Here's how you'll use your phone like a Wiimote to control Samsung TVs in 2025

What do you do when you want to use your TV but can’t find the remote? We’ve all been there, whether it fell between the cushions, has been kicked under a couch, or the dog just hid it somewhere. If you’re very lucky, you might have a Google TV Streamer and can just use its Find My Remote button. But in a pinch, you can always use your phone to control Android TV devices. Samsung supports the same sort of arrangement with its own TVs and the SmartThings app, and at SDC 2024 today, we learned about a cool new tweak that’s on its way.

It’s interesting that we still use TVs largely without a proper pointing interface. We navigate around menus by hitting up, down, left, and right, but we don’t just point right at the interface element we’re trying to interact with in the same way we’d tap a button our phone’s touchscreen, or click a window on our computer. But there’s also no good reason we can’t, and Samsung’s upgrading SmartThings to give users a couple ways to get that kind of control.

Starting sometime next year, SmartThings will begin letting users control their Samsung TVs by way of a touchpad in the app that operates a cursor on the TV. By swiping around on your phone’s screen, you’ll be able to interact with your TV like it’s just a big laptop.

That’s fine and all, but we did say “cool,” and touchpads ain’t that. In addition to that input option, Samsung is also working on implementing a mode that will let you move your phone around in the air and “point” it at the TV for cursor control — effectively, becoming a modern-day Wiimote (or whatever you current VR controller of choice is).

We’ll be curious to see how easy users find this to use, and if it will feel practical at all to many of them, but it’s sure fun to play with. Now to only find a phone with a lanyard loop so we don’t accidentally throw it at the TV…