Use HTC One M8 as a TV Remote and Program Guide

BreakingModern — There’s a lot of wonderful features built-in to the HTC One M8, and one of them is the ability to use the smartphone as a single universal remote control for your entire home theater setup with its HTC Sense TV.

There is an infrared (IR) blaster located at the top of the phone. Combine that with the M8’s built-in HTC Sense TV app and you have an instant universal remote that allows you to control your TV, cable box and stereo receiver.

Your HTC One M8 as a Universal Remote

It’s not a perfect replacement for your remote, but it’s pretty close. Depending on the hardware devices you’re running, some functions won’t be available, but as HTC continues to add updates, it will only get better. Setting up the device only takes a couple of minutes via the onscreen instructions.

HTC-Sense-TV-Channel-Guide

One of the cool features in the app is that it will grab your channel lineup and create a program guide that shows movies, television programs and live sports. This will all be displayed on your phone, which makes finding your shows easier than just flipping through channels. Find a show or movie you want to watch and the app will pull up a show description and cast listing.

And yes, the HTC Sense app does have a virtual remote control that does virtually everything the physical remote does, right from your phone. I am able to control my Pioneer receiver, Vizio TV and Motorola cable box with ease. I’ve said goodbye to several remotes as the HTC One allows you to do most of what you need directly from the phone.

HTC sense thumb control screen

For more on remote functionality, and to see the HTC Sense TV app in action, check out the quick video HTC put together. It shows off the remote app on last years HTC One M7 — it still works the same way on the new HTC One M8.

Video: HTC One M7 — Turn your phone into a remote control and TV guide

For BMod, I’m .

All screenshots: 

Featured/Header image: 2008 Leftovers: Non Universal by daveoratox via Flickr Creative Commons

Disclaimer: HTC and aNewDomain Media co-produce this site, and its editors and writers are paid accordingly.

 

Brian Burgess

Author: Brian Burgess

Based in rural Minnesota, Brian Burgess covers tech for BreakingModern. Follow him on Google at +BrianBurgess and on Twitter at @mysticgeek.

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