How to Turn Your Smartphone into a Universal Remote Control
Smartphones are more than just a smartphone. They are as smart as they can control most of your remote controlled devices like TV, Home Theater system, DVD Players and other IR(Infrared) controlled devices. Smartphone is a smart platforms on which apps are embedded to play around with it the way we want and there are ultimate sources of smartphone apps available nowadays and most of the apps are free to use on your smartphone.
Lets come to the point of Universal IR Remote control. We have to carry bunch of IR remote controls to control different electronics device like TV, DVD Player, Xbox, Home Theater system etc. But, Universal remote replace your different IR remotes with just a single remote control. You can control all of your devices with a Universal remote control.
You can also turn your smartphone into a Universal Remote control to control your devices. There are some apps for Android and iOS mobile operating system which turn your smartphone into a Universal Remote. You need an IR Blaster for your smartphone, as smartphone can not emit IR(Infrared) signals to your TV or other devices. You need to hook IR Blaster into 3.5mm jack of your smartphone before start using it as Universal Remote. You can purchase it from your local electronics store or phone store, and they are not so expensive.
Here’s the few steps you need to do before controlling you TV with your smartphone.
1. Go to Android Play store for android smartphone or itunes for iOS and search for universal remote app and install the app like XBMC Remote, Google TV Remote, VIERA remote on your smartphone.
2. Hook up the IR Blaster to the 3.5mm headphone port on your smartphone and respective port on your iOS device – iPhone or iPad.
3. Half of the setup is complete here. Once you’ve installed IR transmitter and app, now run the app on your smartphone and go to setup and select the device from the list e.g. TV or any other device you want to control.
4. Now point IR transmitter attached to your TV and press Test button repeatedly until your TV turn on. Whenever you TV turned ON, save that setting for your TV and complete setup. Now you are able to control your TV with your smartphone.
5. You can repeat the same procedure for other devices to setup with your Universal Smartphone Remote control. You can remove the IR transmitter and reconnect it whenever you want to control your TV with your smartphone.
You can turn your smartphone – android or iphone into a Universal Remote control by following the above steps using a Remote app and IR transmitter.
Photo : by Gurmeet
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