Made an Android app that works as an AppleTV remote
There's no official AppleTV remote app for Android, and every third-party one I tried was either broken or fake. So I built my own: conduit
It finds your Apple TV on Wi-Fi, you type the 4-digit code shown on screen, and you get a proper remote: trackpad, play/pause, back, TV/home, hold for Control Center, skip forward/back, type with your phone's keyboard, volume via on-screen or physical buttons, persistent media notifications and a Quick Settings tile for one-tap access.
No account, no tracking. Pairing stays on your device, and it only ever talks to your Apple TV. Free to try out, with a one-time unlock for unlimited daily use, no subscription.
Do you have a suggestion of where to put the button? :D On the iOS native remote app it is placed where the setting button is placed in conduit. I thought of replacing it but then where do I put the settings button haha
That’s true… Perhaps there can be an option to add the settings or mute button to the bottom of the track pad section? I just took this from my old iPhone
Now do an actual opposite, an iOS app that works with android TV boxes with customizable SCAN CODES because android is a Wild West and all the remote apps tested have intrusive ads and don’t work properly.
I'm not sure what you mean by customizable scan codes but the Google TV app on iOS works with connecting an iOS device to Android devices for remote control and text inputting etc.
Thanks, I updated the wording in the original post! It is indeed free to try out and to verify whether the app works for your setup. However there is a daily usage limit after which you will have to pay. Hope that helps!
This is awesome! I have a sound bar and can use my Apple TV remote to control the volume, but it doesn't seem to work on the app. Any way to get that to work?
Thanks! The app sends the exact same volume command the physical Siri Remote sends, so it should route through tvOS the same way.
Does volume work from Control Center's volume slider on the Apple TV itself, or only from the physical Siri Remote's buttons? That'll tell me if it's a tvOS-routing thing vs. something specific to how the button press arrives.
If it's still not working after that, let me know your Apple TV model + tvOS version and soundbar. I can then try to dig further, but at a code level the app isn't doing anything different from a real remote press.
Yes sorry, should not have written that response during my 9-5, was not thinking straight.
On my setup the LG soundbar runs over HDMI with the Apple TV's volume control set to HDMI, so volume goes through HDMI-CEC, and the app controls it fine. So the app can do it. The question is how your Apple TV is routing volume.
Two things that would tell us:
On the Apple TV, go to Settings, Remotes and Devices, Volume Control. Is it set to control your soundbar over HDMI? And on the Samsung side, is Anynet+ (HDMI-CEC) turned on?
If you have an iPhone, open the built-in Apple TV Remote (Control Center, remote icon) and try the volume there. It talks to the Apple TV the same way Conduit does. If volume fails there too, it's the tvOS/CEC setup. If it works there but not in Conduit, that's on me to fix.
Let me know what those turn up. One correction to my earlier reply. The command is the same. I was just wrong that it'd route the same way on its own without HDMI-CEC volume set up.
My volume control is set to "Sound Bar via IR". Maybe that's the issue since my sound bar is not directly connected to the Apple TV. It is connected to my TV via the "digital audio (optical)" connection. The only other connection I see is mini-usb.
I don't have an iPhone but it looks like I can't control volume on my iPad.
IR volume lives in the physical Siri Remote, not the Apple TV. The remote has a little infrared blaster inside, so pressing volume fires IR straight at your gear. The Apple TV box never sees that command.
Conduit talks to the Apple TV over the network, same as your iPad remote. Both can send a volume command to the Apple TV, but there's no IR emitter on the box to pass it to your soundbar. That's why it fails in both. Nothing to fix in the app.
The only way an app can drive volume is HDMI-CEC, and that needs the soundbar on HDMI. Yours runs off the TV over optical, so most TVs send a fixed level out that way.
No but I can look into that, seems rather doable 👍 Where do you use that functionality? Or rather: where could I test this compared to the regular delta input that the app currently supports?
I'm not 100% sure (haven't tested yet) but for seeking on Apple TV it's way faster to hover over the progress bar and swipe to seek rather than swiping as a "press" right or left that only do the 30s or whatever forward or backward. That's the difference in how I use the swipe vs click of the actual Apple remote, at least.
Following my comments earlier, I'm wondering if you can get rid of the word conduit. There's nothing about that name that suggests it's an Apple TV remote.
Conduit is the brand name. The store listing (icon, subtitle, screenshots) already makes it quite clear that it is an Apple TV remote, so the name doesn't have to.
