stayconnect® mobile Reviews

by The Goods 88

My wife and I paid over $21 to watch a movie through this “service” while staying at a Worldmark by Wyndham property in Utah. The audio was so bad we could only hear about 1 spoken word out of 4, and the visual quality was awful!

What a pathetic waste of time and money. I tried to call the support line twice — but only got a recording that I could call back during business hours. Do people only relax in their rooms to watch movies before 5 pm — during “business hours”?!?

Don’t waste your time and money on this!!

by NJE31

Doesn't give you a program guide, but instead links you to install another app that costs a buck. Volume control is coarse and unusable. Does not have channel up down buttons and you can't get the channel selector and volume control onto one convenient screen. So overall, much worse than using the hotel remote. If your hotel didn't supply a channel guide, at least you get to see them as a list here.

by Margonthebus

stayconnect is simple and easy to use. Takes 30 seconds to download stayconnect and connect to your hotel room tv. Especially handy if the batteries in your remote are nearly dead, as they often are in hotels.

HOWEVER, if you tap the wrong button they’ll sneak a $.99 charge on you. I hit said button and before I realized what was happening I’d been charged for a subscription to the TV guide feature. I need to figure out if this is a one-time fee or a subscription. Sneaky sneaky.

by WMarxist

It’s crap ware. It adds no value. It vacuums unnecessary data.

“ Information We Collect Automatically:
Most of the information that we collect from within mobile applications, including device and hardware identifications, device type, request type, your carrier, your carrier user identification, the nature or content of a request, basic information on usage and basic information about SONIFI products and services will not, by itself, personally identify you to SONIFI, a SONIFI affiliate, or a SONIFI advertiser. Such information, however, may be unique and if associated or combined with other information, could be used to personally identify you. If you use location-enabled products and services, you may be sending us location information and that could reveal the vicinity of your actual location. “

In How can they not identify someone with device and hardware and carrier user identification? Why need all that - it’s a remote control app? Why not just device type, device OS version, carrier / carrier type and date? Why location-enabled data when location is KNOWN by service at activation point? (Like you already know the place a traveler is staying).

It’s this sneaky stuff that makes it crapware. And you and I have to email them to request any data protection. Ugh.

Please. I Never. Ever. Use it.

by AntNobodyGotTimeForThis

Downloaded thinking I could stream from apps on my tablet to the tv because it’s 2021 and that should be relatively easy. Not only does it not do that but it just turns your tablet or phone into a remote control. When I tried to troubleshoot it flashed a purchase option that needed to be approved by fingerprint and my thumb just happened to be on the phone button mean I just got charged 99 cents for a program guide. This lazy piece of garbage app does nothing one can’t do with a remote control and an internet search. Don’t waste your time.

by Txkneader

Using stayconnect is the only way to have a tv program guide at Holiday Inn. Requires $.99 year purchase - not the amount that irritated but the hassle and lack of warning. Then stayconnect loads painfully slow, has even less info about any program than my “broadcast” tv supplies through the airways, display scrolling to look at the next 1/2 hour or ability to look at a specific time is tedious. Wasted money unless you want to know the name of a program or show and you’re willing to scroll your time away

by Pulsar77

If you are looking for something to control your TV in a Hilton that still uses that old proprietary cable system, this will work. If you are looking for a channel guide as well, it's horrible. Not only does it not adjust the guide for the time zone that you are in, but different channels are off by different amounts. Some are off by two hours, some by 2 1/2, some by 3. So if you don't want to touch your hotel remote, this is fine, but you still have to switch around to see what's on.

by Mike Daudt

Wasted a bunch of time trying to get this working, including two calls to customer support, neither of which fixed the problem. I discovered a solution by accident on my own. Contrary to what customer support advised, which was to turn off the TV that I wasn’t watching, it worked ONLY if I powered up both TV sets in the room and THEN logged into the TV that I wanted to watch. Once I did that, it worked fine. But what a waste of time getting there.

by Apfelmaennchen

Switching channels works, and is more convenient than using the dumb hotel RC.
On/Off also works, but volume control doesn’t - huh..?
Having to pay a subscription for the guide is bizarre as it’s free on the hotel TV. It’s also kind of dishonest as it’s an obvious attempt to rake in dollars through forgotten subscriptions that silently renew annually. Why not simply make money with ads at the bottom and offer more right out of the box..?

by Videos? What Videos?

Easy set up. TV guide subscription on your phone is $1/year. Works well.

