By Klaus Jakobsen, developer of A Decent Remote “Best” depends on one question: how many brands of screen does your household actually have? Answer that first and this gets short.
Which remote app is best for a single-brand home?
The brand’s own app can do it: the official Roku app, Samsung SmartThings, LG ThinQ, Amazon’s Fire TV app. But look at what they share: each is a single-brand silo, several are smart-home hubs with the remote buried a few taps deep, and most want an account before the first button press. A remote-first app like A Decent Remote opens straight to the buttons, types with the iPhone keyboard, and doesn’t care what brand the next TV is. The one genuine exception: Apple TV owners already have a remote in Control Center. Details in the Apple TV guide.
When does a universal remote app make sense?
The average streaming household accumulates brands: a Samsung in the living room, a Roku TV in the bedroom, a Fire TV stick at the gym TV, maybe an Apple TV. Four official apps with four UIs is the actual competitor a universal app replaces. One app, one muscle memory, every screen, including the lost-remote rescues where a phone app is the difference between watching tonight and waiting for a replacement remote.
What does pairing require for each TV brand?
| Brand | Pairing | Old remote needed? |
|---|---|---|
| Roku / Roku TV | none, instant | No |
| Vizio SmartCast | PIN on screen | No |
| Android TV / Google TV | PIN on screen | No |
| Apple TV | PIN on screen | No |
| Sony Bravia | PIN on screen | No |
| Hisense VIDAA | PIN on screen | No |
| Philips | PIN on screen (2016+); none before | No |
| Panasonic pre-2019 | none, instant | No |
| Chromecast (cast-only) | none, instant | No |
| Samsung | Allow prompt on TV | Workaround: TV’s hidden button or USB mouse |
| LG webOS | Allow prompt on TV | Workaround: TV’s joystick or USB mouse |
| Fire TV | Allow prompt on TV | Workaround: HDMI-CEC via TV remote |
| Toshiba REGZA | username/password from TV menu | For one-time menu setup |
Ten of thirteen need no remote at all. Worth knowing before paying for a replacement.
What do they actually cost?
The honest version, because “free” means different things here.
| App | Cost | Covers |
|---|---|---|
| Roku app, SmartThings, LG ThinQ, Fire TV app | Free, no limit | One brand each |
| Apple TV remote in iOS Control Center | Free, already installed | Apple TV only |
| Most universal remote apps | Subscription, often billed weekly | Many brands |
| A Decent Remote | Free to try (50 presses), then $4.99/month or $24.99/year | Thirteen brands |
Two things worth saying plainly. If you own exactly one brand of TV, the free official app is probably enough, and paying for a universal app buys you nothing. The maths only changes when the house has three or four different screens and you are tired of three or four different UIs.
And there is no genuinely free universal app, ours included. Supporting a dozen manufacturer protocols, and keeping up as each one changes its firmware, is where the cost sits. What you can reasonably demand is that an app proves it connects to your specific TV before it takes any money, which is why A Decent Remote runs free for the first 50 presses rather than asking up front. Weekly billing is the pattern to look at twice: it reads cheap per charge and is usually the most expensive option over a year.
How do you judge any remote app in two minutes?
Install it and try to pair before paying anything. Connectivity is the entire product, and it either works with your TV or it doesn’t. Then check the edges that separate real engineering from a keypad skin: does volume still work when a soundbar is attached, can it turn the TV back on (standby settings matter), does typing use the iPhone keyboard, and is it honest about unsupported hardware instead of failing silently?
A Decent Remote is built to pass exactly that audit, across every brand in the table. And when it can’t support a set (2019+ Panasonic being the known case), it tells you at pairing time, in words.
