So, I just discovered this.
It's pretty neat actually. Definitely try this.
And no, my remotes don't have purple lights or whatever. This IS infrared light, which is invisible to the human eye.
The wavelenght of visible light, what we see everyday around us, is between 400 nanometers and 700 nm. Infrared light's wavelenght is between 700nm and 1000 nm. So, the phone camera (yes, only a phone camera. Other "professional" camera don't see it as they have infrared filter built in) can capture it because most phone cameras can see light ranging from 350 nm to 1000 nm.
That's all it is to it.