An apparatus (11) for the remote control of lighting apparatuses, in particular emergency lighting apparatuses (12), comprising a transmitter apparatus provided with at least one white light source having controlled activation, a receiver device used as a receiver of digital optical signals (16), which integrates a control, programming and management system managed by a software program (14), and a lighting apparatus (12), which incorporates a receiving circuit comprising a receiver photosensor (13); the transmitter apparatus is constituted by a smartphone (11), which actuates optical commands directed at the lighting apparatus (12), in a form of encoded luminous messages or intensity- and duration-controlled sequences of light variations according to a specific optical code and at different levels of luminosity, by means of a modulating process of the switching-on and the switching-off of the light source integrated in said smartphone (11).