If you want to combine your remotes a bit and control your TV volume with your Apple TV remote, here’s how to easily set it up.
The Apple TV set-top box itself doesn’t have its own volume, so if you want to turn up the volume on a movie you’re watching, you’ll need to grab your TV remote and turn it up that way. unless you set up your Apple TV remote to do so.
One major annoyance I experienced while using my new Apple TV was starting a movie, but the volume was either too high or too low.
So you have to pick up the TV remote to change the volume, but it turns out you can actually adjust the volume with the Apple TV remote, thanks to some new dedicated volume buttons on the remote.
Here’s how to control the volume on your TV using the Apple TV remote.
The first thing you want to check is if your TV has HDMI-CEC capabilities, and if it does, make sure to enable it.
HDMI-CEC is a technology that allows your Apple TV (and other set-top boxes and devices) to send commands to your TV via a connected HDMI cable. So waking up your Apple TV can also automatically turn it on, and putting your Apple TV to sleep can also automatically turn it off.
If your TV has HDMI-CEC, you don’t need to set up anything on your Apple TV for the Apple TV remote to adjust the volume on your TV, other than making sure everything is set up in the steps below.
If your TV doesn’t have HDMI-CEC, you’ll need to manually set your Apple TV remote to work with your TV’s volume, but it’s very easy to do.
On your Apple TV, navigate to .
From here, select , or if you have an audio receiver, select . If you plan to use HDMI-CEC, select .
Then go down to . You can just go straight to this option, and after you set everything up, the Apple TV will automatically select one of the IR options above.
From here, take the remote that controls your TV’s volume and point it at the Apple TV while pressing the volume up button. Do this until the progress bar is full. You will do the same with the volume down button.
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If it doesn’t respond, try tapping the volume buttons very quickly repeatedly. I had to do this for my remote and it worked great. However, your remote may have an IR signal that the Apple TV cannot read. In that case, you’re out of luck.
Otherwise, after it detects the volume up and volume down buttons, you’re good to go. You can now use the volume buttons on the Apple TV remote to control the volume on your TV.