Updates & release notes

Couchside Direct — an off-store Android edition September 22, 2026 · available now

• App A sideloadable Android build for phones without the Play Store.direct edition

  De-Googling your phone shouldn’t mean giving up Couchside. There’s now a direct edition — the same app, packaged as an Android APK you download and install yourself, with no Play Store and no Google account required. It unlocks with a one-time $7.99 license key that’s verified right on your device, offline — no account, no sign-in. It installs as its own separate app, so it never touches a Play Store copy. Grab it at couchside.tv/direct.

App 2.9.60 — a whole season of features, on the stores September 17, 2026 · rolling out

• App Everything since 2.9.59, now submitted to the App Store and Google Play.app 2.9.60

  One release that gathers up the last stretch of work: open your media apps — Kodi, Plex, Jellyfin, Moonlight, VLC and Spotify — straight from your phone, now even in Steam’s Game Mode; live network speed on the Console; copy on the box and paste on your phone; a sideways “laptop mode” on the Pad with a trackpad and keyboard; arm a controller to wake the box from sleep; more Steam settings shortcuts; and a clearer, fixed way to add non-Steam apps on Windows.

Security fix for the box’s own local pages September 24, 2026 · rolling out

• Linux service A tighter check on the pages the box shows only to itself.2.9.113

  The pairing QR, the update screen and the new on-box quick panel first confirm that a request really came from the box, not from elsewhere on your network. That check accepted a specially crafted web address that merely looked local (it began with “127.”); it now requires a genuinely local address. The only way to reach it was a web page loaded in a browser running on the box itself, and we have no indication anyone did — but please update. This version also carries the groundwork for a Steam Deck quick panel; nothing new appears in the app yet.

• Windows service The same fix for Windows boxes.0.4.12-win

  Identical hardening of the pairing page’s local-only check.

• Decky plugin Bundles the fixed service.v0.2.85

  Decky installs pick up service 2.9.113 automatically on their next plugin update.

Media apps now open in Steam’s Game Mode too September 15, 2026 · rolling out

• Linux service Kodi, Plex and the rest now open on the TV even in Game Mode.2.9.112

  When your box runs in Steam’s Game Mode — a Steam Deck or a Steam Machine on the couch — tapping a media app now brings it up on the TV, not just on the desktop. It reuses the Couchside Player tile you already have instead of cluttering your Steam library with a new entry for every app. Couchside still only launches apps it knows by name and only ever the box’s own copy.

Wake the box with your controller September 15, 2026 · rolling out

• Linux service Arm a controller to wake the box from sleep.2.9.111

  If a controller — or the dongle it connects through — can wake the machine, you can now turn that on from the phone: open the power menu, pick the device, and arm it, instead of digging through BIOS or a terminal. Couchside only offers devices the box reports as wake-capable, and the change is made by the box’s own privileged helper — nothing you send from the phone becomes a command or a file path.

Your media apps, and more Steam shortcuts September 15, 2026 · rolling out

• Linux service Open Kodi, Plex, Jellyfin and more from your phone.2.9.110

  On a box running its desktop, the native media apps you already have installed — Kodi, Plex, Jellyfin, Moonlight, VLC, Spotify — now show up in Watch and open with a tap, instead of only web services. Kodi opens straight into its fullscreen TV mode. Couchside only offers apps it knows by name and only ever launches the box’s own copy. (In Steam’s Game Mode the tiles stay hidden for now — that path needs a bit more work, coming later.)

• Linux service Jump to more Steam settings pages.2.9.110

  The Pad’s Steam menu can now jump straight to the Notifications and In Game settings pages, alongside the shortcuts it already had.

Paste from the box, and watch the network move September 14, 2026 · rolling out

• Linux service Copy on the box, paste on your phone.2.9.109

  Copy something on the box — a link, a login code, a file path — and pull it straight onto your phone with a tap, from the note pad, instead of typing it back by hand. It’s read‑only and stays on your LAN; the box’s clipboard is never changed. It works from a desktop session, and in Steam’s Game Mode — where the clipboard isn’t reachable — it quietly doesn’t offer it.

• Linux service Live network speed on the Console.2.9.109

  The vitals now show how fast the box is moving data right now — down and up — so you can see a download actually pulling instead of guessing from the progress bar. Like the other vitals, it appears only on boxes that can measure it.

Your phone stays paired September 13, 2026 · rolling out

• Linux service No more re-pairing every couple of weeks.2.9.108

  Some people found their phone losing the box every couple of weeks and having to pair again from scratch. Nothing was expiring — the box could quietly forget its own security key, either from a small typo in its settings file or from that file being busy for a moment while something saved, and a box with a new key looks like a stranger to the phone, which rightly refuses it. The box now keeps its key through both, so a pairing lasts until you remove it. If the settings file ever breaks badly enough that the box can’t read it at all, the box now says so, and the next app update will tell you “the settings file is broken” instead of “the box may be restarting”. Pressing the box-software update while one is already running no longer starts a second one on top of it.

• Windows service A busy settings file can no longer wipe your launchers.0.4.6‑win

  The same save-while-busy case on Windows used to replace the settings file with an empty one, taking custom launchers and your Roku pairing with it. It now refuses to save until the file is readable again.

More at a glance on the Console September 10, 2026 · rolling out

• Linux service Battery health, CPU clock and GPU power on the Console.2.9.107

  The vitals now show your CPU’s live clock speed and — on a handheld — how healthy the battery is: its full‑charge capacity compared to when it was new, plus how many charge cycles it has been through, so a tired battery is easy to tell from a fresh one. When a game is running, each GPU also reports how many watts it is drawing and how fast its cores are clocked. Every reading appears only on boxes that actually measure it, so a machine that can’t report a number simply doesn’t show it.

A launch animation, and a calmer app September 9, 2026 · rolling out

• App The app opens with the Couchside couch.app 2.9.59

  A brief opening animation plays when you launch the app — the couch, its live green dot, and the Couchside mark — then hands straight off to your Console. It shows once, on a cold open, and gets out of the way.

• App A calmer, more customizable interface.app 2.9.59

  The Console now opens to a compact vitals strip — temperature, load and memory at a glance — with the full detail a tap away. The customize gesture that reorders and hides cards reaches more tabs, the first-run tour is shorter, and Settings groups its polling controls on their own. Nothing you already set changes.

• Linux service The light bar stops fighting Steam over your lights.2.9.106

  On a Steam Machine, Steam drives the front light bar with its own download-progress animation. If you had a light effect running, the two wrote to the strip at once and it flickered. The box now notices when Steam has taken the lights, stands down, and hands them back the moment Steam is done — no more spazzing, and your effect resumes on its own.

Skins, and Decky Loader from the couch September 2026 · rolling out

• App Skins — give the Console a whole new shape.app 2.9.58

  Setup → Appearance now has a Skin picker with six looks, from the quiet “Studio” to the machined “Panel”, each shown as a live preview and layered on top of your colour pack and accent. An optional alarm pulse flags a hot vital from the corner of your eye. The look you have today doesn’t change until you pick a new one.

• App Install and manage Decky Loader from your phone.app 2.9.58 · service 2.9.105

  A new Decky manager in Setup can install, repair, update or remove Decky Loader on the box, and a Decky screen lists your installed plugins, updates or removes them one at a time, and installs new ones from the official Decky store — no Desktop Mode, no keyboard. It stays off until you opt in once on the box; a box without Decky is untouched.

• Linux service The secure connection heals itself after a box update.2.9.105

  On an encrypted box, if a restart or update ever left the box unable to re-open its secure port, the app used to sit reconnecting until you rebooted the box by hand. The service now re-binds that port on its own within seconds, so the connection comes back without you touching the box. Nothing changes when it was already working.

