One for the TV, one for the streaming stick, one for the home theater, one for the satellite receiver, and one for the road. Yes, I’m talking about remotes. The remote juggle is a universal frustration. That aside, the say that in the deepest cricles of hell, you are forced to type out the full script of Hommer’s Odyssey using nothing but a standard TV remote.
And then beyond the typing, TV app interfaces are clunky by nature. It should be easy to just click a button, but on a TV, you’re forced to manually navigate every single menu item between your current position and your destination. Well, lo and behold: there’s a free, open-source app that fixes all of that.
I didn’t realize my smart TV could do this—until I found these apps
Your TV is capable of more than you think.
The ultimate Android remote app
Meet BT Remote
BT Remote is a free, open-source application developed by Atharok. Because it is open-source, the source code is transparently available on GitHub for anyone to audit, and the app itself is conveniently hosted on both the Google Play Store and F-Droid.
It’s a simple tool. It transforms your smartphone into a full-featured, full-screen remote control. You get the numpad, arrow keys, home, back, volume bars, and dedicated media controls. Best of all, it lacks those annoying, hard-coded Netflix and Disney+ buttons that are physically built into modern Google TV remotes — buttons you usually end up pressing by accident in the dark.
If you simply can’t be bothered to dig through the couch cushions for the physical remote, you can grab your phone and keep going. That’s a great convenience, but it is far from the only perk this app offers.
Smoother than the real remote
Typing and navigating feels better on a touch-screen
The best bits of this remote app come from the two tiny buttons on the top-right corner. Clicking the first brings up a touchpad on the bottom. Yes, you now have a Bluetooth mouse connected to your TV. If you swipe on the virtual touchpad, you’ll see a cursor — just like the Windows cursor — appear on your TV screen. Now you can go straight to a menu without having to click through every other menu on the way.
The other button, with the keyboard icon, brings up a keyboard on your phone. You can type whatever you want and it’ll type right into your TV. I bet you type much faster with your phone than with a physical TV remote.
So, essentially, although the app is called BT Remote, it adds a full Bluetooth package of a mouse and keyboard to your TV as well.
What about the “BT” part?
That’s another advantage
We talked about the Remote part of BT Remote, now let’s talk about the BT. That’s another major perk of this app. You see, the Google Home app on Android and iOS already offers a remote mode for Google TV devices, but that one works over Wi-Fi. If you have a VPN active, a double-NAT setup (a common home-networking mistake), or you’re simply using mobile data on your phone, your phone won’t be able to find your TV to connect to it. Bluetooth doesn’t care about any of that.
As a result of the Bluetooth connection, the BT Remote app is instant. It’s just as fast as the actual remote, which makes sense considering the original remote also works over Bluetooth.
I’ll add that the setup might be a bit confusing at first. For me, my TV’s Bluetooth didn’t show up for my phone to pair automatically. I can’t tell if this is by design, but my TV’s Bluetooth is almost always invisible. Thankfully, the BT Remote app also allows you to pair using a MAC address. The MAC address is the absolute Bluetooth address of your device. On Google TV, you can navigate to the settings, then information, and find the Bluetooth MAC address to input it in the app.
From there on, it’s smooth sailing, my friends. Did I mention that this app isn’t “free with in-app purchases?” It’s completely free — there are no ads or premium subscriptions. Enjoy!
