Control your Mac with the Siri Remote on your Apple TV

If you have an Apple TV 4 or 4k you will have the Siri remote with a trackpad on top. Eternal Storms Software has developed a small free application, Sirimote, which allows us to control the Mac with that remote.

No… you will not be able to move the mouse with the trackpad on the remote control, the use is very limited to play, pause, change, fast forward… multimedia functions typical of any player.

• iTunes or the current "Music" on macOS Catalina
• Fast time
• VLC

Although we can also add the presentation here in Keynote and Powerpoint, as well as raise and lower the overall system volume, bring the screen to sleep or put the computer to sleep.

To do this, you need to download Sirimote from the Eternal Storms Software website for free. It is downloaded as a ZIP file that you need to unzip and you can run anywhere, you don't need to take it to the Applications folder or enter the administrator password (which gives us more peace of mind).

When we execute it, it will ask us to connect the command to the Mac. To do this we must turn off the Apple TV that is normally associated with that command and disconnect it completely. We then go to Bluetooth in Preferences and connect the remote control by pressing Menu and increase the volume for a few seconds. And finally we go to Preferences> Security and Privacy> Privacy> Accessibility and activate the corresponding box with SiriMote (here if you need to unlock the padlock at the bottom left with an administrator password).

From here we will act on the featured application. If we do not have any of the above and press Play, "Music" will open and we will be able to see how we can change the song, pause or even fast forward.

Reconnecting with your Apple TV is easy, remove it from your bluetooth devices from your computer, turn on Apple TV and press Menu and turn up the volume again to reconnect.

It's more curious than very useful, I don't see myself using such an expensive remote control for such a basic application, but maybe it can come in handy sooner or later. Maybe.