Support

First

Writing a useful message

Perch has no diagnostics to attach, because it collects none, so a good description does the work instead. Four lines are usually enough:

• Your iPhone model and iOS version — iOS Settings → General → About.
• The Perch version, printed at the bottom of the app's Settings tab.
• Whether the trouble is a television that will not be found, or one that is found and then ignores a particular button.
• The brand and model on the back of the television or the streaming stick.

Please leave out anything private — we do not need your address, your account with any service, or a photograph of your living room.

Background

How Perch works

Perch is not connected to a service and does not sign you into anything. It works like this:

1. Your iPhone and your television share one Wi‑Fi network.
2. Perch listens for devices announcing themselves on that network, and also tries a bounded range of addresses in your own subnet, for about nine seconds.
3. Whatever answers appears in the list. You pick one; Perch opens a single connection straight to it.
4. Every button you press travels over that connection and nowhere else. There is no account, no cloud, and no relay in between.

Two consequences worth knowing. Perch cannot control anything while you are away from home, because there is no remote path by design. And Perch cannot help with a device that only accepts infrared — an iPhone has no infrared emitter.

Problem 01

Nothing is found

This is the most common report, and it is nearly always the network rather than the app. Work down the list:

If all six are true and the list is still empty, type the address in by hand — see below — and tell us what happened. That distinction, discovery failing versus the device refusing a direct connection, is the single most useful thing you can report.

Problem 02

Typing the address in

Perch keeps a manual route for networks where discovery is blocked: Settings → Enter TV's IP Address, or a long press on the Perch icon on your Home Screen followed by Enter TV Address.

The address comes from the television itself, usually under its network or about screen, and looks like 192.168.1.24. Give the phone and the television a permanent place on your router if the number keeps changing between evenings.

One honest caveat: manual entry gets around discovery, not permission. If Local Network access is switched off for Perch, iOS blocks the connection whether you found the address or typed it.

Problem 03

A key does nothing

Perch sends the key and reports whether the television acknowledged it. When a particular button appears to do nothing, the cause is usually on the far side:

• The current screen ignores it. Playback keys do nothing on a home screen; a text field must be open before typed text has anywhere to land.
• The model does not implement it. Manufacturers vary in which commands they honour, and firmware updates change the list.
• The connection has dropped. Look at the status pill at the top of the remote; if it is not showing a live connection, reconnect and try again.

Perch deliberately never claims success it has not seen. A widget says Sent, not Muted, because the app knows what it transmitted and not what your television decided to do about it.

Problem 04

Volume and mute

Volume is the one area where a network remote regularly loses to the plastic one, and it is worth understanding why before writing in.

If the sound leaves your television through its own speakers, the volume keys normally work. If the sound is being handled by a soundbar, an AV receiver or an external speaker, then the television often has no volume of its own to change, and the command is honoured by doing nothing. The fix lives in the audio chain rather than in Perch: control the volume where the sound actually comes out, or enable the television's control of it, which some sets call HDMI‑CEC and each manufacturer names differently.

Perch asks your television once whether it can control volume at all and remembers the answer for that device, which is why the hint stops appearing after the first time.

Problem 05

Typing on the TV

The keyboard button on the remote opens a field on your phone. Type, send, and the whole string lands in the field on the television at once, which beats spelling a password out one arrow at a time.

It only works when the television already has a text field open and waiting — a search box, a sign-in form. If nothing on screen is asking for text, Perch says as much rather than pretending the string went through. What you type is never stored: it lives in the sheet while the sheet is open and is gone afterwards.

Problem 06

The Apps tab

The grid shows the apps installed on your television, with the names and icons your television reports. Tap one to open it there.

An empty grid usually means the device answered but listed nothing, which happens on players that keep no channel list, or that the connection dropped mid-answer. Pull to refresh once you are connected again. The grid is nothing to do with the apps on your iPhone, and Perch never looks at those.

Problem 07

Widgets, Control Center and Siri

The Everywhere tab exists so the remote can live outside the app. It works without any television present, so you can set it all up before you are anywhere near the sofa.

• Home Screen widget — long press an empty spot on the Home Screen, tap the add button, find Perch. Long press the placed widget and choose Edit to pick which television and which key it drives.
• Lock Screen widget — long press the Lock Screen, tap Customise, then the area under the clock.
• Control Center — pull it down, long press an empty area, tap Add a control, and scroll to Perch. The same control can be assigned to the Action button on iPhone models that have one.
• Siri — the phrases include the app's name, so say something like "Mute my TV with Perch". Every phrase is listed inside the Everywhere tab.
• Home Screen quick actions — long press the app icon for Remote, Volume, Switch TV and Enter TV Address.

A control on the Lock Screen shows the television's name, which is often the name of a room. iOS hides that title while the iPhone is locked.

If a widget shows a device but presses fail, open the app once and check the connection there; a widget cannot run the discovery sweep on its own, by design.

Question 01

Demo Mode

Demo Mode fills Perch with one imaginary television and a set of sample tiles so that every screen, including the keyboard and the Apps grid, can be explored with no hardware in the room. While it is on, the app opens no network connection whatsoever, each screen it touches carries a Demo label, and the imaginary device is never added to your real list. Turn it on or off in Settings.

Question 02

Cost, advertising, accounts

Perch carries no advertising, sells nothing inside itself and has no subscription. There is no account, no email to hand over and no sign-in screen anywhere in it. Nothing is held back behind a paywall, because there is no paywall.

Question 03

Your data and how to erase it

Perch collects nothing, sends nothing to us and has no server of its own. The short list of things it remembers — your saved televisions, which one is selected, your widget choices, two toggles — sits on your iPhone and nowhere else.

• Remove one television: swipe it away in the device list in Settings.
• Remove everything: delete the app. iOS destroys its container, and there is no account elsewhere to close.
• Ask us instead: write to help@perchremote.com. The answer will almost always be that we hold no record of you; if your own message contained personal details, we will delete the correspondence on request.

The full account is in the privacy policy, which is written as an inventory rather than a disclaimer so that it can be checked line by line.

Question 04

Bugs and ideas

Both are welcome at help@perchremote.com. Feature requests are read and kept in a list, and the list genuinely drives what gets built next; a note explaining why you want something is worth more than the request itself.

Requests we cannot take on, so that nobody waits for an answer that will not come: controlling a television over the internet from outside the home, infrared devices, brands that do not accept commands over the network, and anything that would require the app to begin gathering information about the way people use it.