Guide · Apple Home
Get the most from Theatrium with Apple Home
You don't need Home Assistant to use Theatrium. If you have ever added a HomeKit light, plug, sensor or camera — or set up a HomePod — you already have an Apple Home, even if you have never opened the Home app. Point Theatrium at it and your lights, sensors, cameras and rooms appear on the TV. No account, no server, no setup files.
Already have Apple accessories? Then you are most of the way there. This guide takes about five minutes: make sure this Apple TV is part of your home, turn it into a Home Hub, then switch Theatrium to Apple Home.
Check you have an Apple Home
Open the Home app on your iPhone or iPad. If you see rooms and accessories, you have a home set up — that is all Theatrium needs. If it is empty, add one accessory (a HomeKit-compatible bulb or smart plug is the easiest) and it will appear here.
Make sure your Apple TV is signed into the same iCloud account as your home — Settings › Users & Accounts on the Apple TV. This is what lets the TV see your home at all.
Make this Apple TV a Home Hub
A Home Hub is the piece that keeps your home running when your phone isn't around — it is what makes cameras stream reliably, scenes and automations fire, and alerts arrive. An Apple TV or HomePod signed into your iCloud account becomes a hub automatically.
Confirm it in the Home app: Home Settings › Home Hubs & Bridges. You want this Apple TV listed as Connected. If you have a HomePod, it can be the hub instead — either works.
Switch Theatrium to Apple Home
On first launch, choose Apple Home on the “Choose your backend” screen. Already past setup? Open Settings › Connection in Theatrium and switch the data source to Apple Home.
Tap Continue. tvOS asks for permission once — accept it. The prompt reads:
“Theatrium uses your Apple Home to show and control your lights, sensors, and rooms.”
The first load takes ten to twenty seconds while Apple Home streams your accessories in — a Loading your Apple Home screen shows the count as it goes. After that, your dashboard is ready. Nothing leaves your Apple TV in the process.
What shows up on the dashboard
Theatrium turns your Apple Home accessories into cards you can see and control from the sofa:
- Lights — on/off, brightness, and colour or warm-to-cool white.
- Switches, outlets and fans — on/off control.
- Thermostats — current and target temperature, heat/cool/auto.
- Locks, garage doors, blinds and shades — open, close and position.
- Scenes — run any Apple Home scene from the TV.
- Sensors — temperature, humidity, motion, contact (doors and windows), occupancy, leak, smoke, CO and CO₂, light level, air quality and battery.
- Cameras and doorbells — stream live on the big screen.
Your Apple Home rooms become the dashboard's areas. Apple Home has no weather of its own, so Theatrium adds local weather and rain radar from the open web, and it quietly remembers your sensor readings on the device to draw temperature trends over time.
Cameras, doorbells and alerts
HomeKit cameras and doorbells stream natively inside Theatrium. One thing worth knowing: when this Apple TV is a Home Hub, tvOS itself pops up camera and doorbell activity as a picture-in-picture — that is Apple, not Theatrium, and it appears even when the app is closed.
Theatrium's own on-screen alerts are a Home Assistant feature today; alert support for Apple Home is coming in a future update. For always-on alerts right now, turn on notifications for the camera or doorbell in the Apple Home app and keep this Apple TV as a Home Hub — Apple then shows its own alert over whatever is on screen.
Sync your room lights to the screen
Theatrium's Light Sync works with your Apple Home lights — the room glows to match what's on the TV. Apple Home lights don't fade smoothly on their own, so Theatrium eases the colour itself, and it groups your lights for you, so there is nothing to set up in the Home app first. Basic sync is free; the richer Vivid, Party and Intensity modes are part of Theatrium Pro.
Good to know
- A few cards need more than Apple Home can give. The music now-playing card and visualiser read from Apple Music or Spotify; “who's home” presence and long-term history aren't part of Apple Home. Everything else — control and live sensors — works straight from it.
- If access was declined: turn it back on at Settings › General › Privacy & Security › HomeKit on the Apple TV, then reopen Theatrium. tvOS only asks once and remembers your answer.
- “No Apple Home found”? Check the TV is signed into the same iCloud account as your home, and that your home is set up in the Apple Home app.
- Private by design. Theatrium reads your home through Apple's own framework on the device. Your accessories, camera images and settings stay on your Apple TV — see the privacy policy.