Lost Your Chromecast With Google TV Remote? Here’s How to Find It or Replace It With Your iPhone

The Chromecast with Google TV remote is small, pale, and lives its whole life sliding into couch cushions. Before you replace anything, there are two free fixes worth trying — one of them takes ten seconds.

First: make the remote find itself

The Chromecast dongle has a hidden button on its side (right next to the Reset label on the underside). Press it once — briefly — and the lost remote plays a sound so you can dig it out of the sofa. This is Google’s built-in “Find My Remote,” and most people never know it exists.

Don’t hold the button down. A long press factory-resets the Chromecast — press and release quickly, just enough to trigger the chime.

If the remote is genuinely gone (not just hiding), keep reading — you have free options before you spend a cent.

Second: your TV’s own remote might already work

The Chromecast plugs into an HDMI port. If your TV supports HDMI-CEC (Samsung calls it Anynet+, LG SIMPLINK, Sony BRAVIA Sync), your regular TV remote can drive the Google TV menus — up/down/select and playback all pass through the cable. Turn CEC on in your TV’s settings and try the TV remote’s arrow pad. It won’t get you Google Assistant, but it navigates. This is the same fallback that rescues most set-top boxes: lost your TV remote?

The free app: Google TV on your phone

Google’s own Google TV app (free, iPhone and Android) has a remote built in. It talks to the Chromecast over WiFi — no physical remote needed. It’s a full content app with the remote as one tab, it expects you signed into a Google account, and it controls only Google TV devices, but it’s an honest, zero-cost option and it works.

Take over with your iPhone — the setup

The Chromecast with Google TV runs Google TV / Android TV, so it speaks Google’s native remote protocol — and an iPhone can speak it too. Remote Pro opens straight onto the remote (no content storefront, no account) and pairs with the puck exactly like a full Android TV:

Same WiFi — put your iPhone on the network the Chromecast uses. Not the guest network; VPN off. (Nothing shows up? The checklist.)
Scan — the Chromecast announces itself on the network; Remote Pro lists it by name in seconds.
Tap it — the TV shows a 6-digit code.
Enter the code — this runs Google’s encrypted, certificate-based pairing on your own network, and it’s remembered permanently.
Control — D-pad, back/home, volume and power (Android TV’s protocol carries both), playback, and your iPhone keyboard for search boxes and passwords.

After pairing once it reconnects automatically, including waking the Chromecast from standby. The full walkthrough with every honest caveat lives here: how to control an Android TV or Google TV with an iPhone.

The hard case: remote lost AND the WiFi changed

This is the real catch-22. If you moved house or swapped routers, the Chromecast is trying to join a network that no longer exists — so it’s on no network, and no app (Google’s or ours) can reach it. Two ways out:

The hotspot trick. Recreate your old network’s exact name and password as a hotspot on a second phone; the Chromecast auto-joins it; connect your iPhone to the same hotspot; pair; then send the Chromecast to the new WiFi from its settings. The step-by-step is identical to the Fire Stick version: the hotspot walkthrough.
Ethernet. The Chromecast with Google TV has no Ethernet port on its own, but Google’s official power-adapter-with-Ethernet plugs it straight into your router — instantly reachable, no on-screen WiFi setup needed.

And the honest option: a $20 replacement remote

Google sells the Chromecast Voice Remote for around $20, and it pairs over Bluetooth by holding its Back + Home buttons — which works regardless of what network the Chromecast is on. If you’d rather not do the hotspot dance and don’t mind waiting for delivery, that’s a perfectly fair choice. But a phone remote is the backup that can’t slide into the couch — pair it once and it’s always there.