I see these ads saying that I can watch my DVR recordings remotely with the Comcast Xfinity X1, but I have it and can’t figure out how it’s done. Would love to be able to watch on my iPhone. Help!
It’s likely that Comcast has simply confused you with its many, many different apps and programs. Seems like there are at least a dozen different programs, apps and even browser extensions from the Xfinity team that let you watch live TV while on the road, change the channel on your TV from your smartphone, program your DVR remotely, and more. What you need for your iPhone is the Xfinity TV app, which you can get from the App Store: Xfinity TV (for X1 customers).
If you’re not a Comcast subscriber or don’t have the X1 package then it’s not going to work, but there are a lot of reasons why the X1 from Xfinity is a cool option anyway, not the least of which is that it does offer live TV and on demand TV shows and movies from anywhere, even while in the office or at school between classes.
Setting Xfinity TV up is straightforward, so let’s go through the steps.
First off, you’ll need to log in just as you do with every other Xfinity app or service:
Once you’ve done that, it’ll add your device to your account, as suggested:
Then you’ll have those Terms of Service that include your commitment to giving Comcast your firstborn male child if you violate the agreement, that you’ll send the company president a birthday card each year, and that you promise to put an Xfinity bumper sticker on your car or truck. Just kidding on at least two of those! 🙂
The key part of the agreement is basically that you’ll only use this service for you and your immediate family, so no posting your login credentials on Facebook so that a few hundred of your friends can also enjoy the service. Which is fair.
Once you’ve logged in and agreed to the terms of service – which you only have to do once – then it’s all fun from here. Indeed, the first thing you’ll see is a display of everything you currently have stored on your DVR:
But let’s flip the Apple iPhone 6s horizontally, since that’s a better orientation for this sort of app.
Fortunately Xfinity TV knows just what to do, reorienting everything just right:
If you try to watch some of the TV on Demand or Movies on Demand programming through Xfinity TV, you might find that you don’t have permission, as I found when I tried to continue watching the daft sci-fi film 2012:
Can you see the blue error message? “Available to watch in home only”. Oh, okay.
A proper DVR recording, however, has a different display, as shown here:
No warning about TV only. So we’re ready to watch episode 7 of DC’s Legends of Tomorrow by simply tapping on “Watch” on the lower left.
And sure enough, after a few seconds, I’m watching the show:
In fact, Xfinity TV works really well on an Apple iPhone or iPad. It’s really excellent to be able to remotely program a DVR and remotely watch the content while on the road too. Now if it could all just be in a single app to simplify things…
Nice article. I have installed the Xfinity app on my IPad.
However, I noticed my IPad recordings do not match my X1 recordings. I have deleted on IPad and they go into the deleted recordings where all I can do is Restore.
I have rebooted the X1 box and reinstalled the IPad TV App but no luck.
Any thoughts.
Thanks.
I am having the same problem with Kindle Fire, the recordings don’t match.
Because XFinity/Major Networks will only let you watch some of your DVR items away from home. This also goes for movie rentals. It does not tell you this anywhere. The movie rentals also do not tell you that they are “In-Home” either. Some networks do not allow any of their shows (CBS) to be viewed outside the home WiFi and others like C-Span pick and choose what you can see outside the home WiFi.
I am sure this not what you wanted to hear.