Skip The Remote - You Can Use Your Smart TV With This Free Alternative Solution

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It's typically assumed that when you purchase a smart TV or streaming player, it'll come with a remote to control it. Since the dawn of the remote control, though, those little gizmos have had the oddest habit of getting away from us, disappearing down the couch cushions or getting left on a random counter. Some smart TVs give you a means to find it, like the iOS Find My Remote feature, but this isn't always the case. It can also be frustrating when you get a new TV, but your old remote won't work with it. If you're tired of micromanaging your remote, there's another gadget you can use to control your smart TV, one you almost always have at hand: your smartphone.

Nearly every smart TV platform has a companion smartphone app that lets you use your phone instead of a remote, including Fire TV, Google TV, Roku, and Apple TV. When used in this manner, your smartphone displays the same buttons you would typically find on your remote, syncing with your TV or streaming player via your home Wi-Fi. It's a great option if you've lost track of the remote again, or if your remote breaks and you can't afford or don't want to get a replacement.

For most smart TV platforms, you can download the associated app on your smartphone (Android or iPhone) and find the dedicated virtual remote feature within. This includes Roku, Google TV, and Fire TV. As long as both the smart TV and your smartphone are connected to the same Wi-Fi network, they should sync easily. Afterward, all you need to do is power on your smart TV and open its app on your phone, and you should be able to use the virtual remote right away.

Different smart TV platforms offer different features in their respective apps, which may give their virtual remotes extra features your physical remote doesn't have. For example, if you're controlling a Roku TV via the Roku app, you can use the keyboard on your phone and voice input to quickly run searches or plug headphones into your phone to stream the audio directly from the TV. There are Roku Voice remotes that have this feature, but you won't find it on a regular Roku remote, for example. Similar features are available on the virtual remote for the Fire TV app, which also lets you pin your favorite streaming apps as quick-access buttons.

The only outlier to this norm is Apple TV, which only works natively with iOS devices like iPhones and iPads. Rather than an app you download from the Google Play or Apple App stores, iPhones have the Apple TV remote feature natively, which you access via your device's Control Center. There is no version of this app available on the Google Play Store; there are third-party Apple TV remote apps available there for Android devices, but your results with these may vary.