Control BT YouView box from a different location

[skier-hughes]

Hi,
We've moved my Father in Law to a managed bungalow, as he has early onset dementia. This is great for him being somewhere close and retaining a fair bit of independence. 
He love his sport, so we have BT Sport and Sky sports via NOW, on his YouView box.
Unfortunately this is new to his routine, so he is struggling to make use of his new channels.
We have a video camera in the lounge and he can use his portal, but phoning him to tell him football or cricket is on and telling him what channel to turn to has it's own problems.
He can't press 3 numbers in a row fast enough to turn to the right channel, this can take many attempts.  Next, if you phone him, forgetting to video call, he will put the phone down to use the remote with both hands and then he puts the remote to his ear and of course, communicating is then impossible.

I've been looking for a solution other than driving over all the time.

1. An App for my phone which will remotely work the tv box from my location - BT tell me there is no such app.

2. An infra red device that will connect to the internet and will work as a physical remote control, but is controlled via an app for my phone.

I'm sure number 2 must be an option, but I'm struggling to find anything using my google search terms, so I'm hoping someone can provide a link to something they use, know about or have seen.

Cheers folks, thanks for reading.

[gomezz]

One partial workaround is that you can set recordings on the Youview box from your phone remotely. If you do this for everything your father would like to watch then it may be easier for him to find and play the recording using the remote control buttons at his own pace.

[skier-hughes]

His pace is so slow that pressing 420 to get sky sports is hard, getting him to press new buttons to access recordings will be difficult, but I'll look into it.

I didn't know you could set recordings from your phone, how do you do that?  We have YouView and TalkTalk at home and that facility was removed for us.

[Brucemeister5]

Rather than setting up a recording as @gomezz  suggests, it’s also possible to set up an alert for a programme on the EPG. Unfortunately it’s not possible to do this remotely, but it might be a partial solution as it would mean that he would only need to press the ok button on his remote control to get to the programme.

You would need to set up the sports that he may be wanting to watch by simply pressing ok on the remote control when you are in the EPG. You would be able to do this for a few days in advance when you’re over there. As long as your father-in-law is able to turn the tv and box on he would just need to respond to the alerts that appear on the screen by pressing ok on the remote control without needing to input the channel number. 

[DarrenDev]

@skier-hughes when YouView removed their app for remote recordings, we agreed to take over - even for TalkTalk customers.  Anyone with a compatible* YouView box can use the BT TV app to set/cancel/delete recordings.

* 1st generation boxes are no longer supported, but I can't imagine many people would still be using those.

[rbz5416]

A Logitech Harmony Hub would do it but they're discontinued, so you'd have to source used. There's also a Harmony Alexa Skill, which can be programmed for voice control. You could set up individual channels for voice control too, so he can just ask for a channel by name & Alexa/Harmony will send the IR codes to the Pro Box to select that channel.

Like all tech, it can sometimes fail but as long as your camera has sight of his TV, you should be able to get things sorted remotely.

[rbz5416]

@DarrenDev 

From your post elsewhere, is there a link somewhere that explains exactly what's possible with Alexa on the previous 4k box? Might be an option here.

[DarrenDev]

I believe the Alexa skill only offers voice search. Don't think it'd be helpful here.

[skier-hughes]

Hi all,

Thanks for your suggestions and sorry for the delayed response, far too many problems too deal with following his house move!!!!
Following a reply on another forum, I found a search term to allow me to find an IR sender which can be remotely controlled via my phone.

And what made me go this way was one review starts with
"I bought the RMmini3 Universal Remote to allow me to control the TV in my stepfather's flat many miles away. The unit is small but it emits a good IR signal in all directions and can be placed almost anywhere in the room. My stepfather struggles with remote control buttons, but by using the Broadlink App on my phone while speaking to my stepfather on the phone I can remotely control his TV (and any other IR-controlled devices) in his room and help find and select what he wishes."

I'll let you know how it goes.

I've also just set a programme to record on my home tv from my phone using the bt tv app as suggested, so I'm hoping that's two problems in one go sorted, result.
Thanks folks.

[gomezz]

That sounds like a good solution. I was thinking of the Slingbox that can do similar and more but with the ubiquity of online streaming services it is a product who's time has been and gone and is no longer available.