Make it yours, and lights that actually light September 5–6, 2026

• App Theme packs — give the whole app a new look.app 2.9.56

  OLED Black (true black for OLED screens), Steam, Nord, Dracula, Solarized, High Contrast and more, in Setup → Appearance. The accent picker still layers on top of any of them.

• App A calmer Console, gentle tips, and an auto-drop for the pad.app 2.9.56

  The Console opens to what’s happening right now, with lights, display and tools tucked behind one “More” tap. Occasional one-line hints point out a feature you might have missed. And a new option drops the phone’s virtual controller while a game is running, so it can’t take player one from your real gamepad — it comes back the moment the game exits.

• App Reorder or hide cards on the Fleet and Actions tabs.app 2.9.57

  The same press-and-hold (or the sliders icon) customize gesture the Console already had, now on Fleet and Actions: arrange the cards the way you use them, and tuck away the ones you don’t. Your layout is remembered.

• Linux service The built-in light-bar themes actually light up now.2.9.102

  Portal, Police, Rainbow River and Heartbeat in the Light card were playing to a dark strip — the box accepted the tap and then rendered every frame as “off”. Fixed: all four animate the strip the way they were designed to. Solid colours, firmware effects and your own saved presets were never affected.

• Linux service The Player no longer requires Google Chrome.2.9.103

  The experimental Watch tile only ever looked for Google Chrome, so on a de-Googled box it quietly did nothing. It now works with any Chromium-based browser that can play DRM — Brave, Vivaldi, Microsoft Edge, ungoogled-chromium or plain Chromium — and picks up whichever one you already have. Chrome still works exactly as before.

• Linux service Switch your TV to the box over HDMI-CEC.2.9.104

  On a box with real CEC — a Steam Machine, most modern motherboards — the app’s “switch the TV to this box” button now works: one tap wakes the TV and pulls it to the box’s HDMI input, no universal-remote setup, no IR blaster. Nothing changes on a box without CEC.

Combos, and a snappier first tap August 24–25, 2026 · rolling out

• App A Combos panel — hold the keyboard button on the Pad to fire one-tap key combinations.app 2.9.55

  Copy, paste, undo and the other everyday desktop chords, plus Kodi and media shortcuts — play/pause, context menu, info, back — without hunting through an on-screen keyboard. Turn it on in Setup, then long-press the keyboard button on the Pad to open it. It came straight out of a request from someone running a Big Picture + Kodi rig.

• Linux service The very first key or combo after you connect now lands every time.2.9.101

  There was a brief window right after your phone connected where the first keystroke or combo could be swallowed while the box finished getting its virtual keyboard ready — most noticeable if you connected and immediately tapped a combo. The box now keeps that keyboard ready from the moment it starts, so the first tap is as reliable as the hundredth. Older phones keep working unchanged.

Encryption on by default, and a page that shows its working August 14–16, 2026

• Linux service Your phone and your box now talk over an encrypted, pinned connection.2.9.88 – 2.9.92

  The box serves HTTPS on its own certificate, and the app pins that exact certificate when you pair — so nothing else on your network can read the traffic or stand in the middle. It is on by default and needs nothing from you. Plaintext is deliberately left running alongside it, so an older copy of the app keeps working exactly as before; only a phone that has pinned your box goes encrypted-only. You can turn it off on the box with couchside tls off.

• Website A Security & Privacy page written for someone who will check it.

  What the transport actually is, how pairing and the token work, how to revoke one, what discovery reveals to your network, and every outbound connection the app and the box make. It also has a section listing what this design does not protect against — a compromised device already on your LAN, a lost phone before you rotate, port-forwarding the box — because a security page that only lists strengths is not much use. Read it.

• Linux service Revoke a phone’s access.2.9.92

  couchside new-token mints a fresh pairing token and restarts the service, so every previously paired phone stops working until it pairs again. There is deliberately no way to cut off just one phone — the box has a single token — and the page above says so plainly rather than implying otherwise.

• Linux service Your game lists stop re-reading a big file every time you open them.2.9.92

  The names behind Steam Link and your uninstalled-games list were being kept in two separate caches that knocked each other over, so switching between those screens made the box re-read a multi-megabyte Steam file each time — about a fifth of a second of work on a 1,500-game library, over and over. It reads that file once now and both screens share it. Same names, same lists; the box just stops doing the work twice.

• Linux service Updates from the phone no longer stall on boxes with a password.2.9.92

  If your box asks for a password when it needs admin rights, an optional extra step could stop an update part-way — the new service was downloaded but never started, so the box quietly kept running the old one until it rebooted. Optional extras are now skipped when they cannot be done, and the update finishes and restarts the service on its own.

Light shows you can build frame by frame August 13–16, 2026

• Linux service LED Studio — colour and effects for the lights on your box.2.9.84 – 2.9.85

  Drive a front light bar or status LED straight from the phone, and on machines running an OpenRGB server, the rest of the system’s lighting too — fans, RAM, whatever it exposes. Colours and effects survive a reboot, so the box comes back the way you left it.

• Linux service Addressable strips: real animations, and a frame-by-frame editor.2.9.89 – 2.9.91

  If your box has an addressable RGB strip — a Steam Machine’s, for instance — it can run sweeps, pulses and a one-way “circle”, and you can build your own sequence: paint a look, capture it as a frame, set how long each frame holds, and the box loops the whole thing on its own and remembers it across reboots. Sequences made before per-frame timing keep playing exactly as they did.

• App A direct-manipulation editor for the strip.

  Drag on the strip itself to paint it, rather than filling in fields.

The remote screen catches up in Game Mode August 14, 2026

• Linux service Watching your box’s screen from the phone went from ~10 seconds behind to about 1.5.2.9.87

  In Game Mode the box was capturing each frame the slowest way available. It now uses a far cheaper path, so the picture actually tracks what is happening. It is still a series of stills rather than smooth video — that is a limit of how Game Mode hands out the screen, not something we can tune away — so the honest description is “usable for finding a window and clicking it”, not “streaming”.

Utilities: flash an OpenPuck receiver from the couch August 8–9, 2026

• Service A new Setup › Utilities menu — opt-in, one-click hardware helpers.service 2.9.74 – 2.9.75

  A place for the fiddly hardware jobs that used to mean a terminal. It’s off by default and you turn it on deliberately, because these run firmware flashes and system changes on the box. It launches with two helpers, and it’s built to grow.

• Service Flash a cheap board into a Steam Controller 2 wireless receiver — one tap.service 2.9.75

  Plug an nRF52840 board into the box, and Couchside writes the OpenPuck firmware; the board reboots as a Valve “Steam Controller Puck” that pairs a Steam Controller 2. The installer fetches and verifies the firmware, so flashing works with the box offline, and the bootloader is kept so you can re-flash any time. OpenPuck is a separate AGPL-3.0 project by safijari; Couchside only automates the flash.

• Service HDMI-CEC control, and honest about whether it’s really on.service 2.9.75

  The second Utilities helper turns on CEC so the box can power your TV and switch inputs over the HDMI cable. Detection now checks whether the box can actually reach the CEC device — so a permissions gap shows up as “needs enabling” instead of quietly claiming it works — and the installer adds the rule that grants that access.

• Service Your whole uninstalled library, instantly.service 2.9.76

  The “install a game you own but haven’t downloaded” list used to fill in a few dozen games at a time through Steam’s rate-limited store lookup. The box now reads the names Steam already keeps on disk and sends them with the list, so every game appears at once — alphabetical and searchable, even offline. Genres and release years still fill in gradually for the filters.

