Android TV Remote for Wear OS

TV Remote turns your watch into the handset for an Android TV or a Google TV. It reaches the television directly over your own Wi-Fi. There is no phone in the middle, no account to make, and no server of ours anywhere.

WHAT IT DRIVES
Android TV and Google TV sets, sticks and boxes - anything running the Android TV Remote Service. Not Samsung Tizen, not LG webOS, not Roku, not Fire TV, not Apple TV. The watch and the television must be on the same Wi-Fi network.

THE CONTROLS
- A D-pad with a large centre OK, laid out for a round screen.
- Volume up and down on the glass, and volume on the rim: turn the bezel of a Galaxy Watch and the level follows.
- Back, home and search.
- A second page for power, mute, play and pause, rewind and fast-forward.
- Hold a key and it repeats. The television sets the rate, so it matches its own handset instead of a rate this app invented.
- Every press answers with a short haptic tick.

MUTE SHOWS THE SET'S REAL STATE
The protocol reports whether the television is muted, so the key is lit when the set is actually silenced - not guessed from a volume of zero, which is a different thing.

POWER ASKS FIRST
It is the one control whose misfire is felt by everyone in the room, and a watch is a thing you brush against. So power covers the screen with a question before it acts.

TYPE INTO THE TELEVISION
When the set reports that a text field has focus, the watch offers its keyboard and the text goes into that field - including anything you dictate, because it is the watch's own input screen. Searching with a D-pad is the worst thing a remote does, and this is the way around it.

PAIRING, ONCE PER TELEVISION
The set puts a six-character code on screen, and the app gives you all sixteen hexadecimal keys to enter it. A Galaxy Watch keyboard opens on letters with no digits reachable, so the app brings its own. After that the pairing is remembered and every reconnection is checked against the television's own certificate.

IT CONNECTS ITSELF
With one television paired, the app opens straight into the remote. If your router hands that set a different address, the app recognises the same television and follows it there. Keep several televisions, forget one, pair another.

A TILE AND A COMPLICATION
Swipe once from the watch face to reach the tile, which names the television and opens the remote. Or put the complication on your own watch face and get there in a single tap.

APP SHORTCUTS
YouTube and Netflix open on the television from the watch. Only those two: a shortcut that does nothing is worse than no shortcut, and those are the two that were measured launching. There is a key for the television's own app list as well, which works whatever is installed.

ON SCREEN FOR AS LONG AS YOU NEED IT
An always-on clock holds the session while the display rests, and a Keep screen on switch is there for while you are using it.

IT COLLECTS NOTHING
No account, no sign-in, no analytics, no advertising identifier, no crash reporting, nothing stored off the watch. The app talks to your television and to nothing else. Its Data safety card reads No data collected because there is nothing to declare.

WHAT IT CANNOT DO
It can switch a television off. It cannot switch one on. A set in standby runs no remote service to answer, and the standby service that does answer ignores the power key. That is a property of the protocol, not something a later version fixes - use the television's own remote to wake it.

Needs Wear OS 3 or newer. The app's own labels are in English.

Android TV and Google TV are trademarks of Google LLC. This app is not made by, affiliated with or endorsed by Google.

If you have a question, or something is not working right, please write to us at [email protected].