How to Control an Android TV or Google TV With an iPhone

“Android TV” covers a lot of living rooms: Sony Bravia sets, TCL and Hisense Google TVs, Philips, the Chromecast with Google TV puck, Nvidia Shield, and a pile of set-top boxes. All of them speak Google’s remote protocol, and an iPhone can speak it too. Here’s the full setup and the honest details.

What you need

An Android TV / Google TV device on the same WiFi network as your iPhone.
A remote app implementing Google’s protocol: Google’s own Google TV app (free) or Remote Pro, which uses the same native protocol and also covers Samsung, Fire TV and Roku.

Pairing, step by step

Android TV pairing is a one-time, encrypted handshake:

Same network check — phone on the TV’s WiFi, guest network avoided, VPN off. (Empty scan? The checklist.)
Scan — Android TV devices announce themselves on the network; Remote Pro lists them by name in seconds.
Tap your TV — the TV displays a 6-digit code.
Enter the code in the app. Behind the scenes this runs Google’s certificate-based pairing — your phone and TV exchange keys directly, on your network, and the pairing is remembered permanently.
Control — D-pad, back/home, volume and power (Android TV’s protocol supports both, unlike some platforms), playback, and your iPhone keyboard for search and passwords.

After pairing once, Remote Pro reconnects automatically — including waking the TV from standby, since Google TV devices keep their network stack listening.

What works and what doesn’t — honestly

✅ Navigation, volume, mute, power, playback, app switching, keyboard text input.
✅ Chromecast with Google TV — the puck pairs exactly like a full TV.
⚠️ Very old Android TV boxes (pre-Android 11 era) may only speak Google’s legacy remote protocol. Remote Pro implements the current v2 protocol — the one every Google TV and recent Android TV uses. If you own a 2016 set-top relic and it won’t pair, that’s why.
❌ Casting/mirroring — a remote app is a remote, not a Chromecast sender. Your existing cast buttons in YouTube/Netflix keep working independently.

The Google TV app vs Remote Pro

Google’s app is free and its remote works well. The practical differences: it’s built around Google’s content storefront with the remote as a tab, it expects a Google account signed in, and it handles only this one platform. Remote Pro opens straight onto the remote, pairs with the device rather than an account, and controls the other three TV platforms in the same app — one remote for the Sony in the lounge, the Fire Stick in the bedroom and the Roku in the guest room.

If the physical remote is lost entirely, start with the general rescue guide — TV buttons and HDMI-CEC fallbacks included: lost your TV remote?