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Table of Contents

Scan, Pair and Connect

Finding a device, pairing with it and connecting to it are the basic actions needed to control a device.

Scan

Use pyatv.scan to scan for devices on the local network. Scanning for and printing name and address of discovered devices can be done like this:

atvs = await pyatv.scan(loop)
for atv in atvs:
    print(f"Name: {atv.name}, Address: {atv.address}")

You can put some limitations on what device(s) to scan for, e.g. an identifier and/or a protocol:

from pyatv import scan
from pyatv.const import Protocol

# Scan for a specific device
atvs = scan(loop, identifier="AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF")

# Scan for a specific device by IP (unicast)
atvs = scan(loop, hosts=["10.0.0.1"])

# Only scan for MRP services
atvs = scan(loop, protocol=Protocol.MRP)

# Include both MRP and AirPlay
atvs = scan(loop, protocol={Protocol.MRP, Protocol.AirPlay})

A list is always returned, even if a filter is applied. See conf.AppleTV for what you can do with a configuration (e.g. extract deep sleep state or available services).

When scanning for one or more protocols with protocols, only the listed protocols are added to the configuration regardless if more protocols are supported.

It is possible to provide a set of identifiers to scan for:

atvs = scan(loop, identifier={"id1", "id2"})

The first device responding to either of the identifiers will be returned. This is useful when re-discovering a previous known device. Scanning for all identifiers used by a device will work even if a service is no longer present, e.g. when disabling AirPlay.

Enabled and disabled services

Each service has an enabled flag, indicating if pyatv should connect to the service or not. The main reason for adding a disabled service in contrast to ignoring it is that pyatv can extract device information from that service, e.g. unique identifiers. This is for instance the case with MRP on tvOS 15, where MRP no longer can be connected to but we still want to collect its unique identifier.

Pair

Calling pyatv.pair returns a pairing handler conforming to the interface interface.PairingHandler. The usage flow is generic in order to support protocols that either require a PIN entered on the device (DMAP) or in the client (MRP and AirPlay).

Pairing Requirement

Not all protocols support nor require pairing, it is thus necessary to verify if pairing is needed before calling pyatv.pair. After performing a scan, the interface.BaseService.pairing property return whether pairing is required or not. There are five states to consider:

Requirement Meaning
const.PairingRequirement.Unsupported Pairing is either not supported by protocol or not implemented by pyatv.
const.PairingRequirement.Disabled Pairing is generally supported by the protocol, but has been (temporarily) disabled by the device.
const.PairingRequirement.NotNeeded Pairing is not needed, i.e. it is possible to connect without any further action.
const.PairingRequirement.Optional Pairing is not needed but recommended. One example is when Home Sharing is enabled, where credentials are included in the Zeroconf properties.
const.PairingRequirement.Mandatory Pairing must be performed.

The pairing requirement is solely based on what is required by a protocol and does not take any provided credentials into account, i.e. interface.BaseService.pairing will return const.PairingRequirement.Mandatory even when credentials are filled in.

pyatv.pair must only be called if interface.BaseService.pairing is either const.PairingRequirement.Optional or const.PairingRequirement.Mandatory.

Pairing Flow

The general flow for pairing looks like this.

  1. Start pairing by calling begin
  2. Check if device presents a PIN by checking device_provides_pin
    • If True: call pin with the PIN shown on screen
    • If False: call pin with the PIN that must be entered on the device and wait for user to enter PIN
  3. Call finish
  4. Check if pairing succeeded with has_paired
  5. Free resources with close
  6. Obtained credentials are available via the service, i.e. service.credentials

In a future revision of this API, a function will be added that waits for the pairing to succeed (or timeout), in order to know when to call finish. This is only applicable to the case when device_provides_pin is False. Now you have to poll has_paired or just require that pairing succeeds within a time frame.

If an error occurs, e.g. incorrect PIN, exceptions.PairingError is raised.

Translating the flow above into code looks like this (this is a simplified version of examples/pairing.py):

import asyncio
from pyatv import scan, pair
from pyatv.const import Protocol

async def main():
    loop = asyncio.get_event_loop()

    atvs = await scan(loop)

    pairing = await pair(atvs[0], Protocol.MRP, loop)
    await pairing.begin()

    if pairing.device_provides_pin:
        pin = int(input("Enter PIN: "))
        pairing.pin(pin)
    else:
        pairing.pin(1234)  # Should be randomized
        input("Enter this PIN on the device: 1234")

    await pairing.finish()

    # Give some feedback about the process
    if pairing.has_paired:
        print("Paired with device!")
        print("Credentials:", pairing.service.credentials)
    else:
        print("Did not pair with device!")

    await pairing.close()

asyncio.run(main())  # asyncio.run requires python 3.7+

Storing Credentials

Since pyatv 0.14.0, credentials and passwords are managed by a storage module. This means that credentials may be stored automatically to for instance a file or cloud service after pairing. It also allows for loading of said properties automatically. Please see Storage and Settings for details on using a storage module.

