Apple TV update

Forum Devices
#1

Even though Apple TV auto software update was set to OFF. Apple popped up the screen on top of Roomie that wanted you to confirm update or click for LATER install. I clicked later and brought RR to the foreground, but that pop up Apple message seemed to trash the automation on Roomie that was using the Apple TV for the Hub. The only way I got it back was to delete Roomie on Apple TV and reinstall it twice. It had been running fine for over 2 months. My question(s) are:

  1. Can I go ahead and let the update to 15.4.1 happen.
  2. When RR on Apple TV as the hub first installs is there a rule of thumb on how long it takes to populate the automation from the current Home on one of the IOS devices back to the hub? It seemed to take quite a long time to do that and I almost gave up on it late last night. It is now working after 2 complete RR deletions and re-installs on Apple TV.
  3. I have never really found info on if you should leave background refresh ON, on the Apple TV Hub or the IOS devices?

Any information will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

#2

Don’t re-install on AppleTV unless support tells you to do so. Huge waste of time. Once it syncs, you’re good. If you have a large config or you’ve been a user for many years, it can take a little while on non-iOS systems. There is a way to accelerate that by nuking your iCloud data, but it’s usually not worthwhile.

There is no issue with current versions of tvOS. Feel free to update as always. As covered in many other places, if you want to block various random tvOS notices, you can try Apple’s Single App Mode.

There is no real background refresh on tvOS, Roomie must be foreground. Of course you should leave it on for iOS unless directed otherwise by support for the special case of license refresh in old apps.

#3

Will thanks for your previous comments. I have tried over and over to get the automation to work correctly on the spare Apple TV. I have tried different ways of configuring the automation in the “watch device” but it gets slower and slower to function. I switched from the Apple TV hub to an iPhone 8 as the Primary and it has been working great (and fast) for awhile but stopped when an Apple pop-up interrupted Roomie on the Primary. I restarted the iPhone 8 but automation continues to be extremely slow. I have been a user for many years and probably have a large config file. In general the “watch device” takes 10-40 seconds to respond to a device state change, where before it was instantaneous (to activate a device or start an activity). The schedule a day or time seems to work fine. It is the "watch device Please let me know if the "nuking the iCloud data that you mentioned will fix things. Not sure if there is such a thing as a file fragmented with the roomie data file. Thanks.

#4

As is often the case on the forum, I can only guess which is why we don’t officially reply here. More likely it’s things like (1) super slow/old device iPhone 8, (2) marginal Wi-Fi connections or other networking issues, (3) slow/old AppleTV. But since in the forum I can’t see your configuration, it’s all just guesswork and this is why there are frequent stickies here noting that things like this should not be posted to the forum and instead be sent via support ticket.

Certain devices are extremely chatty, require greater than usual amounts of work and thus place a higher burden if you use a slow/old controller. You use the term “watch device”, I have no idea what that means, I assume you mean a Primary Controller. ISY is a good example of an extremely chatty device because they don’t have good APIs so we have to query their world often. In a support ticket, this is immediately evident. In a forum, difficult to say.

I would re-iterate though that you have now mentioned your AppleTV interrupted by some kind of alert – which is a known issue solved as I said above by Single App Mode. You then mentioned your iPhone 8 interrupted by some kind of system alert which again is extensively documented solved by Guided Access. Run a Primary with Guided Access on a charger and ideally with an Ethernet adapter (this is repeated many times in the Setup Guide).

Both iPhone 8 and Apple TV pre-2021 models are now at their replacement timeframe or beyond it. As I’ve often said, the best way to do this is to buy brand new devices the moment they are introduced and then use them up to 5 years. The iPhone 8 is a 2017 device, so now is the time to replace it. It is one of the lowest models supported by iOS 16 in the Fall, so most likely it won’t be supported by iOS at some point soon. Meanwhile, the AppleTV HD is 7 years old and definitely should not be used as a Primary at this point. The 2017 AppleTV 4K model (A10) is even worse than the iPhone 8 (A11), so these devices are both highly suspect modulo the context that I have no information on your config so the issue could be unrelated to a slow controller.

#5

Will, sorry for the slow response. I have been out with Covid and traveling. I think I finally narrowed down the Automation issues. You asked about “watch device” which I use on the main controller to watch for changes in a hue bloom light brightness. I use Indigo to control most everything else in the house along with synchronization with HomeKit. With brightness changes on the hue light being constantly “watched” by Roomie, I can have Indigo send like a 3% brightness to a hue light which will trigger an Automation script in Roomie such as “All Off” Activity which turns all the Audio & Video devices off when the alarm for the house is set. If there are any change on the HomeKit side of things, the “Watch Lightbulb” then action “Start an Activity” doesn’t work or is delayed at least 20 seconds.

In order to fix and update manifests and syncing with Roomie, I have discovered that I need to hit force Home Kit sync under Homes, at least 2 times in order for things to work correctly. I was earlier only hitting it 1 time which didn’t seem to cleanup or update the manifest for HomeKit.

On your comments about Apple’s constant updates, I am planning to upgrade devices as the wallet allows, but for now an iPhone 8 is working fast as the Primary Controller.

Thanks for your help.