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This is the easiest tip we can give you — and it saves the most headaches.

If your remote is going to have a background wallpaper image, add the wallpaper before you place any buttons. Once the wallpaper is in, lay your buttons and icons on top of it where you want them.

Your buttons lock to the wallpaper. As long as you don't swap the wallpaper out later, everything stays right where you put it — on every screen size your friends and family use.

READYWARE has four target sizes that render pixel-perfect on modern phones and tablets. Pick the one that matches the device class and orientation you're designing for:

Target	Resolution	Best For
Phone Portrait	1170×2532	Holding the phone upright
Phone Landscape	2532×1170	Phone turned sideways, full TV remote
Tablet Portrait	1620×2160	iPad / 10" tablet upright
Tablet Landscape	2160×1620	Tablet sideways, multi-room dashboard

When you make or pick your own wallpaper, bigger is better. A small image stretched to fill a big screen looks soft. A big image scaled down looks crisp.

Use one of the 4 standard sizes:
• 1170×2532 — phone portrait
• 2532×1170 — phone landscape
• 1620×2160 — tablet portrait
• 2160×1620 — tablet landscape

Match the orientation to your remote: a landscape remote wants a landscape image (wider than tall), portrait remote wants portrait. The renderer scales the matching pair to fit any screen and gracefully letterboxes when device orientation doesn't match.

Animated GIFs work too — READYWARE preserves the animation. Keep them under a few MB so the remote loads fast.

You can use live video as your wallpaper — IP cameras, security feeds, weather radars, traffic cams, even live YouTube streams. Your buttons sit right on top of the live picture.

What works as a wallpaper URL:
• IP camera streams (HLS, MJPEG)
• HLS streams ending in .m3u8 — most reliable
• Direct video files (MP4, WebM)
• Embeddable websites (cat.com, dish.com, weather sites)

What doesn't work: Some big sites (Netflix, Disney+, YouTube embed-blocked) refuse to load as backgrounds — that's the site's choice, not READYWARE. If a site won't load, try a different source or use a still image instead.

RTSP cameras — most home IP cameras use RTSP, which Android can't play directly. The fix is a free tool called go2rtc running on a small home computer or NAS — it converts RTSP to HLS, which works perfectly. One-time setup, then all your cameras work as wallpapers.

You can also drop a regular website URL in as your wallpaper — weather pages, dashboards, your home automation web UI, traffic maps, dish positioning pages, anything that loads in a browser.

Tips for web wallpapers:
• Use the direct page URL — not a search result link
• Pages that work in any iframe load best (most do)
• Pages with their own login screens won't auto-login — open them once on the device first
• Pages that auto-refresh themselves (radar, cameras) keep the wallpaper live

Landscape (wider than tall) is great for full TV remotes with lots of buttons in rows. More horizontal space means number pads, D-pads and volume clusters all fit naturally.

Portrait (taller than wide) is better for simple remotes you hold like a phone. Fewer buttons, bigger targets.

Tip: Each remote has an orientation setting in its options — landscape, portrait, or both. If you set landscape and rotate the tablet to portrait, READYWARE shows the whole remote shrunk-to-fit so you can still see and tap every button — nothing falls off the screen.

Ratio	Shape	Common Devices
19.5:9	Tall phone landscape	iPhone, modern Android phones (sideways)
9:19.5	Tall phone portrait	iPhone, modern Android phones (upright)
4:3	Tablet landscape	iPad, most Android tablets sideways
3:4	Tablet portrait	iPad, tablets upright
16:9	Wide landscape	TVs, Fire HD, older tablets
16:10	Slightly tall	Pixel Tablet, Nexus

The READYWARE demo profile — 22 rooms, 63 remotes, with GIF wallpapers, custom icons, and macros — is built to the new wallpaper standard. Every wallpaper is one of the four standard sizes; every button is positioned in DP space; the whole thing renders edge-to-edge on phones and tablets, in any orientation.

It's a good benchmark to compare your own creations against. If your layout feels similar in scale and spacing to the demo, it'll probably feel right to other users too.

Best used at: phone landscape (2532×1170) or tablet landscape (2160×1620) for the most visual depth.

Big buttons are better — 80×50px minimum. On a TV or large tablet, go 120×70px. Small buttons are hard to tap and look bad on big screens.

Group by function — power/volume in one corner, navigation in the center, input/menu along the bottom. Users expect TV remote logic — give it to them.

High contrast colors — dark wallpaper + gold or white buttons reads beautifully. Avoid low-contrast combos like dark gray on black — they vanish on photo wallpapers.

Leave a little breathing room — don't pack buttons right against the wallpaper edge. A bit of margin makes it look polished and gives finger taps a comfortable target.

Test before sharing — toggle Lock mode to view-only and try every button. If it works for you, it'll work for everyone else.

Custom icons look best as square images, around 256×256px. The editor crops them square automatically.

Button labels work great for things words explain better than icons (HDMI 1, Apple TV, Bedroom). Keep them short — 1 to 2 words.

Colors should match a theme — pick a palette and stick with it. Two or three accent colors, used consistently, look way more professional than a rainbow.

Try the menu color setting in remote options — it themes lock pills, the back arrow, and the gear icon to match your design.

When you upload your layout, tell the community:

Device — what you designed it on (10" tablet, Fire HD 10, etc.)
Orientation — landscape or portrait
Aspect ratio — 16:9, 4:3, etc.
What it controls — TV brand, AC, full home, etc.
Any quirks — e.g. "designed for 10" tablets, may feel cramped on phones"