If your hotel pushes pay per view products, stayconnect can do nothing more for you. If your hotel does NOT lock you in to PPV entertainment, the hotel can enable stayconnect to allow you to stream your content from your device to the TV. I can say with certainty that Wyndham hotels love PPV, so no streaming for you.

by Cubemissy

I’m using this remote on my ipad.
We all know how hard it is to use hotel room remotes. With the wear and tear they get, by the time you use it, the buttons aren’t responsive. Push up/down channel 5 times, and you maybe get a response once. This is a basic remote, with a caveat. If you use the guide, you pay a small amount. (Haven’t tried it myself; got that from other reviews.)
This remote allows you to turn the tv on/off, see the available channels in a list, change channels when you select from that list, and set the volume. Pretty nifty. Instead of using stayconnect ’s guide, I use my cable provider’s app to see what’s on.

by Piff02

$.99 each year is a bit, hmm...

I wish the program guide function was a lot better. Every time you leave the program guide window for another window, or leave stayconnect , and come back to the program guide, the program guide resets to the top. I wish it just stayed at whatever was the last channel you were viewing in the program guide. That way I wouldn’t have to re-scrool through all of the channels.
Other than that, it is very handy for hotels with confusing and/or non-functional remote controls.

by YodiJ

The hotel system on the TV is terrible. I’ve been staying in the same hotel weekly for work and for over 5 months. Never used the TV in the room because of how crappy the system was. Just found out about stayconnect , downloaded it and added the program guide subscription and it’s soooo much better. Don’t know if previous versions weren’t great resulting in all the 1 star reviews, but I love it.

by Dave Wike

I’m not sure if the other reviewers are just incompetent or what, but stayconnect did exactly what I wanted and what it promised to do. Once connected thru stayconnect , I opened Netflix on my phone and tapped the connect button and it was like having an Apple TV in my hotel room. Loved it! The only reason I gave it a 4 is because I did get randomly disconnected every now and then, but I bet that had more to do with the hotels wifi than stayconnect. I hope it ends up in more hotels!

by Willykool

Handy & works great. Doesn't do much, but it does it well. I don't like keeping track of the hotel remote & always have my phone near me so it's very convenient. Would rather touch my own device than a germ magnet with who knows what on it. The channel listing on stayconnect is better than referencing the hotel room card. Purchasing the program guide for $0.99 was well worth it as it saves so much time flipping through all the channels looking for a good show to watch. I didn't care to steam any content so I didn't try, but stayconnect description does say that device streaming is only avail in certain places and provides a link to check, so not sure why people give it a low rating over that. Could stayconnect do more? Of course, but it's basically just a remote and it is a better remote than the room remote. Will definitely use on future trips.

by Jason In USA

Not sure why the low rating. stayconnect allowed me to quickly change the channel (a pedestrian feature); but I was able to stream Netflix to the hotel tv. Nice feature! Better than my recent VRBO which required me to log in on an Apple TV, then remember to log out before checkout.

by Garyd49

Installed quickly. Paid 99 cents for the guide. Worth it! Now I don’t have to slowly scroll through the channels wondering what is on. Really helpful to have a guide that works in a hotel. I really don’t understand all the poor ratings, particularly those complaining about 99 cents for a useful product

by $$$$$$1234$$$$

I have no idea what people are whining about. Last night I was able to use my Plex app on my iPhone to ChromeCast a number of movies directly to my hotel room tv from my remote home server. stayconnect performed flawlessly. No hiccups. This to me is a totally new level of awesomeness. Now I don’t even need to hook up a laptop via HDMI to the hotel tv. Just use my iPhone via ChromeCast.

by Chris_wallace

After I read the reviews, I was hesitant to even bother download stayconnect , but I’ve had literally zero problems with it since downloading. Yes, it is 99cents per year, but you have access to the TV guide which is extremely convenient. Controlling the TV from your phone has been fast and accurate as far as the guide goes. I don’t understand why stayconnect has such bad reviews. FYI, I’m using stayconnect while staying in a hotel in Miami, FL.

by Ashleyryan920

I stay primarily at Hilton properties and quite a few seem to use this. Not sure how many hotels used this before COVID-19 and I just didn’t notice... I tried it for probably half a evening without paying for the program guide and it was meh. Looked at the reviews that were terrible and decided to spend the $1 since it seemed like it really was just annually and not monthly or anything. It’s a great little app, can see what’s on, change volume, etc. No more yucky remotes. Only real suggestion is to add a sleep timer to stayconnect .