We make the remote you wish came in the box.
HiRemote started because the official Hisense, Roku, Google TV and Fire TV remote apps are all somewhere between “mediocre” and “hostile”. We thought: what if a remote app was just a remote app — fast, focused, no account, no ads, no upsells, no “rate us” popups every six launches?
Why this exists
We bought a Hisense smart TV and lost the remote within two weeks. The Hisense VIDAA app on the App Store has rare meaningful updates and a long tail of frustrated reviews. The Roku app wanted an email and a password. The Google Home app wanted us to sign back into a Google account we hadn't touched in years.
None of them just let me pick up my phone and turn the TV down.
So I built the version I wanted. No login, no account, no Wi-Fi cloud — just a phone talking to a TV directly over your local network, exactly like the plastic remote does (except over Wi-Fi instead of IR or Bluetooth).
It's now used by tens of thousands of people every month. Most of them never email me. The ones who do tell me what broke, and I usually push a fix the same week.
What we believe
Local-first, always
Your TV commands never leave your house. The app talks to your TV the same way the original remote does — over the LAN. No cloud, no relay servers, no telemetry on what you watch.
Free should mean free
The full remote (every button, every menu, every app launcher) is free forever. Pro adds Apple Watch + widgets + ad-free mode for $9.99/year. The free tier already covers everything the plastic remote does.
Honest about limitations
Some things are hardware-only — Bluetooth voice mics, IR-based brand-switching, Roku account-bound features. We tell you upfront. We don't oversell what the API can do.
Accountable to actual users
Every release note explains what changed and why. Bug reports get a human reply, usually within 48 hours. We don't have a roadmap document — we have an inbox.
Made by a small team
No VC money, no marketing department, no growth hacker. Just two people who own Hisense TVs and ship updates between school pickups. If you have feedback, write to support@hiremote.app. A real person reads it.