Mitsubishi - NetCommand for HDMI
• Onkyo - RIHD (Remote Interactive over HDMI)
• Panasonic - VIERA Link or HDAVI Control or EZ-Sync
• Philips - EasyLink
• Pioneer - Kuro Link
• Runco International - RuncoLink
• Samsung - Anynet+
• Sharp - Aquos Link
• Sony - BRAVIA Link or BRAVIA Sync (You may need to use a port labeled HDMI-MHL if the regular HDMI port does not work.)
• Toshiba - Regza Link or CE-Link
• Vizio - CEC

Bluetooth & Harmony Hub Remotes

When paired with a Bluetooth remote, you can add button commands that are not normally available with the remote that came with your streaming device.

Advanced Commands

Using the following methods, you can add a lot of functionality to your remote.

You can channel surf with Channel Up and Channel Down buttons, directly input channels numbers with the 0-9 buttons, and even start a recording with the Record button.

Sofabaton

The Sofabaton U1 is an inexpensive alternative to Harmony remotes. It connects to your streaming device directly via bluetooth and appears as a keyboard.

Once you’ve paired the Sofabaton remote to your streaming device, you can use our keyboard keys to add commands to its buttons.

Additional Functions

The following is a list of the additional functions you can add to your remote along with their commands.

• Channel Up = PageUp
• Channel Down = PageDown
• Skip to previous commercial marker = PreviousTrack
• Skip to next commercial marker = NextTrack
• Record = Record
• 0-9 = 0-9
• Blue Button = F1
• Red Button = F2
• Green Button = F3
• Yellow Button = F4

Harmony Hub Remotes

If you have a Harmony Hub based remote, you can configure it to unlock many more commands to work with Channels.

Harmony Hacks

Harmony Hub based remotes pair with streaming devices over bluetooth. By adding a Computer device to your activity, you will gain new commands that you can map to your remote buttons. When used, the Harmony Hub will send those commands to your device as keyboard keys.

Here are the list of steps to get your activity set up.

1. Ensure that the Harmony Hub is connected to your streaming device over Bluetooth.
   • If not, edit your activity and use the Keyboard option to trigger a pairing.
2. Add a Windows Computer device to your Hub
   • Click Add Device > Computer > Windows
3. Create a new activity that includes all the new devices: IE, BT Apple TV 4, and Windows Computer.
4. Edit the activity, click Customize and assign your remote buttons to use commands from the Windows computer profile

Additional Functions

The following is a list of the additional functions you can add to your remote along with their commands.

• Channel Up = PageUp
• Channel Down = PageDown
• Skip to previous commercial marker = SkipBackward
• Skip to next commercial marker = SkipForward
• Record = Record
• 0-9 = 0-9
• Blue Button = F1
• Red Button = F2
• Green Button = F3
• Yellow Button = F4