Controller themes — the gamepad dresses for the game August 7–8, 2026 · rolling out

• App 35 controller themes, each with its own full-screen backdrop.app 2.9.40 – 2.9.42

  The on-screen controller can now dress up for what you’re playing: a library of 35 themes — Dark Gothic, Bonk, Cyberpunk Rain, Toxic Slime Lab, Coral Reef, Arcane Observatory and many more — each with a full-screen backdrop behind the buttons, all in a picker under Setup. Auto matches the look to the game (Vampire Survivors gets the gothic one, Megabonk a bright neon one); pick Off to keep it plain. Themes only recolor accents and add a backdrop, so the buttons and text stay readable by design.

• App Switch themes on the fly, without leaving play.app 2.9.42

  A palette button right inside the full-screen MOVE controller opens a theme menu, so you can re-skin mid-game and go straight back to playing — no trip to Setup. The backdrop art ships as WebP, so 34 backdrops add about 3 MB to the app, not 45.

A one-handed movement mode for bullet-heaven games August 7, 2026

• App MOVE mode: one big thumb zone, for games you steer with one stick.app 2.9.38 – 2.9.39

  A new controller layout built for auto-attack “bullet-heaven” games like Vampire Survivors and Megabonk, where all you really do is move: one oversized movement zone under your thumb, plus a small cluster for the rest. It works one-handed in portrait or spread out in landscape, runs full-screen with LOCK and EXIT, and only appears while a game is actually running on the box.

• App On iPhone, the stick no longer slides the screen away.app 2.9.38

  Dragging the on-screen stick on iOS could trigger the system back-swipe and throw you out of the controller to the Setup screen. The controller now holds onto your drag, so the stick stays a stick. (Android was never affected.)

• App Replaying the feature tour is a button now.app 2.9.38

  The “show the feature tour again” control used to be a toggle that jumped you into the tour the moment you flipped it. It’s now a plain button, matching “show the welcome flow again,” and the tour gained a back arrow for a mis-tapped step.

A plain TV remote, a rebuilt landscape gamepad, and a smarter library August 7, 2026

• App Use Couchside as a plain TV remote — no box required.app 2.9.37

  The app can now drive a TV directly with no gaming box in the picture: Roku over the network and Google TV by secure pairing, with a “Scan for TVs” sweep and one unified pairing screen. Google TV pairing that was completely broken on Android (a key-format mismatch) now works.

• App The landscape gamepad, rebuilt so it never clips.app 2.9.37

  The full landscape controller was rebuilt on exact geometry, so controls no longer overlap or run off the edge on any phone size — with an immersive mode that hides all app chrome while you play, and an orientation LOCK.

• App Linux service Find the game you actually want: bookmarks, presets, hours, and size.app 2.9.37 · service 2.9.72

  Hold a game’s tile to bookmark it, save your filter presets, and filter by hours played and install size — the shelf of games bought and never started, or everything over 50 GB. Tapping a game now opens a confirmation sheet (cover, title, playtime, Play / Cancel) so a stray tap can’t launch something on the TV. The per-game size and playtime are read from Steam’s own files on your box — nothing leaves it.

• App Downloads finish out loud, and a proper first run.app 2.9.37

  A finished download is announced no matter which screen you’re on. And new installs get a first-run walkthrough and a guided tour that points at the real controls and ends with a short thank-you.

Big Picture fixed, and the trackpad survives a session switch August 4, 2026 · live

• App The Big Picture control no longer crashes the bar — and tells you how to get out.app 2.9.35

  Opening Steam Big Picture from the couch controls could take out the whole control bar; it’s solid now, and shows how to leave Big Picture once you’re in.

• App The trackpad and gamepad keep working after Desktop ⇄ Game Mode.app 2.9.35

  On iPhone, switching your box between the desktop and Game Mode used to leave the trackpad and gamepad dead until you reopened the app — two settings-writers were fighting and freezing the interface. Fixed.

More Linuxes done right, and Big Picture for the rest August 1, 2026 · live

• Linux service CachyOS boxes get the features they should have had all along.service 2.9.66

  Couch Mode, the desktop controls, the controller shortcut and the Boots into card used to be offered based on the name in your box’s OS file — so a CachyOS or ChimeraOS machine carrying exactly the same session tooling as a Steam Deck was refused for its name alone. The box is now asked what it can actually do. The same release taught Boots into to find the login manager your box really runs (CachyOS handheld images already ship KDE’s new plasmalogin), and a box whose login manager can’t be identified hides the setting instead of showing one that silently does nothing.

• Linux service The boot setting stopped fighting your box’s own switches.service 2.9.67

  If you had ever set Boots into, Couchside left a file on the box saying which session to start — and because every switch to the desktop is really the box logging in again, that file overruled the switch and sent you straight back to Game Mode. It even broke Steam’s own “Switch to Desktop” button, which made it look like your distro was at fault. The file is now written only while the box is shutting down, so nothing of ours is in the way while you are using it. And leaving Game Mode no longer reports success without checking where you actually ended up — it waits and tells you the truth.

• Linux service Both GPUs, and drives counted once.service 2.9.65 – 2.9.67

  On a machine with two GPUs — a laptop with an integrated chip and a discrete card — Couchside picked whichever came first, usually the integrated one, and showed its small memory carve-out as if it were your graphics card. Both now appear, each with its own temperature and memory. And on Bazzite, Storage listed /home and /var as two disks with identical numbers, so a 464 GB drive read like nearly a terabyte; they are two names for one filesystem and now count once.

• Linux service One small root helper instead of a pile of sudo rules.service 2.9.69 – 2.9.70

  The privileged work behind Boots into used to run through sudo rules written at install time. It is now a single small root-side helper that ships inside the signed release: each privileged action is one named operation, checked and refused unless it is exactly right, and a box whose login manager changes no longer needs the installer re-run for the setting to keep working. The old path remains as a fallback, updating is safe on every box — and uninstalling removes the helper along with everything else.

• Linux service Big Picture on boxes that can’t do Game Mode.service 2.9.70

  If your machine has Steam but isn’t a Steam Deck / Bazzite-style setup, the couch control now opens Steam Big Picture instead of being missing entirely — tap to open, long-press to come back to the desktop. Boxes that can do the real Game Mode handoff are unaffected and keep it.

• Linux service Setting up a new Steam Deck works again.service 2.9.71

  On SteamOS the installer stopped partway through — it tried to create a folder somewhere SteamOS deliberately keeps read‑only, and gave up before the service was fully set up. It now puts that piece somewhere writable. This only affected setting up a new box; existing installs were never touched. The same release fixes the update commands behind Update everything, which had been looking in a folder the installer never wrote to and quietly reporting “unavailable” on every box.

• Linux service The app can tell you what you’ve actually played.service 2.9.71

  Couchside now reads the playtime Steam already records on your own machine, so your library can be filtered by hours played and when you last opened something — the shelf of games bought and never started, or the ones you bounced off in under two hours. It never leaves your box: no Steam account, no API key, nothing sent anywhere.

• Windows service No more phantom “service not found” warning.service 0.4.5‑win

  The Console showed a permanent yellow couchside-agent inactive/not-found. It was never a Windows service — it is listed so Couchside’s own log turns up in the Logs tab — so it no longer pretends to be one and no longer reports itself broken.

• App Easier to read, and a rare iOS freeze gone.app 2.9.31 – 2.9.32

  A contrast pass across the app: washed-out text and controls got their ink back. And on the iOS 27 beta, a purchase re-check could spin in a loop until the system killed the app; 2.9.32 ends it. If Couchside ever felt dead on arrival on a beta iPhone, this was why.

