My Apple TV remote (Silver) is not responding.

I changed the battery, tried unpairing and pairing, tried to restore the apple TV and nothing worked. I can connect the Apple TV to my TV and see the apps but I can't navigate to any of them. Any suggestions for how I get the remote to start working again?

And is there a way to use the Apple TV without the remote? Is there an app I can use on my iPhone in place of the remote? I can't use my Apple TV at all at the moment.