Apple’s updated Siri Remote brings Find My support and a built-in speaker to Apple TV HD and later models, so upgrading your streaming box is not required to get the new remote. The remote costs $59 on its own and is scheduled to ship November 13, the same day as the fourth-generation Apple TV 4K.
That backward compatibility is the useful part of the announcement. Apple’s new remote works with every Apple TV model released from the Apple TV HD onward. In other words, the feature that helps find the remote does not require buying the latest box. Apple has managed to make an accessory useful without making its usefulness conditional on replacing another accessory. This is apparently still worth noting.
Earlier Siri Remotes already offered a basic iOS feature for locating a misplaced remote. The updated version adds Find My support, with a built-in speaker to help locate it. But there are two levels of finding, and Apple has attached the more precise one to a short list of newer iPhones.
Standard Find My support is available on the second-generation Siri Remote and later. Precision Finding, which can show a distance such as “20 feet” rather than a general “near” or “far,” works with the fourth-generation Siri Remote and an iPhone Duo, iPhone Air, or iPhone 17 or later. The iPhone 17e is excluded. Those phones must also be running the latest iOS software, and availability varies by region.
The precision feature relies on Bluetooth channel sounding, supported by Apple’s N1 networking chip. The source report notes that this enables AirTag-like precision tracking without requiring an ultra-wideband (UWB) chip. If your iPhone is not on the compatible list, the remote still has Find My support; you just do not get the more exact distance readout. Compatibility, as ever, comes with a footnote.
The remote’s backward compatibility does not mean every feature of the new Apple TV 4K carries over to older models. As Stephen Robles noted in a post on Threads, a couple of features are limited to the new box: its built-in microphone and surround sound with paired HomePod speakers.
For Apple TV HD and later owners, the decision is therefore fairly contained: pay $59 for the updated remote, or keep using the one already in the cushions. The new model adds a more capable way to locate it, though the most precise version depends on having a recent iPhone. Apple has made the remote broadly compatible. It has not made the fine print obsolete.
Sources: Glitch Please! and The Verge — https://www.theverge.com/gadgets/1011069/apple-tv-remote-find-my — Reporting by Stevie Bonifield; Stephen Robles is cited for a post on Threads.
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