Video & TV SideView: Remote App Reviews

My kids lost our remote, we found it, and shortly after they broke it. This app saved the day. We only use it to access our Blue-Ray so I cant speak for the functionality of the rest of the app. It was the only app I could figure out how to use. Im not tech savvy so it worked great for me.

I have spent the time several time to set up just the few channels I want in the list. But it is always the default list after I quit the app - Useless!

This App Is Garbage it keeps Resetting My Channel List Preference in My Program Guide Every Time The App Updates Getting Sick Of Having To Search For My Channels All The Time To Set up my list again And again! Also it Should Be Able To Sync Lists Between The Tv And The App!!!!!!

You need network access to register device on the app?!? This is a remote control app - which is needed to configure the player to the network! If I had a remote to configure the player to the network, then I wouldnt use an app.

With so many features and apps on my sony tv, I needed an app thats intuitive and easy to use. This app has everything that you need to control on your tv. The best one so far is it can detect content on my network and can play straight to TV.

It is so fully functional that I have now retired the actual remote control.

Does not support search by voice.

This app has the tendency to crash and not work very well with the Sony BP5000. When it does work its nice to have but those times are few and far between. It seems as if the updates have actually made it worse.

So far the app works well with my Bravia X750D however, The main reason I install this app was for the remote feature. It does work well with the one major exception of the Voice feature which does not work at all.this really needs to be fixed especially since the remote included with the TV does not have the voice feature included. The other major flaw in my opinion is you cannot set the remote part of the app to be get a full view when the app is open.

Its little slow and buggy and also voice search doesnt work at all .please fix it and it will be awesome.Thanks.

It works really good on my 4K tv I love it !!!

I would love this app, if it had a working keyboard, and voice recognition, as advertised. In its current, persistently broken state, I never use it.

Will only turn the tv on and off or adjust volume. Will appear to do much more and loads everything just will not actually change the channel or input

I had to turn on allow mobile remote in tv settings in network. Then find the IP as it could not register device . Turn Bluetooth on and finally pair it. Eventually I had to look hard for small icon for remote. Once setup it worked good

Update 14: Still freezes. Enjoy your one star, dummies. Update 13: Loading DLNA shares still freezes the UI for multiple seconds because the "programmers" are doing networking on the main thread. Enjoy your one star, incompetent clowns. Update 12: Another version that hasnt fixed the hanging issue. Dreadful. Update 11: The app still hangs for 15 to 20 seconds when doing anything. Launch it, it hangs. Try to load the DLNA shares, it hangs. Try to list the files, it hangs. Another crap app by a crap company. 11 updates and they havent fixed this issue. Obviously they couldnt give fly rats behind about these reviews. I just hope someone deciding on buying a Sony product who comes across this review understands that buying it will be nothing but utter frustration and wasted time. Please do yourself a favor and buy something else. Youll be much happier. Sony does not care about their customers. Theyll do anything to make a sell. Once youve purchased something, youre on your own. Update 10: Sure change the name of the app without actually fixing the locking and freezing issue. Lipstick on a pig. This is pure trash just like any other Sony product. Stay away from their hardware and this garbage they call software! Update 9: New design, same garbage, crap app that hangs all the time when trying to fetch DLNA shares. Cant expect much else from the king of incompetent consumer electronics: Sony. Shameful. Update 8: Still hanging and unusable. How many times does one have to say it? Garbage. Update 7: Another sh*t update to a sh*t product from Sony. The full incompetence of Sony on display. Shame. Update 6: This is still broken. The interface still locks up. Sonys incompetence at full display. Update 5: Sure update the app to make TV guide available in Ukraine but its pointless because it is a useless hanging crap written by incompetent coders and released by a clueless company. How long and many times do we have to tell you people that the app is constantly hanging. Youre doing networking in the main thread which blocks the UI. Pick up a book or just read the Apple documentation. Of course youre not intelligent enough to realize youre doing it so wrong. I cant expect more from Sony, honestly. Theyve proven time and time again that theyre incompetent and clueless. Update 4: Yet another update that doesnt fix the hanging. Guys, read this: dont block the UI when performing network operations. Thats not OK. Learn some programming and fix this! Stop relegating this stuff to the interns. Hire a proper programmer. Update 3: Five updates that were supposed to “improve the operation” of the app but not one has actually fixed the hanging issue. Here’s a hit: don’t use the UI thread to run background, networking code. That one’s free you incompetent dumbs. Update 2: Another useless update that does NOT fix any of the hanging issues. Looks like it was just updated to clear out the old unfavorable reviews. Shame. Update 1: The latest update was supposed to "improve the operation" of the app but instead has rendered it totally broken. The intermittent hanging and freezing issue of the past releases has now completely broken this app. Utterly useless. Sony are a hardware company and have no idea how, or the competence, to produce software, and this garbage is a clear example of that incompetence. This is the last Sony TV Im ever buying. No wonder other companies are eating their lunch.

Ive been looking for, at minimum, a connection devise that could allow me to text/type input to my XBR65X810C. Finally i found even more than I had dreamed for with this do-all, fantastic app that I could download on phone or tab. Im usually leery of unrated/unreviewed apps, but thought Id be a guinea pig for once. Best decision Ive made for this TV. Ease of connectivity was impeccable. Ive had basic Bluetooth headsets that couldnt connect that quick. It walks you though every step with no guesswork or IP addresses lookup necessary. 1. Install/Open the app, 2. Put in your zip and cable provider, 3. Select the channels you want in the cable guide menu 4. Then it auto finds your TV (if you and your TV are hooked up to the same wifi/router like in my case), 5. Select to "register" your device to your TV via Bluetooth, and youre in. I could control my TV immediately and you even get a notification on your TV that a new device has been registered. You now have a TV guide, FULLY functional duplication of your physical remote, and an in-hand digital keyboard to speed up your searches. You can even power the TV on/off. Ive experience EXCEPTIONAL speed and response time from both the app itself and the app/TV connection. Its literally like having your remote in hand but with so many extras! It includes a curser/mousepad option, directional keypad, digital keyboard, swipe/flick pad and quick-access App menu to use without going to the "Discover" menu on the TV. Its everything I wanted in an app and so much more. This is truly a quality development that further embeds Sony into the ever growing Internet-of-Things. Thank you Sony

Suddenly stopped working for my blu-ray player. Will not connect to it at all!

Latest update, new bug. Now it wants me to choose my channel lineup setup every. single. time. I open the app to use the remote. Multiple times a day, so annoying. What the heck? App is a disaster, even worse since 3.0. The connection drops every time you navigate to a different app on your phone, have to exit and reconnect every time you back to the app. When I power on the TV with the app, it has no sound until I turn t off and then back on. My harmony remote works just fine. New in 3.0, it constantly asks if I want to turn the device on, when it is already on, and then searches forever for it but never connects. Lost all functionality. Really would be great if Sony could fix this!

After the update, all I got was "Connection failed". On those few times when there was connection, the button are non-responsive. Regrets update to this version. Will delete this app if they dont fix this issue soon.

This app WAS awesome. Since update it will not go pass select tv provider. Been trying for a couple days still nothing. So I deleted it and re installed it and now I cant connect to my receiver that it use to be connected to(str-dn840).