Legacy Storing Credentials

Prior to storage support, credentials would be stored like this:

identifier = const.identifier

# Save identifier

for service in config.services:
    protocol = service.protocol
    credentials = service.credentials

    # Save mapping of protocol and credentials

How to restore credentials is described in here.

Protocol specific settings

Some protocols support protocol specific setting, e.g. a special name or identifier. Prior to pyatv 0.14.0 these settings would be passed as additional arguments to pyatv.pair. Settings are now stored in storage, so to change these settings you should update settings for the device in storage instead.

DMAP specifics (deprecated)

Note: Settings should be set via the settings API as of pyatv 0.14.0. Please refer to Changing Settings for help with changing settings. The table below refers to the corresponding setting in storage (when applicable and supported).

The following extra settings are supported by DMAP:

Setting Value Storage
name Name of the device that is exposed on the network (what you see on your Apple TV). settings.InfoSettings.name
pairing_guid Custom value for pairing_guid (credentials) with format 0xXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX. Not supported (yet)
zeroconf If you want to use a custom zeroconf.Zeroconf instance, you can pass it here. Not supported (yet)
addresses List of local addresses to broadcast Zeroconf service on, e.g. ["10.0.0.1", "192.168.1.2"]. Not supported (yet)

Apply setting according to:

# Using pyatv.pair directly
pairing = await pyatv.pair(config, Protocol.DMAP, name="my remote")

# Updating setting, then calling pyatv.pair
settings = await storage.get_settings(conf)
settings.info.name = "my remote"

pairing = await pyatv.pair(config, Protocol.DMAP)

Connect

Connecting is simply done by passing a config to pyatv.connect:

# Get a configuration with scan
atvs = await pyatv.scan(...)

# Apple TV configuration (first found device in this case)
conf = atvs[0]

# Connect with obtained configuration
atv = await pyatv.connect(atvs[0], loop)

If the configuration contains no services (only possible when manually creating a config), a exceptions.NoServiceError will be raised. The configuration must have an identifier, otherwise exceptions.DeviceIdMissingError will be raised.

If you have previously stored any credentials, you can need to load them again before connecting, see next chapter.

Note: Prior to version 0.8.0, the protocol argument specified which “main” protocol to use. This is no longer needed as the most appropriate protocol will be used automatically.

Restoring credentials

When using a storage module, credentials will be loaded automatically without any additional code. See Storage and Settings for details on settings that up.

Legacy method of restoring credentials is performed with conf.AppleTV.set_credentials:

# Restored from file
identifier = "..."
stored_credentials = {Protocol.MRP: "xxx"}

# Find device and restore credentials
atvs = pyatv.scan(loop, identifier=identifier)

# Error handling here

atv = atvs[0]
for protocol, credentials in stored_credentials.items():
    atv.set_credentials(protocol, credentials)

True is returned if credentials were set, otherwise False.

Manual configuration

It is possible to bypass the scanning process and manually create a configuration:

service = conf.ManualService(
    "identifier", Protocol.DMAP, 3689, {}, credentials="0x123456789ABCDEF0"
)
config = conf.AppleTV("10.0.0.10", "Living Room")
config.add_service(service)
atv = await pyatv.connect(config, loop)

Please do note that this is not the recommended way as it has a couple of flaws:

It can however be convenient to have if you test things when developing pyatv as you can shorten the feedback loop, since scanning can be avoided. But be warned.

A service is by default enabled, meaning that pyatv will try to connect to the service when pyatv.connect is called. It is possible to add a service but not connect to it by setting enabled to False:

service = conf.ManualService(
    "identifier", Protocol.DMAP, 3689, {}, enabled=False
)
config = conf.AppleTV("10.0.0.10", "Living Room")
config.add_service(service)
atv = await pyatv.connect(config, loop)

NB: Service specific services, e.g. conf.DmapService is deprecated as of 0.9.0. Please use conf.ManualService instead.

Closing connection

To close the connection, use interface.AppleTV.close:

atv = await pyatv.connect(config, loop)

# Do something

atv.close()

A set of pending tasks are returned by interface.AppleTV.close, which can be awaited to make sure everything has been torn down:

await asyncio.gather(*atv.close())
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