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Control your Linux machine with an Apple TV 4th Siri Remote
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README.md

SiriRemote-Linux

This project allows the usage of an Apple TV Siri Remote with Linux.

Do you have an old remote lying around and would like to control your linux machine with it? Then this is for you. This python program connects to and intercepts the data from a SiriRemote over bluetooth and does something useful with it, like change the volume or control media. Even the touchpad is working and if you know a bit of python, you can basically do anything with it.

Suppoerted models (check which one you have):

  • 1st gen
  • 2nd gen (gen-3 branch)
  • 3rd gen (gen-3 branch)
  • yours might also work, try it out!

Usage

Preparations (only once)

Pair the remote with you machine:

bluetoothctl
power on
scan on

Press MENU and + for few seconds and the remote will show up in bluetoothctl. The mac address might start with 48:A9:1C: or 60:BE:C4: (yours may vary, see here).

pair <mac-address>
disconnect <mac-address>
exit

Install the python dependencies:

pip install bluepy evdev

Media control

This will connect to the remote and simulate an input device for your machine.

Run the main program (<mac-address> being the remote mac address)

sudo python ./main.py <mac-address>

Press any button on the remote, and you should now be able to control the volume, media and the mouse cursor (menu / airplay = prev. / next song). The remote will disconnect after a while of inactivity but as soon as you press any button it will reconnect.

Custom

This repo provides a SiriRemote class which you can use to easily interface with the remote and receive button and touchpad events. You can see a simple example for it in echo_test.py.

Internal working of the SiriRemote

Huge thanks to Jack-R1. Without his previous work, I wouldn't have made it this far.

The remote communicates with HID over GATT, but since it's an Apple product you need to do some additional stuff, just to receive data. And even then it doesn't work on its own.

GATT Layout

Service: "Generic Access" | UUID: 00001800-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb | Handle: 0x1
  Char: "Device Name" | UUID: 00002a00-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb | Handle: 0x2 | Value Handle: 0x3
  Char: "Appearance" | UUID: 00002a01-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb | Handle: 0x4 | Value Handle: 0x5
Service: "Generic Attribute" | UUID: 00001801-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb | Handle: 0x6
  Char: "Service Changed" | UUID: 00002a05-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb | Handle: 0x7 | Value Handle: 0x8
    Desc: "Client Characteristic Configuration" | UUID: 00002902-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb | Handle: 0x9
Service: "Device Information" | UUID: 0000180a-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb | Handle: 0xa
  Char: "Serial Number String" | UUID: 00002a25-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb | Handle: 0xb | Value Handle: 0xc
  Char: "Hardware Revision String" | UUID: 00002a27-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb | Handle: 0xd | Value Handle: 0xe
  Char: "Firmware Revision String" | UUID: 00002a26-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb | Handle: 0xf | Value Handle: 0x10
  Char: "Manufacturer Name String" | UUID: 00002a29-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb | Handle: 0x11 | Value Handle: 0x12
  Char: "PnP ID" | UUID: 00002a50-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb | Handle: 0x13 | Value Handle: 0x14
Service: "Human Interface Device" | UUID: 00001812-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb | Handle: 0x15
  Char: "HID Information" | UUID: 00002a4a-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb | Handle: 0x16 | Value Handle: 0x17
  Char: "Report Map" | UUID: 00002a4b-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb | Handle: 0x18 | Value Handle: 0x19
  Char: "HID Control Point" | UUID: 00002a4c-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb | Handle: 0x1a | Value Handle: 0x1b
  Char: "Report" | UUID: 00002a4d-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb | Handle: 0x1c | Value Handle: 0x1d
    Desc: "Report Reference" | UUID: 00002908-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb | Handle: 0x1e
  Char: "Report" | UUID: 00002a4d-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb | Handle: 0x1f | Value Handle: 0x20
    Desc: "Report Reference" | UUID: 00002908-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb | Handle: 0x21
  Char: "Report" | UUID: 00002a4d-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb | Handle: 0x22 | Value Handle: 0x23
    Desc: "Client Characteristic Configuration" | UUID: 00002902-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb | Handle: 0x24
    Desc: "Report Reference" | UUID: 00002908-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb | Handle: 0x25
Service: "Battery Service" | UUID: 0000180f-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb | Handle: 0x26
  Char: "Battery Level" | UUID: 00002a19-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb | Handle: 0x27 | Value Handle: 0x28
    Desc: "Client Characteristic Configuration" | UUID: 00002902-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb | Handle: 0x29
  Char: "2a1a" | UUID: 00002a1a-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb | Handle: 0x2a | Value Handle: 0x2b
    Desc: "Client Characteristic Configuration" | UUID: 00002902-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb | Handle: 0x2c
Service: "Bond Management" | UUID: 0000181e-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb | Handle: 0x2d
  Char: "Bond Management Control Point" | UUID: 00002aa4-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb | Handle: 0x2e | Value Handle: 0x2f
  Char: "Bond Management Feature" | UUID: 00002aa5-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb | Handle: 0x30 | Value Handle: 0x31
Service: "8341f2b4-c013-4f04-8197-c4cdb42e26dc" | UUID: 8341f2b4-c013-4f04-8197-c4cdb42e26dc | Handle: 0x32
  Char: "9fbf120d-6301-42d9-8c58-25e699a21dbd" | UUID: 9fbf120d-6301-42d9-8c58-25e699a21dbd | Handle: 0x33 | Value Handle: 0x34
  Char: "2bdcaebe-8746-45df-a841-96b840980fb7" | UUID: 2bdcaebe-8746-45df-a841-96b840980fb7 | Handle: 0x35 | Value Handle: 0x36
  Char: "2bdcaebe-8746-45df-a841-96b840980fb8" | UUID: 2bdcaebe-8746-45df-a841-96b840980fb8 | Handle: 0x37 | Value Handle: 0x38
  Char: "30e69638-3752-4feb-a3aa-3226bcd05ace" | UUID: 30e69638-3752-4feb-a3aa-3226bcd05ace | Handle: 0x39 | Value Handle: 0x3a
    Desc: "Client Characteristic Configuration" | UUID: 00002902-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb | Handle: 0x3b

