SteamOS · Bazzite · Steam Deck
Couchside turns your phone into the monitor, remote console, and game controller for your living-room Linux gaming PC. When the TV goes black, Couchside is the screen — see the vitals, read the logs, restart the display, or pick up a controller. All on your own network.
Free 7-day trial · $4.99 summer launch price (up to $7.99 Sept 1) · no subscription · open source — build it yourself if you'd rather
● LIVE swipe on the phone to browse · tap to launch
↑ the actual app, running in your browser — not a mockup
Up and running in a minute
No accounts, no cloud sign-up. Install the open-source agent on your box, scan the code it prints, and you're flying.
On your SteamOS, Bazzite, or Steam Deck machine — it installs a tiny agent, no dependencies.
$ curl -fsSL https://couchside.tv/install.sh | bash
The installer shows a QR code. Point your iPhone camera at it and Couchside opens with your box already paired — token and all.
Watch the vitals, restart a wedged display, tail the logs, or flip to the controller. Never get up to find a keyboard again.
What it does
Monitoring, rescue, and input for a living-room Linux gaming PC — the parts you actually reach for from the couch.
CPU temperature, load, memory, per-disk usage, uptime, and the health of every systemd service you watch — refreshing in real time.
Restart a wedged gamescope black screen, reboot, or power off — one tap, grouped by danger, and double-confirmed when it counts.
Drop the box into the SteamOS desktop and flip back to Game Mode with a single tap — no keyboard, no mouse. Perfect for a quick tweak from the couch, then straight back to playing.
The agent creates a real Xbox 360 gamepad on the box, so Steam and your games see genuine input — sticks, D-pad, ABXY, triggers, and haptics.
An Apple-TV-remote-style surface: swipe to move, tap to select. The fastest way through Kodi and Big Picture menus from the couch.
Browse recent journald lines for any watched service straight from your phone. No SSH session, no laptop, no squinting at the TV.
The installer prints a QR code. Scan it and the app opens fully configured — or type the host and token by hand if you prefer.
Turn your display on and off and change its volume from the app — over HDMI-CEC for consumer TVs, or RS-232 for commercial panels (Newline and the like). Built and in pre-release now, landing in an update soon.
Pricing
The agent on your box is free and open source, always. For the app, pick your path:
Download free from the App Store or Google Play and use every feature for a week. Keep it forever with a single one-time unlock — $4.99 summer launch price through August, then $7.99 on September 1. No subscription, no recurring anything, no accounts. Unlock before September 1 and keep a permanent Early Adopter badge in the app. Buying the unlock funds the project.
The app's full source is on GitHub under GPLv3 — clone it, compile it onto your own phone with Expo, fork it, improve it. The agent and installer are MIT. Same software, your labor instead of $4.99.
Private by design
Couchside talks only to the agent on your own LAN. There is no cloud in the middle — because there is no cloud at all.
A bearer token, generated on your box and stored in the device keychain.
No relay, no accounts, no telemetry. Phone and box on the same Wi-Fi, full stop.
The agent's powers are an exact, audited allowlist of commands — nothing more.
The whole project — app and agent — is on GitHub. Read every line.
Free 7-day trial, no account needed. · Read the privacy policy →