Peel Technologies

Peel is a company based in Mountain View, California, USA that sells a mobile application which provides universal remote functionality.^[1][2]

Peel

Industry	Software
Founded	2009; 16 years ago (2009)
Founders	Bala Krishnan Thiru Arunachalam
Headquarters	Mountain View, California , U.S.
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	Thiru Arunachalam (CEO) Bala Krishnan (CPO)

The application came pre-installed on some Samsung and HTC devices. In 2015, Peel claimed that it had over 120 million registered users. Since 2017, the application has been criticized for adware-like behavior.

History

Peel Smart Remote was launched in 2009 by current CEO Thiru Arunachalam^[3] and co-founder and chief product officer Bala Krishnan.^[4] Peel built an initial user base from agreements with major device manufacturers Samsung^[5] and HTC to include Peel as a pre-installed application on smartphones sold in India. In 2015, Peel claimed that it generated over 100 billion remote commands with over 120 million registered users.^[5]

Peel has raised more than 90 million dollars from investors.^[6]

Peel Smart Remote

Peel Smart Remote is a universal remote control application. Users can also use it to interact with friends and other TV viewers,^[7] tune into shows, record programming, or get viewing reminders. Users can also share content with their contacts.^[8][9] It can use both built-in IR hardware and WiFi to discover and control devices.^[10][11]

The application is available for iOS and Android devices. It is pre-installed on Samsung and HTC devices that have an infrared blaster,^[3] including Samsung Galaxy S6 and HTC One M9,^[12] and it could not be uninstalled from some devices.^[13][14][15] In 2014, the application completed an average of 30 billion remote control actions per month,^[6] worked in over 200 countries and delivered program guides in 110 countries.^[4]

Controversy

Since 2017, the Android application has received criticism for displaying advertisements on the lock screen,^[16] as well as for showing full-screen advertisements upon unlocking the device and continuously running in the background, which is what allows it to display those advertisements.^[17][18]

In 2019, it was reported that the application sent users' pictures and other personal information to a server that was not owned by Peel. This behavior was then removed, without comments by the publisher. The application was subsequently removed from Google Play.^[19]