Sofa Remote: your phone controls your PC

Sound familiar?

The PC is on the TV. You're on the sofa.

Up again to pause.The keyboard is on the desk, the movie is on the TV, and you're definitely not getting up again.

Typing from three metres.A wireless keyboard on your lap, a search box you can barely read, and a touchpad that's never where you need it.

Friends over, one controller.Everyone wants to play. There's one gamepad, and it needs charging.

Everyone already holds the fix: their phone.

How it works

Thirty seconds to the couch.

One small program on the PC, with the phone app built in. Nothing to sign up for, and nothing leaves your Wi-Fi.

Run it on the PC

Start sofa-remote. It's a single file: no installer, no account, no setup screens.

Scan the QR code

Point the phone camera at the code it shows. The link carries its own access key, so only your phones get in.

Sit back

Play, pause, scroll, type, game. Add more PCs and switch between them from the top bar.

Watching a film on the TV with the phone as the remote

Movie night

The remote your PC never came with.

Play, pause, skip, seek and volume from any app: browsers, players, streaming sites. Big buttons you can hit in the dark.

Media keys, volume and fullscreen on the first screen
A touchpad that moves as your finger moves: tap to click, hold to right-click, tap-and-drag to select
Android app: the phone's own volume buttons control the PC, also with the screen locked

Four people playing a game on the TV, each holding a phone as a controller

Couch co-op

Every phone is a real controller.

Each phone shows up on the PC as its own Xbox controller, so games, Steam and emulators just see gamepads. Grab a phone each and pick your players.

Analog sticks, triggers, bumpers, d-pad and ABXY
Drop out and reconnect within 30 seconds: you keep your player slot
Windows: the driver it needs comes inside the download. Linux: built into the kernel
Prefer keyboard and mouse? A WASD + mouse-look layout is built in too

A phone keyboard with a microphone, sending text to the PC

Type or talk

Search without squinting.

Type on your phone's own keyboard and it lands in whatever is focused on the PC. Or tap the mic and just say it.

Live typing, with a send button for search boxes
Voice typing with the phone's own speech recognizer
Shared clipboard: send links and text both ways, or open a URL on the PC

Five phones showing the remote in five colour themes

Make it yours

Your buttons, your layout, your colours.

Every screen is a layout you can change right on the phone. Move and resize anything, and give a button any key, shortcut, mouse action or macro.

1,900+ clean icons to pick from, or text and emoji
Themes: Night, Light, Grape, Mint and a pink Bubblegum one
Ready-made layouts: Remote, Keyboard (with the shared clipboard), PC, Gamepad and Controller

A phone and a PC talking inside a house, under a lock

Private by design

It never leaves your home.

Your phone talks straight to your PC over your own network. No account to make, no server in between, nothing collected.

Each PC makes its own access key; only phones that scanned it can connect
No telemetry, no ads, no sign-in
Open source: read every line on GitHub

And also

The small things that make it feel right.

Many PCs

One phone, every computer

Add each PC once, switch from the top bar. One button can even hit them all.

Many phones

The whole family

Every phone keeps its own theme, and all of them can be connected at once.

Android app

Lock-screen controls

Play, next and previous on the lock screen and in the notification. Exit from there too.

Macros

One tap, many steps

Chain keys, text and waits into one button: open an app, log in to a game, start a playlist.

Fullscreen

Nothing in the way

Gamepad layouts go edge to edge, so your thumbs only find buttons.

No install

Any phone, any browser

The phone app is a web page served by the PC. The Android app is optional.

FAQ

Good questions.

Do I need to install an app on my phone?

No. The PC serves the remote as a web page: scan the QR code and it opens in the phone's browser, iPhone or Android. The optional Android app adds the volume buttons, lock-screen controls and voice typing everywhere.

Is it safe to have on my network?

Only phones with the PC's access key can connect, and the key is in the QR code it shows you. Nothing goes through the internet and nothing is collected. You can make a new key any time with --new-key, which locks out every phone that had the old one.

Which games work with the phone gamepads?

Anything that supports an Xbox controller: Steam, most PC games and emulators. Each phone is its own controller, so local multiplayer games see separate players.

What's the driver on Windows?

Windows needs a driver for virtual controllers. Sofa Remote uses ViGEmBus, the open-source driver many controller tools use, and ships its official installer inside the download. The first time you use a gamepad, Windows asks once for permission. It's also on every release page as its own file.

Does it work on a Mac?

Yes, except the gamepads: macOS has no way to add a virtual controller, so the keyboard-and-mouse game layout is there instead.

What does it cost?

Nothing. It's open source: free to use, read and change.

Run your PC from the sofa.