Use SMS to Set Your TiVo with Kwiry

By Jake • January 14th, 2009 • View Comments

But I’m a bit scared to try it out just yet, since I’ve no idea how many text messages my iPhone plan has.

I’ll back up; I read (and shared) this post from my pal Rick Turoczy (@turoczy if you’re into Twitter), about Kwiry, an SMS service that allows you to program your TiVo using a text message.

You read that right. Just text “tivo” and the program name (e.g. “oprah”) to 59479.

Kwiry's text to TiVo shortcut

Oh, you have to sign up for Kwiry first, but after that, it’s as easy as that. The service is free, and they also offer other must-have geeky features or “shortcuts” like add a movie to your Netflix queue, add a product to your Amazon Wish List, add a calendar event, update your Facebook status or tweet, all by text. The main idea is to collect all those random thoughts and to-dos that rattle around your head when you’re away from you computer.

I know, very similar to Evernote, Jott, and Sandy (RIP).

So, you text stuff to Kwiry, and it sends you an email with your reminders and content from around the ‘tubes. There’s social stuff too, including other people’s kwirys, if you’re into that. The shortcuts offer the cool factor. I’m a big fan of automated bots that do stuff based on commands; there’s something very clean and enjoyable about a command interface that works over the air on other systems and real world objects.

That’s futurisitic stuff, at least to me.

Somehow the ability to program my TiVo or add a movie to my Netflix queue using a text message sounds really cool.

I’m thinking it might be right up your alley too, based on the amount of commentary and interest my last post on TiVo generated.

I would run to Kwiry and sign up, but I’m skittish about my text iPhone’s messaging plan. I pay enough for the privilege to use an iPhone each month without adding to the bill. Looks like Kwiry works with several major carriers, but it’s not obvious if they support interntional numbers and carriers.

Thoughts? Find the comments.


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  • Hi, this is Ron from kwiry - thanks for the kind and thorough post! I have a solution for you! Since you have an iPhone, you can use our e-mail input. Just send a kwiry to save@kwiry.com and it will be processed just like our text messages. Please let us know if this works for you or if you have any more questions! feedback@kwiry.com
  • Thanks for the advice. I'll give it a try at some point and try out both methods. I like what you're doing. Very cool stuff.
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