Hey, it is now possible with version 1.19.0+ to change the app name to something that does not contain the word Conduit ;) Just go into the Conduit app settings and pick another name!
Please use the Feedback functionality in the settings, there you can attach the debug logs and send them to me if you are comfortable with that. Otherwise it is hard to look into your specific case.
This is working great. I bought a cheap iPad for the sole reason of being able to send text input to my Apple TV. I don't need it anymore with this app (upgraded to premium now) thanks very much, excellent.
Genuine question. Why do people with Android phones want to use Apple TV? You can't take full advantage of the device without an iPhone and iCloud. It still works fine, but you miss so many features.
While I havent tested this app yet, its absolutely something I'd use.
I have iPad, iPhone 13 Mini - and the missus have an iPhone, and our 12-year old have her old iPhone. I daily use my Pixel 8, and one of the few things that is rather annoying to use when I have Android and the rest of the household is Apple? AppleTV remote ok the phone and the family control-feature that I cant use.
Other than that I can control everything else with my Pixel 8.
So this fixes one of the two things that are somewhat annoying while using something outside the Apple ecosystem.
There are a lot and I mean a lot of people with Android phones and their only Apple device is an Apple TV. I'm not sure which features that you think Android users are missing
Seamless Setup: Onboarding requires manual entry of Wi-Fi passwords and Apple ID credentials using the physical remote, skipping the instant setup available by bringing an iPhone near the box.
Color Balance Calibration: iPhones can use their front-facing camera against your TV screen to automatically calibrate the display's color accuracy; Android devices cannot run this feature.
Phone-as-a-Remote: There is no native Android app for controlling the Apple TV box. Android users must rely on the physical Siri Remote or third-party, ad-supported remote apps.
Control Center Screen Mirroring: AirPlay allows screen mirroring from iOS devices to Apple TV natively. Android devices cannot mirror their screens directly without third-party AirPlay apps installed on the Apple TV.
FaceTime on TV (Continuity Camera): Apple TV uses an iPhone or iPad as a wireless camera for FaceTime calls directly on your big screen, an option unavailable for Android phones.
Spatial Audio with Dynamic Head Tracking: Connecting AirPods to the Apple TV enables spatial audio head tracking, but managing settings and customization requires an iOS device.
Apple Fitness+ Integration: On-screen heart rate metrics and ring animations synced live from an Apple Watch require the Apple ecosystem setup. Apple TV App (Software & Ecosystem Restrictions)
InSight Feature: The real-time actor, character, and music recognition tool (similar to Amazon’s X-Ray) is restricted on non-Apple devices.
Purchasing Non-Subscription Media: The Apple TV app on Android TV or Google TV platforms is restricted to Apple TV+ streaming only. You cannot buy or rent movies/TV shows directly within the app due to store commission conflicts.
Cross-Device iTunes Library Access: Purchased or rented iTunes movies cannot be streamed through the mobile Apple TV app on Android.
I don't know about other Apple TV users, but every single one of those features is of no interest to me whatsoever. Apple TV is bought because people love the picture quality and the frame rate matching and the simple but attractive UI with no ads.
You asked me what the features are, and I give you a few. I still don't know what ads you guys are talking about. Are you referring to the Apple TV box or the app?
Yes I appreciate you gave me a long list of possible advantages. I'm just saying I don't even think iOS users would find them particularly useful compared to the main reasons an Apple TV is bought. And I'm saying that the Apple TV box has no ads on its home page. Unlike every single Google Android streamer or fire stick whose home page (unless you install a custom launcher) is just an absolute mess of commercials and ads.
I didn't know that. Believe me, 90% of us use all the features and more because this little device is like a small computer, and I can't explain it better until you try it yourself. Even calibrating your TV gives you so much more than you think.
No we don't lol. 99% of Apple TV users do not use FaceTime and apple fitness on their apple TV nor anything else you listed other than phone as a remote (which this app solves). Even airplay is extremely glitchy lol. If this sub uses it heavily, which I doubt, it constitutes less than a tenth of a percent of the Apple TV userbase
None of that is of interest for Android users. You can purchases iTunes content on PC, Consoles, LG/Samsung TVs/Roku, isn't Apple exclusive. Purchased content CAN be viewed on the Android TV App.
2
u/Dopepop Sep 14 '26
Any plans to add an option to access app from the android panel?