Scan to pair, and your box boots where you tell it July 28, 2026 · live

• App Pair by scanning, without leaving the app.app 2.9.30

  Setup now has Scan a pairing code: point the camera at the code on your box’s screen and you are paired. Previously that code sent you out to your phone’s camera app, then to a web page, then back again. The camera is used for nothing else — frames are read on the phone, never stored, never uploaded, and the app never touches your photo library. You can still pair with a PIN or by hand; nothing was taken away.

• App Linux service Choose which mode your box starts in.app 2.9.30 · service 2.9.64

  A Boots into card on the Actions tab: Game Mode, Desktop, or whichever you used last. The switches beside it have always been one-shot — they change what is on screen now, and the box still came back however it was set. This is the setting that decides that. It works on Bazzite as well as SteamOS, which do it in completely different ways underneath, so a box that cannot do it simply does not show the card.

• Linux service Two fixes so that setting actually sticks.service 2.9.62 – 2.9.64

  Setting Desktop could leave a Bazzite box sitting at the login screen: it aimed the automatic login at a desktop session that exists on SteamOS but not on Bazzite, so the box stopped at the password prompt and then came up in Game Mode anyway. The box now checks which sessions are really installed and refuses to change the setting at all if it cannot find one. Separately, SteamOS and Bazzite both ship a script that writes the same login setting — and its file used to take priority over ours, so switching to Desktop from the phone, or using Couch Mode, quietly put your choice back. Ours now takes priority and survives.

• Linux service The Couchside Player — an optional, experimental add-on.service 2.9.64

  Install it and a tile appears in Game Mode that opens Netflix, YouTube, Max, Hulu, Disney+ and the rest on the TV. Pick a service from the phone, send it a link, or search a title without typing on the TV. Play, pause, skip and mute work from the phone while it plays. It is early and it shows: streaming sites still need the trackpad rather than the d‑pad, because those sites do not let a remote move a highlight. Entirely opt‑in — re‑run the installer and say yes, or pass --player. A box that never asks for it is unchanged.

• App Linux service Your box tells the app what it is sending the TV.app 2.9.30 · service 2.9.64

  A Display / Audio panel on the Console tab: live resolution and refresh rate, whether HDR and variable refresh are actually on, the monitor’s own name, and which speaker is playing. It reports the real signal rather than what the box was asked for, so it will not tell you HDR is on while the panel is showing SDR.

• Linux service Updating the box got quieter and more honest.service 2.9.61 – 2.9.64

  Updating your flatpaks from the phone used to sit on “Updating…” whenever an app could not be updated — an end‑of‑life runtime, say — and an OS update queued behind it never started. The box now reports when the update itself finishes. Updates also stopped restarting your other Decky plugins: every update used to reload Decky Loader whether or not the Couchside panel had changed, which restarted everything else you had installed alongside it.

• App Smaller things in the app.app 2.9.30

  Swiping the remote past a short menu no longer sails through it — one flick moves one item. TV mode is off by default now and labelled the rough beta it is; turn it on in Settings if you want it. On iPhone, the Paste button no longer hides behind the keyboard.

• Site One page for getting the app.

  The “get the app” code on the pairing screen now opens a page with just the two store links on it, instead of dropping you into the middle of this website while you are stood in front of a TV holding a phone.

Netflix and Hulu join the Launch tab July 27, 2026 · live

• Linux service Your streaming apps show up next to your games.service 2.9.57

  The Launch tab used to list only what you had installed through Steam, which on a SteamOS or Bazzite box leaves out most of what you actually watch. Anything you have added to Steam yourself — Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, Prime Video, Max, an EmuDeck launcher, a browser shortcut, Waydroid — is a “non-Steam shortcut”, and the phone could not see any of it. On the box this was built against, that was 5 things listed out of 36 that were really there. Tap one now and it opens on the TV exactly as it would if you had picked the tile with a controller, so you stay signed in. Nothing to set up, and if you have no shortcuts the tab looks exactly as it did.

• Bazzite docs Couchside is in the official Bazzite documentation.

  Bazzite now ships a Setting Up Couchside page in its own docs, plus an entry on its community links. If you run Bazzite, the install steps are right where you would look for them.

Update the box with couchside update, or let the app offer it. Streaming shortcuts appear on the app you already have — a shortcut without cover art simply renders as a plain tile.

Send a file to the box, and a preview that keeps up July 26, 2026 · live

• App Linux service Send a file to your box.2.9.29 · service 2.9.54 → 2.9.56

  A new card on the Console tab: pick anything on your phone — a ROM, a save, a PDF, a photo — and it lands in ~/Downloads/Couchside on the box. Big files are fine; they stream straight across rather than being held in memory. On the desktop, Show on box opens that folder on the TV so you can get at what you just sent.

• Linux service The screen preview works again — and is 2.4× faster.service 2.9.56

  If you had ever switched between Game Mode and the desktop, the preview would quietly stop updating — a stale picture, or nothing at all, taking about nine seconds to give up each time. It was aiming at the session you had left, which sticks around after it ends. The box now checks whether that session is genuinely still running, so the preview follows you between Game Mode and the desktop. Frames also arrive about 2.4× faster — roughly two seconds down to under one.

• App Skip 10 or 30 seconds, and a screen that stops staying awake forever.2.9.29

  New arrows on the Now Playing card jump back or forward 10 seconds; hold one for a bigger jump. And “keep the screen awake” now switches itself off after a stretch of no input, with a note about what that costs your battery — so the phone stops burning down in your pocket after you put it away mid-session.

App 2.9.29 is live on both stores. The Linux service (2.9.56) and Decky plugin (v0.2.47) shipped the same day.

Windows grows up: every launcher, one double-click July 25 – 26, 2026

• Windows service Epic, GOG and Xbox / Game Pass games appear next to Steam.0.4.0-win

  The Launch tab on a Windows PC listed Steam and nothing else, which on a Game Pass machine is most of the library missing. Your Epic, GOG Galaxy and Xbox games now sit in the same cover grid — tap one and it starts on the TV. The Launch tab also shows up on a PC with no Steam installed at all.

• Windows service A double-click installer.0.4.0-win → 0.4.3-win

  CouchsideSetup.exe sets the service up without pasting anything into PowerShell. It is unsigned for now, so Windows shows a one-time “More info → Run anyway”; the admin prompt after that is the normal Windows one. Upgrading over a running agent used to fail silently — and the installer reported success anyway — which is fixed in both directions: the upgrade stops the old agent properly, and a failed install now says so instead of claiming it worked.

• Windows service Pair with a PIN, and a Pad tab that stops going missing.0.4.2-win → 0.4.3-win

  Tapping your PC in “Scan for boxes” used to fail with unauthorized — the PC had no way to show you a PIN, so the only ways in were the QR page or typing the token by hand. It now shows a six-digit PIN on its own screen, same as a Steam Deck. Some .exe builds also shipped without the driver file the virtual controller needs, so the PC reported no gamepad and the app hid the Pad tab entirely; builds can no longer be made that way. The agent also keeps a log now, because on Windows it kept none.

• Website A place to start on Windows.

  couchside.tv/windows spells out what the phone does on a Windows PC — launch, type, drive menus and volume, act as a spare controller — and is clear that we do not stream your game off the PC. It stays on the TV; the phone is the remote.

Windows is still beta and newer than the Linux build. File anything you hit.

