pyatv 0.4.0a1

Library for controlling an Apple TV

This is a python library for controlling and querying information from an Apple TV. It is built upon asyncio and supports most of the commands that the regular Apple Remote app does as well as some additional iTunes commands, like changing the media position. It implements the legacy DAAP/DMAP-protocol used by older Apple TVs (not running tvOS and devices running tvOS < 13).

Support for the Media Remote Protocol (MRP) used by tvOS is under heavy development. Basic support is available on the GitHub master branch and version 0.4.0 of pyatv is planned to have “usable” support (functionality similar to what is supported by DAAP/DMAP). No date is set for when 0.4.0 is to be released yet.

This is the development branch containing experimental changes. If you want a stable version, have a look at the v0.3.x tags.

This library is licensed under the MIT license.

Features

Here is the feature list by protocol (DMAP = devices not running tvOS, MRP = Apple TV 4 and later):

Feature	DMAP	MRP
Automatic discovery of devices (zeroconf/Bonjour)	Yes	Yes
Push updates	Yes	Yes
Remote control pairing	Yes	Yes
AirPlay stream URL (including tvOS 10.2+)	Yes	Yes
Playback controls (play, pause, next, stop, etc.)	Yes	Yes*
Navigation controls (select, menu, top_menu, arrow keys)	Yes	Yes*
Fetch artwork in PNG format	Yes	No
Currently playing (e.g. title, artist, album, total time, etc.)	Yes	Partial**
Media type and play state	Yes	Partial**
Change media position	Yes	Yes*
Shuffle and repeat	Yes	Yes*

* Some support exists but has not been thoroughly tested to verify that it works satisfactory

** Only stub support exists and is mostly not usable

Requirements

• python >= 3.5.3

• aiohttp >= 3.0.1, <4

• cryptography >= 1.8.1

• curve25519-donna >= 1.3

• ed25519 >= 1.4

• getmac >= 0.8

• netifaces >= 0.10.0

• protobuf >= 3.4.0

• srptools >= 0.2.0

• tlslite-ng >= 0.7.0

• zeroconf >= 0.17.7

Getting started

Installing

Use pip:

$ pip install pyatv

NOTE: You need some system packages, run this on debian or similar:

$ sudo apt-get install build-essential libssl-dev libffi-dev python-dev

To install development version from git:

$ pip install git+https://github.com/postlund/pyatv.git

Using the API

Here is a simple example using auto discovery and printing what is playing:

import asyncio
from pyatv import helpers

async def print_what_is_playing(atv):
    playing = await atv.metadata.playing()
    print('Currently playing:')
    print(playing)

helpers.auto_connect(print_what_is_playing)

Additional and more advanced examples can be found in examples.

Using the CLI application

It is possible to use the reference CLI application as well:

# Scanning for devices on network
$ atvremote scan
Scan Results
========================================
Name: Living Room
Address: 10.0.0.10
Id: aabbccddeeff
Services:
  - Protocol: AirPlay, Port: 7000
  - Protocol: MRP, Port: 49152, Credentials: None

Name: Bed Room
Address: 10.0.0.11
Id: ffeeddccbbaa
Services:
  - Protocol: DMAP, Port: 3689, Credentials: 00000000-1234-5678-9012-345678901234

# Automatically discover device
$ atvremote -a play
$ atvremote -a next

# Manually specify device
$ atvremote --id ffeeddccbbaa --address 10.0.10.11 --device_credentials 00000000-1234-5678-9012-345678901234 playing
Media type: Music
Play state: Playing
  Position: 0/397s (0.0%)

# Automatically find a specific device based on device id
$ atvremote --id aabbccddeeff -a playing

# Passing multiple commands
$ atvremote -a next next play playing stop

# List all commands supported by a device
$ atvremote -a commands
Remote control commands:
 - down - Press key down
 - left - Press key left
 - menu - Press key menu
 - next - Press key next
 - pause - Press key play
 - play - Press key play
 - previous - Press key previous
 - right - Press key right
 - select - Press key select
 - set_position - Seek in the current playing media
 - set_repeat - Change repeat mode
 - set_shuffle - Change shuffle mode to on or off
 - stop - Press key stop
 - top_menu - Go to main menu (long press menu)
 - up - Press key up

Metadata commands:
 - artwork - Return artwork for what is currently playing (or None)
 - artwork_url - Return artwork URL for what is currently playing
 - device_id - Return a unique identifier for current device
 - playing - Return what is currently playing

Playing commands:
 - album - Album of the currently playing song
 - artist - Artist of the currently playing song
 - hash - Create a unique hash for what is currently playing
 - media_type - Type of media is currently playing, e.g. video, music
 - play_state - Play state, e.g. playing or paused
 - position - Position in the playing media (seconds)
 - repeat - Repeat mode
 - shuffle - If shuffle is enabled or not
 - title - Title of the current media, e.g. movie or song name
 - total_time - Total play time in seconds

AirPlay commands:
 - finish_authentication - End authentication process with PIN code
 - generate_credentials - Create new credentials for authentication
 - load_credentials - Load existing credentials
 - play_url - Play media from an URL on the device
 - start_authentication - Begin authentication proces (show PIN on screen)
 - verify_authenticated - Check if loaded credentials are verified

Device commands:
 - artwork_save - Download artwork and save it to artwork.png
 - auth - Perform AirPlay device authentication
 - push_updates - Listen for push updates

Global commands:
 - commands - Print a list with available commands
 - help - Print help text for a command
 - pair - Pair pyatv as a remote control with an Apple TV
 - scan - Scan for Apple TVs on the network

Type atvremote --help to list all supported commands.

Missing features and improvements

Most features related to DMAP is already in place and focus is currently on getting MRP in usable shape. This implies certain API breaking changes need to happen, thus 0.4.0 will not be API compliant with earlier versions.

Roadmap is below, but be sure to check out open issues as well. New features and changes are added there.

Near time

• Implement MediaRemoteTV protocol (#94)

• Investigate robustness of device scanning (#65, #143, #177, #178)

Later

• Stream local files using AirPlay (#95)

Quality and documentation

• Write simple smoke test for atvremote

• Write formal test procedure (#203)

• Improved documentation

  • Better pydoc documentation for classes and methods

  • Migrate documentation to GitHub pages (#205)

Development

Fork this project, clone it and run setup_dev_env.sh to setup a virtual environment and install everything needed for development:

git clone https://github.com/postlund/pyatv.git
cd pyatv
./setup_dev_env.sh
source bin/activate

You can run the tests with python setup.py test. Also, make sure that pylint, flake8 and pydoc passes before committing. This is done automatically if you run just run tox.

When using atvremote, pass --debug to get better logging.