VentureBeat

Maybe the iPhone should be called the “Jesus Phone” after all. SquareConnect is creating an application that turns your iPhone (or iPod touch) into a remote control for all of the consumer electronics gadgets in your home.

SquareConnect chief executive Mat Henshall said that the company can turn the four-inch display of the iPhone into a virtual remote control for any consumer electronics gadget that ordinarily requires a separate remote. You could use an iPhone to control a DVD player, a Blu-ray player, an Apple TV set-top box, an Xbox 360 game console, a video cassette recorder, and your TV. Henshall unveiled the product at the AlwaysOn Venture Summit in Half Moon Bay, Calif.

The solution is fairly simple. You download the Dot Control application to the iPhone or iPod touch. Since the iPhone doesn’t have an infrared control, the solution requires some hardware. This hardware box can take commands from the iPhone via Wi-Fi networking and then it converts the commands into IR commands. You can add new devices using your computer or the iPhone itself.

There are other things such as universal remotes (24 million of them sell each year in the U.S.) and smartphones that can control your gadgets. But the key here is the phone’s big display. You add a device on the Square Connect web site and then it sends you an image of the controls for that device, be it a VCR or DVD player. You then control the device by tapping on the iPhone’s touch screen.

This is similar to the remote application that Apple made when the App Store launched, but that only works with computers running iTunes or the Apple TV. This app can control much more.

With SquareConnect’s app, you can easily go through your devices by swiping your finger across the touch screen, which makes the gadget interfaces rotate carousel-like. (It’s a lot like the Cover Flow imagery that you use to shift from album to album when viewing your music collection).

The idea was born out of Henshall’s frustration with having too many remotes for all of his living room devices. Universal remotes did nothing to deal with the problem of having very different user interfaces for each device. Hence, they could be confusing as you shift from device to device. And display-based remotes such as those from Philips were pretty expensive.

“This was the way to get rid of the remotes in your life by replacing them with a device you may already have,” he said.

The product is expected to launch in the first quarter at $200 or less. The product includes the application, a charging dock and the Wi-Fi box. So far, Henshall, who had his own mobile development company in the past, has funded the project himself. He is raising his first round of institutional money and hopes to get about $2 million. The company has five full-timers and one part-time employee. The company is not yet ready to take any orders from consumers.

Henshall said that the application can record metrics for device usage, making the device attractive to potential advertisers. Competitors include universal remote makers such as Logitech and Pronto remote display maker Philips.

As a remote, it would be better if there was no extra hardware necessary. But that might be too much to ask for. In the meantime, I can see how this device could be very appealing to a lot of Apple devotees as well as the broader group of consumers who are frustrated with their remote controls.

If this isn’t in Steve Jobs’ grand plan to control everything, it should be.

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