The trackpad stays alive July 24 – 25, 2026 · live

• Linux service No more dead mouse after the phone sits idle.service 2.9.53

  If the app was in the background — the phone locked, or you switched to Desktop mode — the connection could go quiet and the box would quietly drop it. You would come back to a green “connected” dot and a trackpad that moved nothing, and the only fix was force-quitting the app. The box now keeps the link awake itself, and your first swipe rebuilds the connection if it did die. Pointer, keyboard and controller all recover on their own.

• Linux service Updating the box from your phone finishes on its own.service 2.9.50 → 2.9.51

  On a box installed as a system service an update could quietly stop after downloading, leaving the old version running, because it had no way to restart the service without a password. It now restarts cleanly — including on boxes that also have Decky installed, which the first version of this fix missed. If it does stall, the update screen says the box is still on the old version and how to retry, instead of spinning forever. On an existing box, re-run the installer once in a terminal to enable it.

• Linux service A pairing screen that comes up in front.service 2.9.52

  On a desktop install the pairing screen could open behind the terminal window, leaving you staring at the install log instead of the QR. It now raises itself to the front. The “get Couchside on your phone” step also shows a single QR for both stores, so you scan once and pick your store on the phone.

• Linux service Desktop PCs no longer show a phantom battery.service 2.9.49

  With a wireless controller paired, its charge could appear as the machine's own battery — a desktop reading “On battery 15%” when it has no battery at all. The box now only reports its own pack, never a controller, mouse or headset.

Update your whole box from the couch July 23, 2026

• App Linux service Update everything from your phone.2.9.22 · service 2.9.47

  A new card updates your Flatpak apps and the operating system itself — SteamOS or Bazzite — without leaving the couch, together or one at a time. Because updating system software needs root, it is a deliberate one-time opt-in you enable on the box (couchside allow-system-updates on), which tells you exactly what it grants first. An OS update stages and applies on the next reboot, and the app says so plainly rather than pretending it finished.

• Linux service A guide that greets you on the box — now with store codes.service 2.9.45 → 2.9.48

  Finish a fresh install and the box's own screen lights up with a short animated walkthrough — open the app, scan, tap this box — that turns into the pairing PIN the moment you start. It now also shows App Store and Google Play QR codes, so if you do not have Couchside on your phone yet you can scan one to install it, then scan the big code to pair. And it opens reliably from Desktop Mode, where a browser-launch quirk on SteamOS used to leave the screen blank.

• App Settings you can search, and a drag trail worth watching.2.9.22

  Preferences grew enough that you can now type to filter them. Swipe traces render as a smooth glowing line instead of a row of dots, and there is a quiet, manual "check for an app update" in Setup › Account — it asks your app store directly and sends nothing about you.

• App Linux service Close Game actually closes it.2.9.22 · service 2.9.44

  The phone's Close button now reliably ends the running game instead of reporting success while nothing happened.

The Linux service (through 2.9.48) and Decky plugin (v0.2.42) are live now — run couchside update, or let the app offer it. App 2.9.22 is submitted to both stores: rolling out on Google Play and in App Store review. 2.9.21 is what is live on the stores today.

Cover art on Android, and a box that tells you more July 22, 2026 · live

• App Game art finally loads on Android.2.9.19 → 2.9.21

  Your library tiles now show real Steam cover art on Android — they never did before. You can also search your games on the Launch tab, and fold Stream-from-PC down to a single line when you do not need it.

• App Handhelds report their battery honestly.2.9.21

  A Steam Deck or Legion Go now shows its charge draw, power profile, and time until full — and storage tells the truth about how full a drive really is, including game drives like an SD card. There is also a Steam search button that opens search on the box and raises your keyboard for it.

• Linux service Deeper vitals from the box.2.9.38 → 2.9.43

  The Console reads more of what the machine is doing — memory pressure and swap, and the real shared-memory figure for the integrated GPU (it was reporting a fraction of what is actually there). You can also watch the box narrate each step while it updates itself.

• Decky plugin Keeping pace with the service.v0.2.38 → v0.2.40

  Routine signed releases tracking the Linux service.

Paste from your phone, and a keyboard that opens itself July 22, 2026

• Linux service Your phone's keyboard follows the box's.2.9.36 → 2.9.38

  When the box brings up its own on-screen keyboard — a Steam search field, a login prompt — your phone now raises its keyboard too, so you can simply start typing instead of hunting for the right control. Also new: a read-only probe of which USB devices are actually permitted to wake the machine, so "why won't it wake?" has an answer instead of a guess. Signed and out through the usual updater: run couchside update, or let the app offer it.

• App A PASTE button, and a text field you can see.2.9.17 → 2.9.19

  Typing is the worst part of a living-room PC. The keyboard bar now carries a PASTE button that sends your phone's clipboard straight to the box, and the field it types into stays visible while you work instead of hiding behind the keys.

• App The connection stopped dropping while you sat still.2.9.19

  Leave the app open without touching it and the link to the box could quietly die, so the next tap went nowhere. The keepalive now starts the moment the connection opens rather than waiting for the box to speak first. The Steam tab can also be swiped out of like every other tab, and Couch Mode no longer narrates each step it takes.

• Decky plugin Keeping pace with the service.v0.2.31 → v0.2.38

  Routine releases tracking the Linux service, signed as always.

App 2.9.18 and 2.9.19 are built and on TestFlight; 2.9.17 is what is live on both stores today. The service and plugin changes above are already out.

Hide what you don't use July 21, 2026 · evening

• App Turn off the parts you don't have.2.9.17 → 2.9.18

  Not everyone streams from a second PC, and not everyone points the volume keys at a TV. Both can now be hidden outright from Preferences, so the app shows your setup rather than every setup. Game tiles that already carry cover art stopped repeating the name underneath, and you can choose which tab the app opens on.

• App Clearer Pad labels and an Esc that's always there.2.9.18

  The Pad's mode labels now say what they actually do, Esc no longer disappears depending on where you are, and the power sheet's text is legible in both themes instead of inheriting whatever colour it landed on.

• Linux service Couch Mode puts your sound back where it found it.2.9.36 → 2.9.37

  Flinging the desktop to the TV moves audio with it. Coming back used to guess at the original output; now the service remembers the exact device it moved away from and restores that one — and if it can't be sure, it leaves your sound alone rather than guessing wrong. Disk readings also now report the drive you can actually fill, not a container mount that was never the real number.

Touch animations, and two handheld fixes July 21, 2026

• App See where you tapped.2.9.16 → 2.9.17

  Two optional toggles, both off by default: draw a ring wherever you tap, and trail the path of a drag. They exist so a screen recording or a support screen-share shows what was actually pressed — on a trackpad demo, an invisible finger explains nothing. Nothing is drawn unless you turn it on.

• App Suspend and Fling to TV work on a handheld.2.9.17

  Suspend used to insist on a wired connection before it would offer itself, which ruled out every Wi-Fi-only handheld. And Fling to TV was dead on an undocked Deck or Legion Go — the one place a "put this on the big screen" button is most obviously useful. Both fixed.

• Linux service Stop forcing X11 on a Wayland desktop.2.9.35 → 2.9.36

  On a desktop configured for Wayland, the service was pushing the session back to X11 on the way out of Couch Mode. It now leaves your desktop's own choice alone.

• Store 2.9.17 live on Google Play and the App Store.vc53 · build 71

  The first App Store update since 2.9.9 — it carries everything from 2.9.10 through 2.9.17 in one go.

