Control your TV or air conditioner with voice commands, courtesy of Smart IR Remote

Some of the most popular devices of 2014 are flaunting an IR blaster - a neat, yet often neglected functionality. Actually, the Samsung Galaxy S5, the LG G3, and the HTC One (M8) are but a few of the more popular smartphones that sport such a hardware feature. Thanks to it, you can control almost all of your household gadgets that are equipped with a IR receiver, i.e., TV sets, set top boxes, air conditioners, projectors, multimedia systems, air conditioners, you name it.

Of course, you need an app in order to make use of this neat feature, and Smart IR Remote is among the best ones. It does not only allow you to control a plethora of supported IR-enabled devices, but also comes with some head-turning features. One of the latest functionalities that the app scored allows you to issue commands to your household devices with the aid of Google Now. You got it correct, Smart IR Remote now fully supports the voice assistant. After you've turned the feature in the Settings menu and launched Google Now (with the aid of the “Ok, Google” hotword), you only have to say the desired command and Smart IR Remote will take care of the rest.

Want to turn down the volume of your TV with a voice command? Okay, you can do that. The temperature's too high and you want to cool down a bit by turning the AC on, but both the remote and your phone are not close enough? Well, no problem. All in all, this recently-acquired trait is nothing but neat for all those avid users of Google's voice assistant.

Smart IR Remote fetches a $6.99 price tag. However, you should also take into consideration that at the moment, the app officially supports only select Samsung and HTC devices. The LG G3, in particular, is also supported to some extent, as the support for LG's flagship is still in beta – expect certain issues.

Download: Smart IR Remote (Android)



via: Android Authority