How to adjust the sensitivity of your Apple TV Remote

In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to customize the Apple TV Siri Remote to your liking by adjusting the sensitivity of its Touch Surface or turning it off altogether.

Apple TV Siri Remote

The Apple TV ships with a Siri Remote that has a dedicated trackpad-like area, officially referred to as the Touch Surface.

In addition to making a clicking sound when pressed to highlight or click an item, you can swipe left, right, up, or down on the Touch Surface to navigate the interface.

The remote’s Touch Surface is also used in many other places throughout tvOS. For instance, you can press and hold the Touch Surface to enter an alternate character with the on-screen keyboard, swipe across the characters to highlight one, and press the touch area to select an item. Additionally, you can force-quit the selected app by swiping up when you’re in the task switcher (invoked by double-pressing the Home button on the remote).

Should you find that default touch sensitivity isn’t working for you, worry not, for tvOS lets you customize the sensitivity of the Siri Remote to match your particular control style.

Note: You can change the touch surface sensitivity on Siri Remote 1st generation and later.

Adjust Touch Surface sensitivity on Siri Remote

  1. Open the Settings app on your Apple TV.
  2. Go to Remotes and Devices.
  3. Select Touch Surface Tracking.
  4. You can now choose between three modes of tracking: Fast, Medium, and Slow. Setting tracking to Fast will require smaller thumb movements to move farther on the Apple TV screen. If you choose Slow, you’ll make larger movements to move a smaller distance. And, of course, Medium is right in between and set by default.
Touch Surface Tracking for Siri Remote on Apple TV

Disable the Touch Surface of your Apple TV Remote

You have the option to stop using the Touch Surface of your Siri Remote 2nd generation or later. After that, you can only use the Touch Surface for clicking, but you can’t swipe left, right, up, and down on it. Instead, you will have to move vertically and horizontally using the four buttons that circle around the Touch Surface. Note that since Siri Remote 1st generation only has the Touch Surface and not the four left, right, up, and down buttons, you can’t disable it there.

Follow these steps to turn off vertical and horizontal swiping on the Apple TV Remote:

  1. Go to Apple TV Settings > Remotes and Devices.
  2. Select Clickpad.
  3. Now, select Click Only instead of Click and Touch.
Clickpad setting for Siri Remote on Apple TV

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