Steam shortcuts one swipe from the Remote July 21, 2026 · morning

• App Steam's settings panels, one swipe past the Remote.2.9.15 → 2.9.16

  The Steam shortcuts moved off the Actions list and onto the Pad, one swipe from the Remote where your thumb already is. They only appear in Game Mode, because that is the only place they do anything. The Pad's status pill and mode tabs also stopped fighting for the same row.

• Linux service Success you can trust.2.9.34 → 2.9.35

  Some actions reported success the service had never actually confirmed, which is worse than an error — you walk away believing something happened. Those paths now verify before they claim, and say so plainly when they can't.

Five TV brands, one remote — and the right TV July 20, 2026 · evening

• App Pick which TV you're driving.2.9.12 → 2.9.15

  With more than one TV or display on the network, the remote used to drive whichever brand happened to rank highest. Now you choose the target, and the app tells you what is actually at an address before you try to pair with it — so aiming at the wrong device explains itself instead of just failing. TV discovery also genuinely finds sets now, and a successful pairing is visibly confirmed rather than silently assumed.

• App A swipe stopped latching the d-pad.2.9.14 → 2.9.15

  Swiping between Pad tabs could leave a d-pad direction stuck down, and Steam would happily repeat it forever. Fixed. Pairing a box now also lands you straight on the swipe Remote rather than somewhere you have to navigate out of.

• Linux service LG commercial panels, and text that goes somewhere.2.9.32 → 2.9.34

  Added a backend for LG commercial and signage panels, which speak a different protocol from consumer sets. Typing into a TV that has nothing focused now says so instead of quietly dropping what you typed, and TV navigation keys lost a round-trip that made them feel sluggish. Settings changes also save reliably again — they were following the working directory instead of the config location.

Cyberpunk Console, and stream hosts that tell the truth July 20, 2026 · morning

• App Console and Fleet, redrawn.2.9.11 → 2.9.12

  The dashboard got a proper visual identity — a living, breathing readout instead of a list of numbers. It is built as a swappable skin rather than a repaint, so the previous look is retained underneath and the two can be compared directly whenever something looks off.

• App Offline stream hosts stop pretending.2.9.12

  A stream host that is switched off now dims and says why, and you can hide the section entirely. The check reads Steam's own record of when each machine was last seen. It is deliberately cautious: anything ambiguous is treated as offline, because a wrong "online" is exactly what makes Steam offer you a multi-gigabyte install instead of a stream.

• Linux service Screen preview recovers on its own.2.9.31 → 2.9.32

  If the service started before the graphical session was up, screen capture froze on "capturing…" until you restarted it by hand. It now re-checks instead of deciding once at boot and living with it.

Stream from PC, what's running now, and Steam's settings July 19, 2026 · night

• App Stream from another PC.2.9.8 → 2.9.9

  Games your other gaming PC offers to stream now appear as tiles you can launch from the couch, using Steam Remote Play — no need for them to be installed on the box you're sitting in front of.

• App A live card for what's running right now.2.9.9 → 2.9.10

  Console gained a card showing what is actually playing on the box, and a companion card for when the box is serving a stream to something else. Both read the machine's own state rather than asking you to remember what you started.

• App Steam's settings panels, without the menu-diving.2.9.10 → 2.9.11

  Nineteen of Steam's settings screens — controller, display, audio, Wi-Fi and more — reachable in one tap instead of four in Big Picture. Every one of them was tested on real hardware; the ones that don't exist aren't offered.

• Linux service Faster recovery, and a controller you can pair from the app.2.9.22 → 2.9.31

  A trackpad connection that had half-died now recovers in seconds rather than sitting there feeling broken, and an abandoned session is cleaned up in twelve seconds instead of hours. A "Pair a controller" action opens Steam's own Bluetooth screen on the TV, and the Steam Controller is finally detected properly on the gaming card.

Boxes that come back on their own July 19, 2026 · evening

• App No more "offline" after an update.2.9.7 → 2.9.8

  Update a box from the app and it could still show as "offline" until you closed and reopened the app — most often on boxes you'd added by name instead of an IP address. The remote now keeps each box's current address fresh on every check-in, so the moment the box finishes restarting the app finds it again on its own. Proven end-to-end on real hardware before shipping. Rolling out on Google Play now; on TestFlight for iOS.

• Linux service Reports the address it was reached on.2.9.18 → 2.9.22

  The box now tells the app exactly which address the app reached it on — the missing piece that powers the self-healing reconnect above. Signed and served through the usual one-line updater: run couchside update, or let the app offer it.

The reliability night July 19, 2026

• App Input that heals itself.2.9.5 → 2.9.6

  An evening of live instrumentation — driving the real app while watching the box's internals — turned one vague bug report ("the trackpad stopped working") into five shipped fixes. The big one: if the connection to your box goes quietly dead (a Wi-Fi blip, a mode switch), the remote now notices within seconds and reconnects itself — no more live-looking trackpad that does nothing until you flip tabs. Rolling out on Google Play and TestFlight now.

• App No more silent tug-of-war.2.9.6

  Two phones on one box now play fair in the open: when the other phone holds control, your Pad shows exactly that — who has it, why your input is paused, and a one-tap Request Control — instead of silently ignoring your swipes. The Couch button also no longer vanishes for capable boxes after an app restart.

• Linux service Restart Decky from the couch — and honest buttons.2.9.14 → 2.9.18

  Decky Loader sometimes stops itself and its menu quietly vanishes until reboot. A new Restart Decky action in the Actions tab fixes that from your phone — and it only appears on boxes where it can genuinely work. Getting that honesty right surfaced a subtle, three-day-old bug class: a system file ordering quirk could silently disable every privileged action while everything looked configured. The installer now writes its permissions so they always win, and the service verifies them the same way the system actually evaluates them. Also fixed: a controller-device leak that could confuse Steam's controller settings over time.

• Decky plugin Self-healing installs.v0.2.26 → v0.2.30

  The plugin now repairs older installs on its own: settings storage, permissions, and the service template all migrate automatically on a plugin update — no reinstall, pairings preserved. All releases signed, as always.

Hold the guide button, land in Game Mode July 18, 2026 · evening

• Linux service A controller can now start Couch Mode.2.9.14

  Sitting at the desktop with a controller in hand? Hold its guide button (the Xbox / PS logo) for about a second and the box flings itself into Game Mode on the TV — no phone needed. A quick tap still does whatever Steam normally does; only the long hold belongs to Couchside. It's off by default: flip it on per box under Setup → your box → Controller, pick how long the hold should be, and optionally pin it to one specific controller so a guest pad can't trigger it. Works with Xbox and PlayStation controllers over USB or Bluetooth, and it never fires while you're already in Game Mode. Validated end-to-end on real hardware before shipping.

• App 2.9.5 — the Controller card, plus honest labels.2.9.4 → 2.9.5

  Rolling out on Google Play now, iOS to follow: the new Controller card in Setup (the switch for the guide-button hold), Actions labels that say what an action actually does ("ends your session") instead of shouting DANGER, the setup link landing on the install instructions, and the Settings footer finally reporting its own version correctly.

• Decky plugin Settings that save — and one template everywhere.v0.2.23 → v0.2.26

  Found while testing on a Decky-only box: the plugin kept the service's settings file somewhere the service itself wasn't allowed to write, so TV pairings and preferences silently failed to save. Fixed — existing installs migrate automatically on the next plugin update, pairings preserved. The plugin also now ships the same service template the one-line installer uses instead of its own copy, so the two install paths can't drift apart again. v0.2.26 bundles service 2.9.14; all releases signed as always.

• Linux service Naming: it's the Couchside service now.

  Testers told us "agent" sounds like an AI thing. It isn't — it's a small service that runs on your box — so the app, the docs, and this site now just call it that. Nothing technical changed; every existing install keeps working untouched.

