How to Add an Apple TV Power Button to Home Assistant

I recently got AirPlay working in our home network which got me a little more fired up to tackle some home automation stuff with Home Assistant. When I saw that our Apple TV was (mostly) playing nice with HA, I was a bit surprised to find that the power toggle did not behave out of the box as one might expect. The main issue was that if the Apple TV was put into standby mode, there was no way to turn it back on from within HA. That won't do! So I dug up some scripts from the Home Assistant forums, tweaked them a little, and got a decent power toggle set up in Home Assistant.

Get Your Remote Entity ID

First, find the Entity ID for your virtual Apple TV remote. Here's how to find that:

1. Go to Settings ➞ Devices & Services
2. Click on the entities link in your Apple TV integration
3. Find the Entity ID prefixed with remote.

Add the Scripts

You'll need to add one script for turning the Apple TV on, and another script for turning it off. In the following code snippets, replace any instances of remote.appletv with the Entity ID that applies in your config.

The most straightforward way to add these is through the File Editor add-on. Find your /config/scripts.yaml file, and plop the following scripts into it:

turn_apple_tv_off:
  alias: Turn Apple TV Off
  sequence:
    - service: remote.send_command
      target:
        entity_id: remote.appletv
      data:
        delay_secs: 3
        command:
          - home_hold
          - select
        num_repeats: 1
        hold_secs: 0
  mode: single
  icon: mdi:apple
turn_apple_tv_on:
  alias: Turn Apple TV On
  sequence:
    - service: remote.send_command
      target:
        entity_id: remote.appletv
      data:
        delay_secs: 3
        command:
          - home
        num_repeats: 1
        hold_secs: 1
  mode: single
  icon: mdi:apple

Create the On/Off Switch

Next, we'll create a Template Switch that can be made visible in the GUI for toggling the Apple TV on and off. For that, we'll need to edit the configuration.yml file, which again is easiest to find using the File Editor add-on.

switch:
  - platform: template
    switches:
      apple_tv_power:
        friendly_name: 'Apple TV Power'
        value_template: "{{ not is_state('media_player.appletv', ['standby','off']) }}"
        turn_on:
          service: script.turn_apple_tv_on
        turn_off:
          service: script.turn_apple_tv_off

The value_template is how we tell the switch what state it's currently in. I have mine configured to be "on" if the Apple TV is not in a "standby" or "off" state.

Automatically Turn On the Apple TV Remote on Startup

When Home Assistant starts, it does not automatically turn on the virtual Apple TV remote used by the scripts we created. Let's fix that.

1. Go to Settings ➞ Automations & Scenes ➞ Automations
2. Click the Create Automation button
3. Click the three dots button in the top right, and select Edit in YAML
4. Paste the following content in to automatically turn on the virtual Apple TV remote on startup

alias: Turn Apple TV remote on at startup
description: ''
trigger:
  - platform: homeassistant
    event: start
condition: []
action:
  - service: remote.turn_on
    data: {}
    target:
      entity_id: remote.appletv
mode: single

Remember that similar to the scripts, remote.appletv may have a different entity ID in your setup.

Now, let's restart Home Assistant so that it can pick up on the changes we made in the config files.

Add the Toggle to a Dashboard

1. In the Overview area, click the three dot button at the top right and select Edit Dashboard
2. Click Add Card
3. Open the By Entity tab
4. Search for switch, and you should see the switch.apple_tv_power entity. Select it and click Continue
5. Click Add to Dashboard
6. Click the Done button to finalize changes
7. And with that, you have a power toggle switch inside of Home Assistant for your Apple TV. It should even follow the state of your Apple TV if you use the physical remote to turn it on/off.

Conclusion

While it was a bit more work than I thought it would be to get the power toggle set up, it is nice to have it in HA now, and the scripts can even be used for other types of automations, so I'm glad to have it wired up. Onward and upward 🚀