Question TeamViewer Alternative with Android support for home user?

sponkwig

Reputable
Aug 12, 2018
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I use TeamViewer for supporting my family and accessing my own PCs but most importantly my 80 year old mother who often needs help with her laptop and Android phone.

TeamViewer has been great. As far as I am aware, the combination of their QuickSupport app and most Samsung phones (KNOX) is the only thing going that allows me to actually remotely take control of her phone from my PC or laptop.

The only problem with TeamViewer is that despite being free for non-commercial users (that's me) it often decides that I am using their service for commercial purposes, therefore, restricts my access whereby I have to submit a declaration stating that I am not using their service for commercial purposes before they decide to derestrict my account with them.

I am actually getting sick of this and it came to a head recently. I finally managed to switch her old, dying Galaxy Note 3 to the Galaxy A8 (obsolete but better than the current budget Samsung models) the other week when I finally managed to visit her for the afternoon. I told her not to worry as I can always log into her phone and either sort issues out or show her what to do. Also, I log into her laptop every 10 days or so to help her order her groceries online.

My father is currently very unwell after being diagnosed with cancer so as you can imagine she is stressed out with receiving and making phone calls for appointments and so forth from medical practices etc. Unfortunately she's run into problems with the phone but out of the blue, TeamViewer has decided that I am using their service for commercial purposes thus restricting my access to my mother which in-turn has stressed her out even more and I can no longer help her properly.
I submitted the friggin' declaration to TeamViewer over a week ago but haven't received anything back yet and there's no way of chasing it up.

I realise it's free but I would rather pay for it if it means not having to hold my breath every time I use it. Unfortunately they don't provide a paid service for home users and the commercial one is very expensive so I'm at a crossroads where I either bite down on the pillow and pay for a commercial licence even though I'm not using it commercially while they annoyingly promote their service to home users as free or, I find an alternative.

The latter means I now have to get some other software installed on my mother's devices remotely. It just pains me that I can't get the time off to visit her since she's so far away and I don't have any money floating about either.
Apologies if it seems I've turned this into a bleeding heart story but I want to convey just how important this is and give a good idea of what my needs are. If anyone can recommend software that will do the job at a reasonable price then I would be grateful if you could let me know.

Is it now possible to remotely access any android phone such as Xiaomi to take 'control' instead of just 'viewing' and prompting my mother to tap on areas of the phone? The Galaxy A8 was only purchased because of TeamViewer when other makes of phones around that budget give much more bang for bucks, but didn't seem to allow 'full' control remotely.

Thanks very much and hope you can help.
 
I have been using Remote Utilities to access my parents home PC for over 2 years as Teamviewer also decided I was a commercial user.
I have found Remote Utilities to be very good. You have to install the "host" on the pc that you want to control (your mother), and install the "viewer" on the PC that you use (yours).
Once the trial period has expired, you simply request a personal user key and register it and it remains free to use.
I have not used the Android version, but its shown on their website.

 

RKD2313

Prominent
Aug 13, 2021
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+1 for Anydesk as well

Team Viewer basically said I was using it for commercial as well (LOL!) ... I access my in-home work office PC with my laptop while Im winding down in bed. Not sure about the functionality of the Android/iOS capability. Chrome's Remote feature worked ok as well, but it seemed after X amount of time had went by it would ask the host computer if they still wanted to keep the connection alive, which was the deal breaker because if Im remoting in to the host PC Im obviously not sitting at it lol
 

Secret-Squirrel

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Sep 12, 2020
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........................I access my in-home work office PC with my laptop while Im winding down in bed.

FYI, you could use a direct connection instead using the office PC's IP address instead of its Partner ID. No TeamViewer servers are involved in LAN connections so its use shouldn't trigger a "commercial use" warning.

To enable LAN connections on the office PC, head over to options then select "Accept" for "Incoming LAN Connections".
 
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