Controlling Your TV With An Android Phone
Your phone has had IR blasters since around 2013, and even without one, you can still use it as a remote through WiFi or Bluetooth. The apps that do this are generally called TV remote apps, and they vary wildly in quality. Most people download three, test them for five minutes, and give up when one of them doesn't recognize their obscure 2011 Samsung model. I've been configuring these things for a while now. The basic process is straightforward, but the edge cases will bite you.
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Start by picking an app. My go-to is AnyMote Smart IR Remote if your phone has an IR blaster built in. If it doesn't, Sure Universal Remote works well over WiFi for smart TVs, and Peel Smart Remote has a broad device database. Download from the Play Store or a reputable APK source. Install it, grant the permissions it asks for — mainly location and storage — and you'll be prompted to select your TV brand. The app walks you through a test sequence. It'll ask you to press buttons on screen and confirm whether they work. This is where most people mess up. The first button mapping might match the power button but fail on volume. Tap "No" and let it cycle through alternative codes. Some apps show you a code database directly. If yours does, search by model number rather than brand alone. A Sony KDL-40EX500 and a KDL-46EX500 share the same brand but use different IR command sets. Once you have a working macro, save it. You can then trigger multiple actions with one button — power on the TV, switch to HDMI 2, set the volume to 15. That last one took me three tries to get right because the app kept resetting volume to zero after my custom command. I figured out I needed to disable the "reset IR codes on app start" option in settings. That fixed it.
Here's something people don't usually mention: IR remotes only work line-of-sight. Your phone has to physically point at the TV's IR receiver. If your TV is mounted flush against the wall and the sensor is tucked on the bottom left corner, you're going to have a bad time. Angle matters. I learned this the hard way when I mounted a LG OLED and couldn't figure out why the app worked perfectly from six feet away but failed when I was standing right next to it — the angle to the sensor was just wrong. Tilting the phone slightly upward solved it. For smart TVs that support network-based control, the process is different. Apps like Universal TV Remote or the manufacturer's own app (Samsung SmartThings, LG ThinQ) communicate over your local network using protocols like HTTP, UDP, or proprietary APIs. This is actually more reliable than IR because there's no line-of-sight requirement. But it only works if your TV and phone are on the same subnet. I've seen routers with AP isolation enabled block this silently. If the app can't discover your TV, check your router settings first before assuming the app is broken. Bluetooth remotes are another category. Some newer TVs support Bluetooth low energy pairing with your phone. This is frictionless once it's set up, but it's not universally supported. Check your TV's specs before relying on this method.
The biggest limitation with all of these approaches is code coverage. No single app has every IR code ever written. If you have a niche brand or a very old TV, you might need to dig into community-maintained databases or manually add codes. One workaround I've used successfully is importing .lirc files into apps that support them. LIRC is the Linux Infrared Remote Control format, and there are repositories full of user-submitted codes. It's technical but effective. Another thing that catches people off guard: some TVs use RC6 or XMP protocols instead of plain NEC IR codes. Most consumer apps handle NEC natively. If your remote isn't responding at all and the app says it's compatible with your brand, the protocol mismatch is a likely culprit. Switching to an app that supports custom protocols or allowing manual code entry usually gets around this. If you're set up correctly, switching from a lost or broken physical remote to your phone takes about ten minutes. Finding a code that actually works for your specific model can stretch that to thirty or more. The apps are free. The tradeoff is that most of them are ad-supported, and some features are locked behind a one-time purchase around five dollars. That's reasonable for what you get.
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