Roomie 9.1 is now live. While there are numerous improvements throughout the app, these are the highlights:
- Apple TV Primary Controller: The Apple TV edition has been significantly revised in this release to bring it up to par with the iOS edition for serving as a Primary Controller. The interface has been revamped and underlying infrastructure matched up to support most scenarios equivalent to the iOS edition. Activity Dashboard and Weather display have also been added. Instructions for running Roomie TV in Single App Mode (the Guided Access equivalent for tvOS) are now in the Knowledge Base. Single App Mode is not required but recommended if using Roomie TV as a Primary.
- UI improvements for Apple Watch 10.
- TV Guide data fixed for particularly large ingests.
In particular, the Apple TV edition received a lot of attention in 9.1. It was not previously equivalent in robustness and functionality to the iOS edition especially when it comes to serving as a Primary Controller. With this release, feature parity has largely been achieved for tvOS as a Primary. So whether it is Alexa Support, the reliability of Single App Mode (Guided Access for Apple TV), a whole new dashboard more like the iOS edition, Weather support, and many more, the things you may have lacked in the past to dedicate an Apple TV as a Primary Controller are likely now present.
This Knowledge Base article has been added today to help guide you through putting your Apple TV into Single App Mode (SAM). If you use it as a Primary Controller, SAM is recommended to protect against power loss, or other app issues:
https://roomieremote.com/support/appletvsingleappmode/
The process can be a bit intimidating as it is designed for corporate/education IT managers, but it’s really quite simple.
Note that some things work differently when using Apple TV as a primary. For example, tvOS does not support iCloud Drive, so Automatic Backup in that event will be performed by one of your Full Access secondaries. Also note that putting your Apple TV into Single App Mode will cause it to show up as non-responsive as a HomeKit Hub. Make sure you have a different HomeKit Hub if you use that functionality. Actual HomeKit control works fine.
From a high-level view, Apple TV is a very nice $149 box with Ethernet that is an ideal Primary Controller for Roomie. Set and Forget. It’s what Simple Hub was intended to be many years ago, but even cheaper.
