TV Remote, TV Cast for Roku TV

Review by eFreeware

TV Remote, TV Cast for Roku TV is an Android app from the developer TV Cast that puts a remote and a casting tool for Roku televisions and streaming devices onto your phone. It is free to install, carries ads, and offers in-app purchases. The pitch is straightforward: your phone becomes the thing you pick up when you want to change the volume, type a search, or push a video to the big screen.

The main reason to consider it is convenience. A physical remote gets lost in cushions, its batteries die at the worst moment, and typing a movie title with arrow keys is tedious. This app addresses all three by using hardware you already carry, and it adds casting on top, so the same app that navigates menus can also send media from your phone to the television.

It has been on Google Play since April 2021 and was last updated in October 2026, with more than a million installs and a 4.7 average across 54,925 ratings. Those numbers suggest a settled, widely used tool rather than an experiment, though the experience you get will depend on your television and your network.

Where this remote-and-cast setup makes sense

The clearest fit is a household with a Roku TV or streaming device where the remote is shared, misplaced, or simply out of arm's reach. If you are settled on the couch and the remote is across the room, opening an app on the phone beside you is a reasonable substitute. The keyboard alone justifies it for anyone who searches for titles often, since typing on a phone screen beats hunting letters one at a time.

It also suits people who collect media on their phone. Photos from a trip, personal videos, music, and supported online streams can be sent to the television rather than passed around a small screen. The app handles common formats such as MP4, M3U8, and HLS, which covers a lot of what phones record and what streaming sites serve.

A third group is anyone who wants one place for control and playback. Rather than switching between a remote app and a casting app, this combines menu navigation, playback control, volume, and media sending. The trade-off is that it is built for Roku hardware, so it is only useful in a home that has it.

Remote control, keyboard, and touchpad in practice

The remote side covers the basics you would expect: moving through menus, controlling playback, and launching supported apps on the television. The developer also includes a touchpad for navigating the interface and a keyboard for entering text when you search, browse, or sign in. Those two additions are what separate a phone remote from a physical one, because they remove the slowest part of using a television interface.

Voice commands are included as well, described as a faster route through navigation on supported devices. Volume can be adjusted from the phone when the hardware allows it. A home screen widget puts key remote functions within reach without opening the app, which is a small touch that matters if you use the remote often.

The honest caveat is compatibility. The developer notes that voice control, volume adjustment, casting, and remote functions might not work on all devices, and that what is available depends on the television model, streaming device, operating system, and network. I would treat this as a general-purpose remote that covers the common cases rather than a guarantee that every button on your physical remote has an equivalent.

Casting phone media and web video

Casting is the second half of the app. Supported videos, online movies, IPTV streams, livestreams, music, photos, and personal videos can be sent from the phone to a compatible Roku television or streaming device. The developer lists MP4, M3U8, and HLS among the supported formats, which is a practical set for both recorded files and streaming sources.

There is also detection of compatible media on supported websites. This is not screen mirroring: the app casts the video itself rather than reproducing the whole page, so navigation, comments, and other page elements stay on the phone. In some cases the developer says you may need to start playback on the phone before the stream can be found, which is a normal pattern for this type of tool.

Quality is conditional. Whether you get HD or 4K depends on the television, the media source, the network, and what the device can handle. Content protected by DRM from subscription streaming services might not play, so this is not a way around the restrictions those services place on where their video can play. Connection quality follows your Wi-Fi, and the app works best when the phone and television sit on the same stable network.

Setting up the connection

Setup follows a short sequence. Both the phone and the television need to be on the same Wi-Fi network, then you open the app, tap the connect button, and choose a supported television or streaming device from the list. From there you pick a remote function or select media to cast.

That shared-network requirement is the one thing worth planning around. If your television is on a different network or a guest network separate from your phone, the app may not see it. A stable connection matters as much as a shared one, since both control commands and video travel over Wi-Fi.

If something goes wrong, the developer's guidance is to restart the phone, the television, the streaming device, and the router, and to use the in-app report feature to send details of the problem. There is also a support address for direct contact. None of this is unusual for a network-dependent tool, but it does mean the app is only as reliable as the network it runs on.

What the free download includes and what it costs

The app is free to download and contains ads. It also offers in-app purchases. That is the full picture the store provides: there is no stated price for the app itself, and no stated detail about what the purchases cover or how prominently ads appear. I would go in expecting a free tool supported by advertising and optional spending rather than a paid product with a trial.

For a utility you might open dozens of times a week, that model is worth weighing. Ads in a remote app are a different experience from ads in something you open occasionally. Whether the trade-off is acceptable depends on how often you reach for it and how much the convenience of a phone remote is worth to you.

The app requests only the permissions needed for its remote-control and casting functions, and users are asked to review requested permissions before installing. On an app that needs to find devices on your local network, that is the kind of transparency worth checking before you commit.

How it compares with the alternatives

The obvious alternative is the physical remote that came with the television. It costs nothing extra. What it cannot do is give you a full keyboard, a touchpad, or a way to push phone media to the screen, and it is exactly the object that goes missing when you need it.

A second option is the official remote app from the television or streaming-device maker. Those tend to align closely with the hardware. This app's casting side is the part that a manufacturer's remote app is least likely to replicate.

A third route is a dedicated casting tool or a smart TV's built-in casting support. Those can handle video from a phone. The trade-off here is that this app is built specifically for Roku hardware, and the developer makes clear it is an independent product with no affiliation to any television maker, streaming-device maker, media platform, or trademark owner.

A practical pick for Roku households

I would recommend this app to Roku owners who want their phone to double as a remote and a casting device. The combination of keyboard, touchpad, voice, volume, and media casting in one free app is a genuinely useful package, and the install and rating numbers suggest plenty of people have found it workable. The shared Wi-Fi requirement and the device-dependent feature list are the main things to accept going in.

It is less compelling if you rarely misplace the remote or have no interest in sending phone media to the television, since the ads and purchases are part of the deal. For everyone else in a Roku household, it is a sensible thing to have installed for the moments when the physical remote is nowhere to be found.

If that describes your setup, it is worth trying before you buy a second physical remote.