Apple TV built-in microphones could add hands-free Siri control

The Apple TV built-in microphones are a set of three far-field mics on the box itself, designed to hear you from the sofa. Far-field simply means the microphones are tuned to catch a voice several feet away, the way a smart speaker does, rather than one held close to your mouth.

Apple says echo cancellation separates your voice from whatever is playing, so the wake phrase should still register in the middle of a loud movie. You can say “Hey Siri” or just “Siri”. If you’d rather not talk to the room, the remote keeps its own microphone and its side Siri button.

Outside, the box looks almost the same as the 2022 model. The main visible change is that the status light now sits in the center of the front panel, next to the new microphone openings.

Language support for the hands-free feature is limited at first. Apple lists English, Mandarin Chinese, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Hebrew, Norwegian and Swedish as tvOS languages that work with far-field Siri, so English speakers in the US, UK and Canada are covered from day one.

The remote kept its shape and its USB-C charging port, but it gained a speaker and support for Precision Finding in the Find My app. When it disappears under a cushion, you open Find My on your iPhone, play a sound, and follow the on-screen arrow to it.

The old remote could only be located in a rough way, which is why this was one of the most requested Apple TV fixes for years. The new remote also moves to Bluetooth 6.

Here’s the useful part for current owners: you don’t need the new box to get it. Apple sells the updated Siri Remote on its own for $59, and Apple says it pairs with Apple TV 4K boxes and even the older Apple TV HD.

Day to day, the change is simple. You can ask for a show, pause playback, open an app or ask a question while your hands are full of popcorn or a sleeping toddler. That’s the kind of thing smart speaker owners have done for years, and the Apple TV now behaves more like one.

The new Siri, which Apple calls Siri AI and runs on Apple Intelligence, is the other half of the story. It fills the TV screen with answers. Apple’s own example was asking which Apple TV shows won Emmys this year and getting poster art plus suggestions for similar comedies. You can also ask questions about what you’re watching, and answers appear in a small overlay so the picture keeps playing.

For requests that rely on your personal context, such as playing something a friend recommended, Siri AI on Apple TV needs a paired iPhone or iPad that supports Apple Intelligence. At launch, it works in English in the US, UK, Canada and a handful of other countries.

Any device with open microphones in your living room raises that question, and Apple addressed it directly. The company says microphone data is handled inside Secure Exclaves, walled-off parts of the system that keep that audio separate from everything else running on the box.

Siri requests are processed either on the device or through Private Cloud Compute, Apple’s own servers for AI tasks. Apple says data sent there is not stored and can’t be accessed by Apple or anyone else. If you don’t want a listening device at all, you can keep using the remote’s button and its microphone instead of the wake phrase.

The new Apple TV 4K costs $299 in the US, and there is only one model, with 128GB of storage, Wi-Fi 7, Gigabit Ethernet and Thread built in. Pre-orders opened on October 13, and it reached stores on Friday, November 13, not in late October as early reports had suggested.

That price is $100 more than the previous model’s $199 starting price, which had itself risen from $129 earlier this year. Inside, the A19 chip replaces the A15 Bionic, and Apple claims up to 50% faster CPU performance and twice the graphics speed. There is also a new AV1 decoder, which streams video using less bandwidth.

The box also unlocks something HomePod owners have wanted: four-speaker surround sound. You can place HomePod mini 2 speakers or second-generation HomePods in matching front and rear pairs, and they calibrate themselves to the room.

Should you buy one? If you still use a much older Apple TV that tops out at 1080p, the jump to 4K and HDR is large. If you have the 2022 Apple TV 4K, the decision comes down to how much you want hands-free Siri. Siri AI itself is coming to your box too, in beta through tvOS 27.2 on the second-generation Apple TV 4K and later, but without built-in microphones you’ll still talk through the remote. And if a lost remote is your main complaint, the $59 remote alone may be enough.