VIDEO INTERVIEW: Peel Technologies CEO Thiru Arunachalam claims the company’s smart remote app has visions of achieving one billion users as it plans to “control everything in the home.”

The Peel smartphone app started off as a way to “replace the problem of the broken remote control”, connecting devices such as set-top boxes, Blu-ray players and TVs. Now the company wants it to control other objects in the homes as well, “so that when you sit down to watch a TV show, your drapes close automatically, your lights dim and your favourite show starts playing,” Arunachalam explained.

Peel claims to be the biggest IoT platform in the world. Its smart remote app has close to 125 million active users globally and is connected to 250 million devices, serving 70 million homes.

This is why the company believes the ‘living room experience’ it envisions will play a big role in catalysing the take-up of connected devices.

While the app comes pre-loaded on many new flagship devices, including the Samsung Galaxy S6 and the HTC One M9, the company has partnered with Philips to launch a Bluetooth $39 device called Pronto as an add-on to smartphones that don’t have the capability to control devices directly (for example, the iPhone and other iOS devices).

Peel is also partnering with TV studios to provide them with ‘Peel-in’ links that they can put on social media which will “tune users right into TV shows”, provided they they have the Peel app.

Arunachalam says the key to the success of the company, already present in the US and Asia and now coming to Europe, is that no matter where people are from, “at the end of the day when they come home, they want to relax and escape.”

The company is also working on ambitious plans to “revolutionise the streaming experience”.

To view the full interview, click here.