PIN pairing, five TV brands & wake-by-relay July 18, 2026

• App Pairing without typing an IP.2.8.6 → 2.9.4

  Tap Scan for boxes and the app finds every Couchside box on your network; pick one and it shows a PIN on its own screen — type that in and you're paired. No IP addresses, no tokens, no QR hunting. (iPhones can't use the usual network broadcast — Apple blocks it — so the app quietly sweeps the network over HTTP instead. Same result, both platforms.)

• App The TV side grows up: five brands, one remote.2.9.4

  The Pad tab now drives LG webOS, Samsung, Roku, Google TV, and Hisense sets: scan the network to find your TV, pair from the app, then use the D-pad, a dedicated SOURCE key for input switching, power and mute, and text entry that pops your phone keyboard when a webOS search field wants typing. Your phone's hardware volume buttons drive the TV from every remote surface — the button you already reach for just works.

• Linux service One box can wake another.2.9.5 → 2.9.13

  New wake relay: an awake Couchside box can send the magic packet that wakes a sleeping one. That matters on iPhone, where Apple blocks the app from sending Wake-on-LAN directly — now the app just asks any awake box to do it. Also in this run: TV discovery on the box side, the Hisense (VIDAA) backend, and the settings store moved to a proper home so TV pairing can't hit a permissions wall.

• Store 2.9.3 and 2.9.4 live on Google Play.vc34 · vc37

  Two production rollouts in one day, and Play release notes are now part of the release pipeline itself — every future update ships with real notes instead of "bug fixes and improvements".

Apple-TV-fast, marquee select & honest downloads July 17, 2026

• App Instant, no-stick control.2.8.2 → 2.8.6

  A pass on responsiveness after real-world use: the app now reaches your box by its cached IP first (a ~1.6 s name-lookup hitch on reconnect is gone), recovers instantly after a Wi-Fi blip, and the first swipe or keypress of a session lands immediately instead of dropping. Measured warm input is 6–8 ms — the occasional "sticky" feel is gone.

• App Double-tap-and-drag to select.2.8.6

  On the trackpad surfaces, tap then keep your finger down and drag to rubber-band a selection — just like click-dragging over files on a desktop.

• App Downloads that tell the truth.2.8.6

  The Launch tab now separates what Steam is actually downloading from its queued-update backlog (which used to look like a dozen downloads stuck for days). Plus: the Fleet dashboard no longer hangs on "probing…", and Setup gains a "Set up a box" link and an app-version line.

• Linux service Instant first input; active-vs-queued downloads.2.9.0 → 2.9.4

  The virtual controller/mouse/keyboard are ready the instant you connect (no half-second warm-up), control hand-off between two phones is immediate, and /api/downloads reports only what's truly moving.

• Decky plugin Service 2.9.4 bundled.v0.2.11 → v0.2.15

  Boxes on the Decky plugin self-update to service 2.9.4.

Couch Mode field fixes, same day July 16, 2026

• App Keyboard can't get stuck; trackpad circle fixed.2.8.0 → 2.8.2

  Two fast-follow builds from real-world testing. 2.8.1: a floating hide pill pinned to the top of the screen while typing — the old dismiss button could vanish behind the keyboard on newer iOS builds. 2.8.2: the remote's trackpad circle no longer fights the page for your finger (it used to scroll the view instead of moving the pointer), and the Couch button updates the moment a switch starts instead of waiting for the box to reappear on the network. iOS builds 31–32 / Android versionCodes 17–18.

• Linux service Bazzite: couch mode everywhere it can work — and a real display picker.2.9.0

  Couch Mode now works on Bazzite deck images (Bazzite's session tooling differs from SteamOS under the hood; the service now tries each mechanism in order), single-monitor desktops qualify, and on Bazzite the app's display picker genuinely chooses which monitor Game Mode lands on. Where the platform ignores the choice (SteamOS hardcodes its preference), the picker hides instead of pretending. Boxes update with the usual one-line installer.

Couch Mode & desktop navigation July 16, 2026

• App Couch Mode: fling your desktop to the TV.2.7.0 → 2.8.0

  Run your SteamOS or Bazzite box as a desktop with a TV wired in? A new Couch button in the header flings it straight into Game Mode on the TV — display, audio, even waking the TV over HDMI-CEC — and a one-tap Back to Desktop brings it home. The button appears only on boxes that can actually do the handoff. iOS build 30 / Android versionCode 16, rolling out now.

• App Desktop navigation from the remote.2.8.0

  On a Plasma desktop the remote grows Start-menu, Overview, and Esc buttons, and the navigation circle can flip into a mini trackpad (drag to point, tap to click, two-finger scroll). Every optional Pad row — mouse buttons, Steam buttons, desktop nav, the keyboard bar, hints — can now be hidden under Setup → Prefs → Pad Layout.

• Linux service Couch Mode endpoints + a first-input fix.2.8.4 → 2.9.0

  New /api/couch-mode and /api/desktop-mode drive the desktop↔TV handoff, validated end-to-end on real hardware. Also fixed: the very first keypress or click of each remote session could be silently dropped while the box was still registering the virtual input device — it now lands every time.

• App Gentler trial, easier reviews.2.6.0 → 2.7.0

  Shipped earlier this week: the app now warns before the trial paywall appears instead of springing it, and asking for an App Store review got friendlier and better-timed.

• Decky plugin Service 2.9.0 bundled.v0.2.10 → v0.2.11

  The plugin release carries the new service, signed as always — existing installs can self-update from the Decky panel.

Aerial screensaver, Fleet view & adaptive tabs July 14, 2026

• App Aerial screensaver, a Fleet dashboard, and tabs that adapt to your box.2.5.1 → 2.6.0

  Turn your box into an Apple-TV-style aerial screensaver from the power menu, with a theme picker (space, landscapes, cities, underwater) at 1080p or 4K. A new Fleet tab shows every machine you own at a glance. Tabs now appear only if the box you're on actually supports them, so a Windows PC and a Steam Deck each show the right controls. Plus live sparklines on the console metrics. iOS build 28 / Android versionCode 14.

• App Purchase and empty-state fixes.2.6.0

  The unlock now has a permanent row on the Setup tab during the trial instead of being buried under Setup → Account, and a bug is fixed where a briefly-unreachable App Store could make the app consider itself already unlocked and hide the purchase and restore buttons. With no box paired, the Actions and Launch tabs now show a calm “No box configured” hint instead of a red network error that retried forever.

• Linux service Screensaver routes.2.8.1 → 2.8.4

  New /api/screensaver endpoints drive the aerial screensaver on the box, registering themselves as a Steam shortcut so the video actually surfaces in Game Mode. Capability reporting lets the app hide controls the box can't do.

• Windows service Desktop shortcut buttons.0.3.0 → 0.3.3-win

  Windows key, Alt+Tab, Lock, and Task Manager as one-tap buttons — the things you actually need when a Windows HTPC is misbehaving from across the room. The Guide button no longer pops the Xbox Game Bar dialog.

• Decky plugin Self-update.v0.2.2 → v0.2.10

  The plugin can now update itself from the Decky panel — no more re-running the installer over SSH. Releases are signed, and the plugin refuses anything that doesn't verify.

Crash fix, media & screen preview July 8, 2026

• App Pad crash fixed.2.5.0 → 2.5.1

  The Pad tab could crash the app for boxes paired by IP address (with no host name). It now handles an empty host cleanly. Also new since 2.4.2: a live screen preview, a sleep timer with scheduled wake, media / now-playing transport (MPRIS), text-input passthrough, and Steam download progress. iOS build 24 / Android versionCode 13.

