Lost your LG Magic Remote? Control the TV from your phone

Yes. LG webOS sets accept a phone remote over the local network, and after a one-time PIN shown on the TV the phone covers the D-pad, OK, back, home, volume, mute, power, input switching and a keyboard. It works across the current range — UT, UR, UA and UB LED sets, QNED, and OLED evo B, C and G. Sets older than webOS 4.0 pair the same way but have documented app-compatibility gaps.

Not the pointer itself. The Magic Remote moves an on-screen cursor by motion; a phone remote sends arrow keys and OK instead. Everything on webOS that can be reached with arrows — home, apps, settings, inputs, playback — works. Screens built mainly for the cursor, such as the web browser, are slower to use. If you depend on the pointer, a USB mouse plugged into the TV gives you one back.

Almost never the pairing. Among failed LG connections the app recorded in the last 90 days, more than half were sessions that dropped or timed out after working, and fewer than a quarter were pairing problems. The causes are a TV that has gone into standby with its network asleep, or a phone that has hopped to the other band or onto mobile data. Wake the TV with the nub, check the phone's Wi-Fi, and select the TV again.

LG ThinQ. LG retired the standalone LG TV Plus app in late 2023 and moved its remote features into ThinQ. ThinQ reaches the TV over local Wi-Fi using LG’s own protocol, so no infrared hardware is involved on either end.

LG puts a single joystick nub under the centre of the panel, directly below the logo, and on many sets it is recessed far enough that you locate it by touch rather than sight. A press powers the set; tilting moves through volume, channel, input and the power menu. Some models place it on the lower rear edge instead. The nub reaches basic navigation but not the full network menu on every model. ThinQ is LG’s intended path once the TV is on a network; Ethernet gets you through first-time setup when it is not.

LG’s pairing flow asks for either a PIN shown on the TV or the set’s Wi-Fi Direct password, which lives on the TV’s own device screen — a flow that has stayed broadly the same from webOS 2.0 through webOS 26. The usual reason nothing appears is a band mismatch: the TV on 2.4 GHz and the phone on 5 GHz of the same-named network, or mobile data quietly taking over. Put the phone on the 2.4 GHz band of the same network and switch mobile data off while pairing. If the app wants the Wi-Fi Direct password, read it from the TV’s own device or home dashboard screen.