FiOS Subs Use Cell Phones as TV Remotes

FiOS TV customers who have an HD set-top box and a Motorola Droid or HTC Imagio mobile phone can now use the phones as a TV remote control.

The mobile remote has virtually the same functionality as the standard FiOS remote, plus additional features including instantly transferring photos from the handset to the TV screen.

Verizon will expand this FiOS Mobile Remote service to additional mobile phones in the coming months.
 
FiOS TV customers, including small-business customers, access the new feature through the applications store on their mobile phone handset and then pair the device with their in-home FiOS network by opening up the Mobile Remote Widget on FiOS TV and selecting either the Motorola Droid or HTC Imagio icon.

Once set up, FiOS Mobile Remote offers these features:

• Controls a FiOS TV set-top box from the mobile device, with features including changing channels, adjusting volume, managing parental controls and using DVR functionality such as pause, rewind, fast forward or record live programming.
• Customers can also use the handset to control the FiOS TV onscreen full QWERTY keyboard, or use their handset’s keyboard to search for TV programming and VOD titles.
• Users can import to the mobile device favorite-channels lists currently stored on the TV set. The mobile device can then be used to flip through and select channels from the lists. 
• Automatically mutes the TV when a call is answered with the handset and resumes the previous TV-volume level after the call is ended.