I own two of them, I know how it is supposed to be done and I _still_ struggle at times to do it reliably with the bundled remote. I recently discovered my TV's "crappy" IR remote can control the Apple TV, avoiding the touch pad altogether. It even supports extra buttons the normal remote doesn't have, such as a dedicated FFW key. I think I've seen this work via HDMI-CEC as well on mines.

> https://support.apple.com/guide/tv/use-other-remotes-atvb041...