Apple TV - Push Settings via MDM

[dbergstol]

Is it possible for Meraki push out specific settings to an Apple TV? I looked through the available options within profiles and it seems the tvOS options are limited, but I don't know if I'm missing something. There is a setting we recently discovered that is causing issues in our environment and were hoping to turn it off in bulk remotely instead of touching each individual device. The setting in question is the following: Settings > Remotes and Devices > Control TVs and Receivers.

[alemabrahao]

Yes, it is possible for Meraki to push out specific settings to an Apple TV. Cisco MDM supports the management of tvOS devices. There are two main methods of enrolling tvOS into Systems Manager: Apple's Device Enrollment Program or Apple Configurator.

Before enrolling tvOS devices, ensure a valid Apple Push Certificate is set up in your  Dashboard. Apple's (ADE) allows you to permanently manage your organization's macOS, iOS, and tvOS devices. Your devices need to be in Apple's ADE to use this method. ADE allows you to make MDM enrollment mandatory and unremovable, and also automates enrollment into Systems Manager so that it happens automatically during the initial device setup.

But, the specific setting you mentioned (Settings > Remotes and Devices > Control TVs and Receivers) might not be available to manage remotely through Meraki. The tvOS options in Meraki are indeed limited and may not include every setting available on the device. If this specific setting is causing issues in your environment.

[BlakeRichardson]

@dbergstol From what I can see I don't believe there are any configurable remote payloads in Meraki SM, not sure about other MDM's but for SM I cannot see any. 

What are you trying to achieve as maybe there is another way we can go about it?

[dbergstol]

In our district a few of our schools have a setup where their desktop computer and Apple TV are hooked up to an HDMI switcher that then goes directly to their Epson projector. Over time there were reports of the Epson powering itself off every 15 minutes while displaying their desktop. Long story short we discovered it was due to the Apple TV going to sleep and sending a signal to the Epson to power off, despite not being the device currently displaying to the projector. Through testing we determined turning off the setting I mentioned would resolve this issue. Our hope was to turn off the setting on all of the Apple TVs throughout the district remotely, however from what it sounds like we may need to touch each one individually. We'll give @PaulF's suggestion a try to disable "Allow pairing with Remote app or Control Center widget," although that sounds like it's related to the app used on iOS/iPadOS

[PaulF]

The first place to start when looking to see if something is possible is Apple's documentation: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/devicemanagement

I'd start with look at *Profile Specific Payload Keys"

Now, if there's something you want to *prevent* this will almost always be in a Restrictions payload

If you want to Enable something, it is likely to a payload that's available when clicking "Add Settings"

The reason that the list is small for Apple TVOS is because there is less things that you can do with the device!

I found a restriction for you that *may* be relevent:

Allow pairing with Remote app or Control Center widget

But that's the only one I found