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Comment by nerdix | Hacker News Reader

Are you using HDMI-CEC? You shouldn't be touching your TV remote at all. You shouldn't need to set a default HDMI input. All you have to do is press any button on the AppleTV remote and it will turn on the TV with the correct input device selected. I have a 2 year old Sony TV with GoogleTV and it works fine. I can go directly to a PS5 and Switch by just turning on the respective controller.

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Yep, I'm using HDMI-CEC. I would love to just touch the Apple TV remote and have everything "just work", but for whatever reason a good 1/3rd of the time it just boots into Google TV anyway despite not touching the TV remote at all.

This sort of annoyance would be far more tolerable if the onboard software wasn't such a gigantic pain.

But it could be worse - I owned another (slightly older) Sony "smart" TV that wouldn't even display the Input switcher until ~60s after boot. It would literally give you a "TV is still starting, try again later" prompt for a good minute after the screen turns on. So I guess this is something of an improvement.

Sure, that stuff "should" work and there are set ups that one "should" do, but one can say the same thing about how these things work as well: The manufacturer "shouldn't" be requiring things to work this way and "shouldn't" be forcing this software on everyone.

This isn’t what I’m experiencing at all. I have a Sony Bravia TV. The TV works flawlessly with HDMI CEC and the Apple TV port set to default. It never opens Android TV, I haven’t seen that interface in months. I also never even set up Google TV or logged in with a Google account, which is optional.

I’ve never had HDMI-CEC not do something that absolutely infuriated me.

HDMI-CEC is a very underrated feature not more widely known.

Indeed. I was surprised when new Apple TV 4K remote was able to turn on/off my 2009 Panasonic plasma TV. And the Apple TV remote could be IR programmed to adjust the volume of my NAD amplifier, too.

This is perfect for me as I still find the picture quality of plasma sufficient and don’t want a “smart” TV.

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