Harmony Remote and Apple TV - "start position"

Question

I have my Harmony Remote set up to control my Apple TV (4th Gen, not 4K) and it works fine for the basics.

I'd like to setup an Activity on the remote to launch Netflix. However the way to do this seems to be through a combination of "right, down, right, OK, down, down, OK" which ends up looking like a solution to a Zork Zero problem.

I'm fine with this apart from the start position.

Is there any way to force the Apple TV to return to, say, the Top Left tile, no matter where it is (i.e. in an Open App in a folder, or in the Movies App, etc.)?

Answer 1

My ATV4 has a "Menu" button (upper left button, below touchpad). Touching it from anywhere on the homepage takes me to the home screen, and selects the upper-left icon (Settings, for me).

But, if you're inside a "folder" on the home screen, or inside an app, it usually takes 2 clicks to get back to that top-left tile.

Before you say, "just program 2 clicks every time", when you do that from the home screen itself (not in a folder or app), that launches the screensaver. You'd need to press Menu again to get out of the screensaver, but 3 clicks would send the other scenarios into the screensaver...

There is no sure-fire way to get to the top-left tile, and then to your Netflix app. Unless you're willing to use the reboot function, which is available in the Harmony setup for ATV, but that kind of defeats the purpose of getting to Netflix quickly...

Answer 2

Realize this is an older thread but I got this working by programming:

• Home -> Delay 2s -> Home

(Home is available if you setup your AppleTV to be controlled by Bluetooth instead of IR)

If it's in an app the First home take you out, second resets you to upper left

If it's on the home screen the First home takes you to the upper left, second home does nothing

The 2s pause works for me by being just long enough to guarantee it's exited the app and also providing enough space to prevent it from being a "double click"

I also have a 1s delay before doing the left/right/up/down to get to the app of choice, and then another 1s delay before "select", because it wasn't always getting all the way where I wanted. Those can maybe get cut down I just haven't fiddled much with them. Either way the 3 commands above seem to work well for getting you to the upper corner.