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Adding a TV

Adding a TV connects it to TisVlay. What that involves depends on the kind of TV: an LG webOS TV on your network shows a prompt that you accept with its remote, while an HDMI-CEC TV needs no prompt at all (below).

Add a TV with the wizard

Open TisVlay, go to TVs, and click the + button above the TV list. The wizard has four steps: Discover, Configure, Pair, and Done.

1. Discover

TisVlay scans your network and lists each TV as it answers. The chip on each row shows how it was found: SSDP for a network TV, CEC for a TV on one of this computer’s HDMI-CEC adapters. Select your TV and click Next.

If your TV isn’t listed, make sure it’s on (some TVs only answer while awake), then use Don’t see your TV? Add it manually: choose the Vendor, type the TV’s address (its IP for LG, or its device such as /dev/cec0 for HDMI-CEC), and click Continue. If scanning never finds anything but manual entry works, see Firewall & Discovery.

A row marked No access is a CEC adapter the daemon can see but not open; see Installation.

2. Configure

Check the details TisVlay filled in:

  • Friendly name is how the TV is shown in the app, the tray, and the command line.
  • IP and MAC are the TV’s network address and its hardware address. A green Auto-detected badge means TisVlay found the value itself. The MAC is what lets TisVlay wake the TV from standby; see The Wake-on-LAN MAC.
  • Initial system profile decides what happens at boot, shutdown, and sleep. You can change it later.
  • Managed by TisVlay lets automation act on this TV. Untick it to add the TV for manual control only.

Click Pair.

3. Pair

For an LG TV, a prompt appears on the TV: accept it with the remote. The wizard waits and shows its progress. If the TV rejects the prompt or it times out, use Retry pairing or Back to discovery. If no prompt appears, see Troubleshooting.

4. Done

The wizard confirms the TV is ready and shows which MAC it ended up with. Click Close; the new TV is selected on the TVs page.

The Wake-on-LAN MAC

To wake an LG TV from standby, TisVlay needs the MAC address of the network connection the TV is actually using. A TV has separate wired and Wi-Fi addresses, and only the one it’s connected through will work. When pairing completes, TisVlay asks the TV for it, and the last step tells you what happened:

  • MAC detected from the TV means the field was blank, so the TV’s MAC was saved and waking from standby will work.
  • MAC updated means the TV’s MAC was adopted in place of the one you had.
  • The TV reports … but … was entered means the MAC you typed differs from the TV’s (often the other interface). Choose Use reported to switch to the TV’s, or Keep mine to keep yours.

A MAC you entered is never overwritten without your choice. Asking the TV is the reliable way to get a MAC for a TV on another subnet or VLAN, where your computer can’t see it. This works for LG TVs paired by IPv4 address; for anything else, enter the MAC yourself (it’s in the TV’s network settings). Wake-on-LAN also has requirements on the TV’s side; see The TV won’t power on.

HDMI-CEC: no pairing needed

HDMI-CEC has no credentials and no on-screen prompt. Any device on the CEC bus can be controlled, so adding a CEC TV just means choosing which adapter it’s on:

  1. In the wizard’s Discover step, select the adapter (for example /dev/cec0); TisVlay asks the TV for its name and model and fills them in.
  2. Click Next, then Pair.

The TV must be on the CEC bus (powered on or in standby) and on the input the adapter is plugged into. See Installation for adapter requirements, and Requirements for what CEC can and can’t control.

Re-pairing a TV

Pairing credentials can expire or be revoked by the TV. Select the TV on the TVs page, scroll to DANGER ZONE, and click Re-pair. TisVlay runs the handshake again and keeps the TV’s name, profiles, and other settings. Re-pairing also reads the TV’s MAC, so it’s the way to give an already-added TV a MAC it’s missing.

Removing a TV

In the same DANGER ZONE, Remove TV deletes the TV and its settings from TisVlay. You’d need to add it again to use it.

Pairing requirements

  • The TV is powered on and reachable on the network. Answering ping isn’t enough: a TV in standby can keep its network up while refusing control connections.
  • Newer LG firmware requires a secure (wss://) connection with a self-signed certificate. TisVlay handles this automatically.
Pair from the command line 
tisvlay pair "<name>" --vendor lg --params '{"ip":"192.168.1.100"}'
  • "<name>" is the friendly name, shown in tisvlay list and the app.
  • --vendor lg selects the backend. tisvlay vendor lists the registered backends, and tisvlay vendor <vendor> shows a backend’s pairing fields.
  • --params is the backend’s pairing fields as a JSON object. For LG: ip (required) and mac (optional; wake_id is accepted as an alias). Leave mac out and tisvlay reads it from the TV.

Accept the prompt on the TV. On success the command prints the TV’s UUID, the id you pass to every other command (tisvlay list shows it too). Pairing by IP address works whether or not discovery can see the TV.

The command reports the MAC on a mac: line:

  • mac: detected AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF (saved): you didn’t supply a MAC, so the TV’s was stored.
  • mac: AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF (matches the TV): the MAC you supplied is right.
  • mac: TV reports …, configured …; to use it: tisvlay config <id> '{"mac":"…"}': yours differs and was kept; run the printed command to switch to the TV’s.

To pair a TV for manual control only, add --unmanaged (or later run tisvlay managed <id> off). To re-pair, run tisvlay repair <id>.