Short answer: an iPhone can’t control a TV with no network at all. iPhones have no infrared transmitter, so every iPhone remote app — the TV makers’ own and ours — sends its button presses over a network the phone and the TV share. What you can do is make a small network yourself: a hotspot from a second phone, or a travel router. Neither needs your home Wi-Fi.
“Without Wi-Fi” usually means one of three situations, and the answer is different for each.
1. There’s no router: a holiday rental, a hotel, a new flat
Make a network for the two of them.
- A hotspot from a second phone. Connect the TV to that hotspot from its network settings, and connect your iPhone to the same hotspot. Both are now on one network, and the remote app can find the TV. It uses that phone’s mobile data for anything the TV streams, so watch the allowance.
- Not your own iPhone’s hotspot, ideally. If the iPhone running the remote app is also the hotspot, connections between it and the TV aren’t guaranteed: an Apple engineer has written that Personal Hotspot was built to give the connected devices internet access, and that app-to-device traffic across it isn’t something Apple promises. It sometimes works; when it doesn’t, a second device as the hotspot does.
- A travel router. A small battery or USB-powered router makes a private Wi-Fi network with or without internet. Join the TV and the iPhone to it and remote apps that talk to the TV directly over the local network can work — Zapp does, since it has no server of its own.
One brand-specific catch: Roku’s own app says it can’t detect a Roku that isn’t connected to the internet. On a travel router with no internet, the Roku app may not find the Roku even though both are on the same network; a hotspot with data avoids that.
2. The Wi-Fi is down
If the router is on but the internet is out, the local network usually still works: the TV and the phone can still see each other. Apps that talk to the TV directly carry on, because a button press never needs to leave your home. (The Roku catch above applies here too.)
If the router itself is off or broken, you’re in situation 1: make a hotspot.
3. The TV isn’t on any network
A smart TV that has never been connected can’t be reached by any app until it is. Use the TV’s own button to get into its settings and join a network — here’s where that button hides — or skip the app entirely for now:
- The TV’s own button or joystick turns it on and changes the input. Here’s how to change the input without a remote.
- HDMI-CEC: turning on a console or streaming stick plugged into the TV usually switches the TV on and over to that input.
- A universal infrared remote is the only route that needs no network at all.
What about Wi-Fi Direct and Bluetooth?
Samsung and LG TVs offer Wi-Fi Direct, which connects a device to the TV with no router. Both brands describe it for sharing content to the screen, not as a way for a remote app to connect, and the iPhone’s settings have no Wi-Fi Direct option. It’s not a route for an iPhone remote.
Bluetooth doesn’t help either: TVs pair Bluetooth with their own remotes, speakers and headphones, and the phone-remote apps for Google TV, Roku, Samsung and LG all ask for a shared Wi-Fi network instead.
Infrared adapters for phones do exist, but most current ones are Wi-Fi hubs that send infrared on the phone’s behalf, so they need a network too.
By brand: what each official app needs
| TV | Official phone remote | Needs |
|---|---|---|
| Samsung | SmartThings | Same Wi-Fi as the TV, and a Samsung account |
| LG | LG ThinQ | Same Wi-Fi as the TV; you enter the PIN it shows |
| Roku | The Roku App | Same Wi-Fi, and the Roku connected to the internet |
| Google TV | Google TV / Google Home | Same Wi-Fi; you enter the code it shows |
| Fire TV | Amazon Fire TV | Same Wi-Fi, and an Amazon account |
Zapp needs the same shared network as all of these, but no account and no internet connection of its own: it talks to the TV and nothing else. That’s why a travel router with no internet can be enough for it. Here’s how to set it up on each brand.