Do you use the PC to watch a movie, give a presentation or as a music player, for example? Then it is very practical if you can control all of that remotely. One of the most comprehensive apps for this is Unified Remote. We show you how to operate your PC with a smartphone.
Often enough we have seen people struggle with the ministry of PowerPointslides and thought: there is room for improvement. Of course useful accessories have been devised, but it is also possible without them. There are various apps for the smartphone to control your slides, which often work just as well. However, for this workshop we were looking for an app that could be used much more widely. After all, giving presentations is not everyone’s hobby. We ended up with Unified Remote that – certainly as a full version – turns a smartphone or tablet into a more than fully-fledged remote control for your PC or laptop. With this you can not only browse through slides, but also, for example, operate your media player, start programs remotely, browse files, give mouse or keyboard actions, adjust the volume or turn off the PC.
1 Installation
Unified Remote consists of two parts: an app for your smartphone or tablet and a small server program that you install on the PC. The app is available for Android and iOS (iPhone and iPad). There is a full version that costs 4.99 euros once, but also a free version. On the website the differences are clearly explained. The free version offers eighteen different remotes, the full version has more than forty! Under Android, the paid version is also part of Google Play Pass, Google’s subscription for apps and games. This subscription costs $ 4.99 per month, but the first month is currently free, so you can try these and many other apps for free. You can use the server program here to download . This software isn’t just for that Windows, but also available for macOS and Linux. If you have installed the app and software, your PC will normally be found automatically by the app. This goes via the network, but can also be done via bluetooth.
2 Keyboard and mouse
After making the connection, the app immediately displays six remote controls, five of which are included in the free version. The first is called Basic Input, with which you turn your smartphone into a mouse and keyboard. If you swipe your finger across the screen, you will immediately see the mouse move along on the PC. Tap the screen to simulate pressing the left mouse button, or tap the right mouse button twice. To scroll, you can drag across the screen with two fingers. With this remote control you can also call up a keyboard via an icon, so that you can enter text on the PC from the smartphone. You can also call up a bar with media keys to operate the music player or to adjust the volume. The latter is much easier with the remote control Media. It shows the most important media keys in large format, so that you can operate them comfortably. There is also the remote control Keyboard, which fills the entire screen with a qwerty keyboard, although it works best if you hold the device horizontally.
3 System management
There are some handy remotes pre-installed that come in handy for system management. For example, you can use Power shut down, restart, lock the PC and let it sleep or wake up. If the PC supports wake-on-lan, you can turn it on remotely. With File Manager you can browse all disk drives and open folders on the PC and files – on the PC. This is especially useful for opening a video remotely, for example. File management actions are also possible, such as deleting, cutting, copying and pasting files. Also useful is called the remote control Screen which (unlike all the remotes mentioned above) is unfortunately not free. This allows you to peek at the screen of your PC. You can drag to see a specific area or zoom in and out. If you have a setup with multiple screens, you can select the desired screen in the app.
4 More remotes
There are of course more remotes available that you can easily add via the plus sign. They are divided into categories such as Input, Media, Presentation and Utility. For example, put you PowerPoint Basic in addition, you have exactly the keys you need to start or end a presentation in PowerPoint and to scroll through the slides. For even more control you can PowerPoint Advanced add. There are also special remote controls for well-known media applications such as Plex, MusicBee, Spotify, Winamp, VLC, YouTube and a handful more. They often offer a bit more than the universal Media remote control, which of course usually works too. There are also remote controls for well-known browsers. We tried the one for Chrome. This gives options such as scrolling backwards or forwards, scrolling through a page, scrolling through tabs, zooming in and out or opening a new tab. There are also remote controls for Firefox, Opera and Internet Explorer with similar capabilities. Is the overview of remotes getting too full? You can hide a remote control with a long press on it.
5 Extras
There are more tricks in Unified Remote. For example, if your smartphone has an infrared eye, you can use this app to send commands to, for example, your TV or stereo. This can be done by learning the code via your original remote control. There is also a possibility for voice control.
Furthermore, Unified Remote comes with some widgets that you can put on a home screen for faster access. In the menu of Unified Remote, which you can reach via the icon at the top left, you will find additional settings. For example, you can switch to a dark theme or set additional options for the connection and mouse. Furthermore, the server program offers a so-called Manager that you can open with a browser. In it you can view the status and connections. You can also protect access by setting a password, which is then always required to be able to connect. Whether this is necessary, of course, depends on your situation. You can also adjust the configuration for individual remote controls via this Manager.
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