Cord Busters UK: Freesat App Update Angers Users: Remote Control Now Gone

Story from Cord Busters UK:

Freesat has once again managed to ruffle the feathers of some of its users, by stripping another key feature from its mobile app.

The subscription-free satellite platform rolled out a new version of its smartphone app in June 2025, bringing a fancy fresh design but binning the ability to remote control Freesat boxes – and this comes just one year after they scrapped the popular remote recording function.

The move has left some users baffled about the point of having the app at all now, with frustrated comments piling up on social media and app store reviews.

This latest update lands exactly one year after Freesat’s controversial decision to kill off the remote recording feature from its mobile apps on both iOS and Android.

That change, which kicked in during mid-June 2024, meant you could no longer set recordings on your Freesat set-top box using your smartphone or tablet – a feature that had been part and parcel of the Freesat mobile experience for years.

At the time, Freesat blamed the removal on “a change to our internal systems” and specifically pointed to the scrapping of Freesat ID accounts.

With those IDs gone, there was simply no way to connect the app with your Freesat box to set recordings remotely.

The company tried to calm the waters by reminding everyone they could still record shows on their Freesat Boxes – as long as they did it the old-fashioned way via the box’s actual remote.

But this was cold comfort for users who had come to rely on the convenience of remote recording, allowing them to set recordings while out and about or when they suddenly remembered a show they didn’t want to miss.

Fast forward a year, and Freesat has now taken away another significant feature – the ability to use the app as a remote control for Freesat boxes.

Unlike the remote recording feature (which worked on both old and shiny new 4K Freesat boxes before getting the chop), the remote control functionality that’s now been binned actually never worked on the newer boxes.

It only functioned with the older Humax Freesat boxes, such as the Humax HDR-1000S, 1010S, 1100S, and HB-1000S models.

However, plenty of Freesat users still rely on these older boxes – even though they’ve lost other bits and bobs over the years, such as support for apps like ITV Hub / ITVX.