Battery information

Battery level

Enable notifications on handle 0x0027, by writing 0x01 0x00 to 0x0029. You'll then receive values from 0x0028 ranging from 0x00 to 0x64, which are 0 to 100 as integer and represent the battery percentage.

Charging state

Enable notifications on handle 0x002a, by writing 0x01 0x00 to 0x002c. Possible values you'll receive from 0x002b are:

  • 0xAB charging
  • 0xAF discharging
  • 0xBB plugged in

Enable input

To receive input data from the remote we need to send 0xAF to the handle 0x001d and also enable notifications on handle 0x0022, by writing 0x01 0x00 to 0x0024. You'll then receive byte arrays from 0x0023 with a length of either 2, 13, 20 or 1011.

Buttons

Button presses are sent with the second byte and are encoded bitwise, so it also supports multiple presses:

  • 0x00 All released
  • 0x01 AirPlay
  • 0x02 Volume up
  • 0x04 Volume down
  • 0x08 Play/Pause
  • 0x10 Siri
  • 0x20 Menu
  • 0x80 Touchpad

Touch

Touch events are sent with a 13 byte array (or 20 with two fingers). The first 6 are general information and the following 7 are the data of the touch position.

Index Content
0 Finger count
1 Pressed buttons
2 always 50
3 ?
4 ?
5 ? (increases over time)
6 X coordinate
7 X coordinate
8 Y coordinate
9 ? (0 when released)
10 ? (0 when released)
11 pressure
12 ?
13-19 see 6-12 (second finger)

X coordinate

The X coordinate consists of two bytes at the indices 6 and 7. However only the first 3 bits of the byte at index 7 are required. The SiriRemote's touchpad has the weird property of having 8 vertical "zones" and the byte at index 6 only gives us the location in such a "zone". The byte at index 7 gives us the remaining information for the "zone" index.

x = data[6] + 255 * (data[7] & 7)

Y coordinate

The Y coordinate is pretty straight forward. The value (bottom to top) goes from 188 to 255 and then from 0 to 38. I assume it's a signed bytes which would explain this behaviour.

The resolution is pretty low compared to the X coordinate, so there might be something else that contributes to the Y coordinate, that I haven't found yet.

Audio/Siri

Unfortunately I wasn't able to test the data we receive from the microphone, because of a linux limitation1.

All I know for now is that you're supposed to get 101 bytes of which the majority is opus encoded audio data. You can check out Jack-R1's repos for more information about this.

  1. 101 bytes are received when Siri/Audio is used, but bluez somehow can't handle more than 20 bytes. The bytes do however appear in wireshark. ↩︎