• Linux service Media, screen preview, and on-box fixes.2.7.0 → 2.8.1

  The service now serves cover art itself instead of the Steam CDN, reports now-playing over MPRIS, streams a live screen preview, and picked up on-box gamescope corrections found while testing on Bazzite.

• Windows service Parity build.0.2.0 → 0.3.0-win

  The Windows service tracks the same feature set — screen preview, media transport, and the shared TV-command plumbing that hands power to the Pi CEC bridge.

• Decky plugin Game Mode panel ownership fix.v0.2.2

  When the one-line installer drops the Couchside Game Mode panel into Decky Loader, the plugin files are now chowned root:root after extraction — matching a store install so Decky loads the panel reliably instead of skipping it on ownership mismatch.

Android launch & a personal pricing promise July 7, 2026

• Stores Couchside is live on Google Play.

  The Android app went public — no more beta track. iOS is submitted and sitting in App Store review; until it clears, iPhone users can ride along on the TestFlight beta.

• Website Pricing spelled out, in writing.

  The site now commits to it plainly: one payment, one time — $4.99 summer launch price through August, $7.99 from September 1. No subscription, no account, ever. Unlock early and keep a permanent Early Adopter badge.

• Website Linux-first, and honest about Windows.

  Couchside now clearly targets SteamOS, Bazzite, and Steam Deck living rooms first. The Windows service stays downloadable in beta — usable today, with rough edges being sanded off in the open.

• Website Pi bridge guide, and this page.

  A dedicated Raspberry Pi CEC bridge page explains how the TV-power relay works and walks through the full setup, with the installer now hosted right here. And the page you're reading — a permanent, running track record of Couchside — went live too.

• Website The in-browser demo is the real, current app.

  The try-it-now widget on the homepage was rebuilt from the latest app code, talking to a simulated 2.7.0 service — so what you play with in your browser, including the new TV remote, is exactly what ships.

The phone becomes a TV remote July 6, 2026

• App Full TV-remote mode.

  A fourth input mode joins pad, swipe, and trackpad: a classic remote layout with a circular D-pad, OK, menu/back keys, volume and brightness rockers, and a BOX/TV switch so the same remote drives either the PC or the display itself. Plus a true 0–100 volume slider (hold mute to reveal it) instead of tap-tap-tapping, and Logs tucked into Settings where they belong.

• Linux service Exact volume and every remote key.2.6.9 → 2.7.0

  Set volume to a precise level on both the PC and the TV, pick any display input from your phone (PC, HDMI 1–3, Home), and drive serial-connected panels with the full key set — arrows, OK, menu, settings, brightness — so the phone fully replaces the display's remote.

• Pi bridge New: Raspberry Pi TV power bridge.

  A tiny add-on service for a Raspberry Pi on your TV's HDMI port. It relays power, volume, and mute over HDMI-CEC on behalf of PCs whose own graphics card can't send CEC — common on Windows gaming rigs. Token-secured, LAN-only, one-script install. How it works and how to set it up →

• Windows service TV power on Windows, via the bridge.0.2.0

  The Windows service hands TV commands to the Pi bridge, so your phone can turn the TV on even when the PC itself can't.

• Windows service Taskbar tray widget.

  A tray icon shows at a glance whether the service is running, and opens a panel to start, stop, or restart it, show the pairing QR, and toggle start-at-logon.

• Stores iOS build 22 submitted for App Store review.

Windows installer & a Settings redesign July 5, 2026

• App Settings, redesigned.

  Setup grew into clean tabbed sections instead of one long scroll. Also new: TV input-switch and screen-blank buttons, a Done bar above the iPhone keyboard, and an “input paused” hint when Windows temporarily blocks remote input instead of the pad appearing silently dead.

• Linux service Screen blank without powering off.2.6.8

  Serial-connected panels can jump straight to the PC's input or blank the screen while the PC keeps running — so the display sleeps but your game doesn't.

• Windows service One-line install, friendlier pairing.

  Windows setup became a single PowerShell paste. The installer adapts its firewall rules so pairing works even when Windows calls your home Wi-Fi a “Public” network, and input survives lock screens and admin prompts without dropping the connection. A Steam Big Picture one-tap action came along too.

• Stores 2.4.2 submitted to both stores.

  The production release went off to Apple and Google, with Android builds auto-submitting from here on.

Windows arrives, volume gets serious July 4, 2026

• Windows service New: Windows support (beta).0.1.0

  The service now runs on Windows gaming PCs, not just Linux boxes — pairing QR, live status, power controls, your Steam library, keyboard and touchpad input, and a real virtual Xbox controller via ViGEmBus.

• Linux service PC volume, sleep, and wake-over-network.2.6.0 → 2.6.6

  Control the PC's own audio from the couch, put a wired box to sleep, and wake it over the network — the installer arms wake-on-LAN for you. A rapid-fire polish series followed the same day: volume shows Steam's on-screen overlay, targets the PC by default (TV opt-in per box), first presses land, and mute works in Game Mode with real muted-state reporting back to the app.

• App Power & volume bar, and more knobs.2.4.0 → 2.4.2

  A slim power-and-volume strip lives in the header on Console and Pad. TV on/off buttons, a wake-address field so a sleeping box can still be woken, keep-screen-awake for the Pad, a live mute indicator, and a batch of new preferences: sleep confirmation, default input mode, refresh rate, log depth, and pad-feel tuning.

• Stores Android beta begins on Google Play.

Couchside gets its name — and a website July 3, 2026

• Website couchside.tv goes live.

  CouchPilot became Couchside, app, service, and site all at once, and the site moved to its own home with an interactive demo — which within the same day was upgraded from a simulation to the actual app running in your browser. A dedicated pairing page went up at couchside.tv/pair.

• App Trackpad, typing, and your game library.2.1.0 → 2.2.1

  Trackpad mode with two-finger right-click and scrolling, a keyboard bar that streams typing straight to the PC, a Launch tab showing your Steam library as a cover-art grid, a landscape controller layout, and haptic feedback throughout. Manage several boxes with an Apple TV-style device switcher in the header, and the “stuck on connecting” Wi-Fi name-resolution issue was fixed by remembering each box's IP.

• App TV control debuts.2.3.0

  Power and volume for the TV itself — over HDMI-CEC, or RS-232 for commercial panels like Newline touch displays. Controls appear automatically when the box detects compatible hardware. A Quick Access Menu button joined the Pad.

• Linux service Multiple PCs, Game Mode switching.2.1.0 → 2.5.0

  Flip between Game Mode and Desktop from your phone, launch games remotely, and pair by pointing your phone's regular camera at the QR — no special scanner. The service also stays reachable when local name lookup drops out.

Day one July 2, 2026

• App Couchside is born (as “Rescue Remote”).1.0.0 → 2.0.0

  Built in a living room, for a living room: a live status dashboard for the gaming PC, one-tap power and maintenance actions with double confirmation, a log viewer, and guided setup. Within hours the phone became a full virtual Xbox-style controller with QR pairing, gained an Apple TV-style swipe mode, and was generalized for public release with a one-line installer for SteamOS and Bazzite.

• App The pricing promise, from day one.

  A 7-day free trial, then a single one-time unlock — $4.99 summer launch price, $7.99 from September 1, Early Adopter badge for early buyers. No subscription, no account. And since the app's source is public, anyone who builds it themselves is never locked out.

• Stores First iOS betas ship via TestFlight.
• Website First site goes live.

  The original marketing page launched the same day the project started (then at couchpilot.ets3d.com).