Apple TV

Stb-tester supports all models of the Apple TV.

Remote control

Stb-tester uses HDMI CEC to send remote control commands to the Apple TV.

You will need our USB CEC adapter. If we didn’t ship one with your Stb-tester device, contact support@stb-tester.com. Plug it in as per the diagram below — The Stb-tester Node will automatically use the CEC adapter if it is plugged in.

CEC is enabled by default on the Apple TV.

Key names

In your test scripts you can use the following key names:

• "KEY_POWER"

• "KEY_UP"

• "KEY_DOWN"

• "KEY_LEFT"

• "KEY_RIGHT"

• "KEY_OK"

• "KEY_BACK"

• "KEY_TV"

• "KEY_PLAY"

Power on / power off

As of tvOS 17.5, the CEC command for “KEY_POWER” doesn’t wake the Apple TV from sleep. Use “KEY_TV” instead.

Once the Apple TV is on, “KEY_POWER” does behave the same way as the real remote control: A single press opens a pop-up menu, and a long-press puts the Apple TV to sleep.

Network control

Stb-tester can use pyatv (an open-source Python library) to control the Apple TV over the network, to perform actions such as launching an app, or entering text when the on-screen search keyboard is visible. For detailed instructions see Controlling Apple TV with pyatv.

Apple TV settings

We recommend the following configuration in the Apple TV’s Settings:

• General > Appearance > Light

• Accessibility > Display > Reduce Transparency = On

• Accessibility > Motion > Auto-Play Video Previews = Off

These settings make image processing APIs such as stbt.match and stbt.press_and_wait more predictable.