Not Channels related but mining Apple TV gurus knowledge

Channels Apple TV
#1

I have some scripts that my Home Assistant runs on my Apple TVs. They work well except for one that I am trying to run when I turn off the AV system in my Lounge. The script sets the Enhance Dialogue Setting back to Off in case we have left it on.

Because there is no deep link available within the Apple TV Settings menu, it is quite a lengthy script that takes many button press actions to achieve. It works fine when everything is switched on, but I have discovered (after a lot of hair tearing out) that the Apple TV is "clever" enough to know that it hasn't got anything connected to the HDMI and so doesn't allow any navigation commands. So when the AVR/TV are switched off the script doesn't work.

So, I was wondering if there is any way to fool the Apple TV into thinking a display is connected to it even when it isn't - maybe a HDMI Edid emulator passthrough device? But there seem to be a lot of different types, so I wondered if anyone has any experience of them and could recommend one that would do what I want? Or any other suggestions to keep the Apple TV responsive to script commands with no display active?

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#2

Wonder if something like this would work?

https://a.co/d/4eBnx8N

#3

That's the sort of thing I was thinking off, but they mostly seem to be designed to fool a laptop or PC, so not sure if it would work with the Apple TV.

If no one has any experience of specific models, I guess I'll just try one.

#4

Just to update this for anyone interested, I went for a Lindy HDMI 2.0 EDID Emulator (32115) to test this. They are more expensive that the generic ones but I am in the UK and need the device to emulate 50hz settings and a lot of the cheap generic ones seemed to be 60Hz.

The Lindy works by "recording" your current EDID settings and then provides that same data to the Apple TV permanently regardless of whether or not the display is actually active.

To set it up in the first place is simple and only takes a minute.

I tested the first one in a room with the Apple TV connected direct to the TV and it worked fine so I got another for the Lounge where there is an AVR between the Apple TV and TV. That has just arrived and it works fine there too.

So now I can run my HA shutdown script for the Apple TVs whenever I turn off the TVs or AV system and it runs perfectly.

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