saphid--frame-control/docs/streaming.md

Screen and desktop streaming

This covers three directions, plus input:

• A. Frame → Mac: see and control the headset from the Mac.
• B. Mac → Frame: use the Mac's desktop inside the headset.
• C. iPhone → Frame: mirror the phone inside the headset.
• Input: type and point in the Frame from the Mac or iPhone.

The confidence labels are the same as in ssh.md.

A. See and control the Frame from the Mac

Option	What you get	Confidence	Notes
Steam Link (macOS app) → frame	A remote view of the headset	Confirmed (Frame): Valve says to "use Steam Link on iOS, Android, or desktop to view the headset remotely by connecting to 'frame'" (debugging)	Steam Link for macOS exists (Tom's Guide). It's the lowest-effort option. Whether you get the VR view or a flat mirror, and whether input works, is unverified.
RDP to xrdp	A separate Linux (Xorg) desktop session as steamos	Confirmed (Frame) for the server (debugging); Inferred for the Mac client	On the Mac, use Microsoft Windows App (the old "Microsoft Remote Desktop") from the App Store. Add PC frame.local (or the IP), user steamos, and the Developer Mode password. Valve says Xorg is the default session. This is a separate X session, not a mirror of what's in the headset. It's good for running GUI apps and supports clipboard sync.
ADB + scrcpy (Lepton only)	A mirror of the Android container	Guess	brew install scrcpy android-platform-tools, then adb connect frame.local:5555 while Lepton Development is running (adb_lepton), then scrcpy. This only shows Android apps, not SteamOS.
VNC server on the Frame (krfb / wayvnc)	A mirror of the Plasma desktop	Inferred (SteamOS)	Deck users run krfb in Desktop Mode (one.vg). On the Frame, the in-headset desktop is a virtual screen, and krfb isn't known to be preinstalled. RDP and Steam Link cover this case, so it's not recommended.

Recommendation for A: start with Steam Link for macOS, because Valve documents it. Use Windows App (RDP) when you want a proper Linux desktop on the Mac with keyboard, mouse, and clipboard.

B. Show the Mac's desktop inside the Frame

The Frame's streaming features are built around a Windows PC running SteamVR plus the USB Wi-Fi 6E dongle. Even Linux hosts had VR-streaming problems at launch (Steam discussion, gbl08ma). macOS isn't a supported SteamVR host, so for the Mac we're only looking at flat 2D desktop streaming into a window on the Frame's Linux desktop.

Option	Setup	Confidence	Verdict
macOS Screen Sharing (VNC) → Remmina on the Frame	Mac: System Settings → General → Sharing → Screen Sharing on → (i) → enable "VNC viewers may control screen with password". Frame: ./scripts/install-apps.sh remmina from the Mac, then open Remmina in the headset and connect to vnc://<mac>.local	Verified 2026-09-27 (Frame BUILD_ID 20260925.6191901, macOS 27.0), in its own panel via panel-on-frame.sh mac-screen. Remmina is on Flathub for aarch64 with VNC and RDP (Flathub). The Frame desktop runs Flatpaks (UploadVR). macOS VNC is built in.	Recommended. Nothing to install on the Mac, and it's easy to set up. Noticeable lag, even at lower Remmina quality settings on a good 5 GHz link, where neither Wi-Fi nor the Frame's CPU was the bottleneck. Usable for reading and coding, but not for games. You'll type the Mac's hostname once in Remmina on the headset, then save the profile. To avoid even that, the script can pre-seed a Remmina profile over SSH (see below).
Sunshine (Mac) → Moonlight (Frame Flatpak)	brew install Sunshine on the Mac, then ./scripts/install-apps.sh moonlight	Moonlight Flatpak supports aarch64 (Flathub). Sunshine on macOS is poorly supported: install problems on Apple Silicon/Sequoia, and no virtual gamepads (LizardByte discussion #777).	Try it if VNC is too laggy. Expect some friction.
Steam Remote Play with the Mac as host	Steam on the Mac, Steam Link/Remote Play on the Frame	macOS-hosted Remote Play is reported broken or flaky in 2024–2026 (Steam discussion)	Not recommended. It's only for games, if it works at all.
Immersed / Virtual Desktop	Vendor apps	Immersed has a Mac agent but no known Frame client. Virtual Desktop's developer said he'd "try" to port it (NewsBreak).	Not available as of 2026-09-25. Check again later.
WiVRn / ALVR	VR streaming from a Linux or Windows PC	Irrelevant for a Mac host (no SteamVR/OpenXR runtime on macOS)	N/A

For VR video files (180°/360° stereo), don't stream the Mac's screen. Play them on the Frame in DeoVR instead: see vr-video.md.

Pre-seeding the Remmina profile (no typing in the headset)

scripts/install-apps.sh remmina --vnc-host <your-mac>.local writes ~/.var/app/org.remmina.Remmina/data/remmina/mac-screen-sharing.remmina on the Frame over SSH. The profile then appears in Remmina's list, and you just click it. It scales the Mac's desktop to fit the window (scale=1, viewmode=1). Without that, Remmina shows a Retina Mac's native pixels 1:1, so you see a zoomed-in corner. (Verified 2026-09-27.)

Expect a Mac login prompt, not the VNC password. macOS offers Apple's own authentication (RFB security type 30) ahead of plain VNC auth (type 2), and Remmina picks it. So Remmina asks for your Mac account name and login password; the "VNC viewers may control screen" password isn't used. To store the password without typing it in the headset, run on the Frame:

printf '%s' "$PASSWORD" | flatpak run org.remmina.Remmina \
  --update-profile ~/.var/app/org.remmina.Remmina/data/remmina/mac-screen-sharing.remmina \
  --set-option password

Remmina encrypts it into the profile with its own key, because there's no secret service in the SSH session. (Verified 2026-09-27.)

The Mac's cursor

The mirror doesn't show the Mac's pointer, with either showcursor value. macOS keeps the pointer out of the picture it sends, and Remmina's cursor mode draws the cursor shape only at the Frame's own pointer, which doesn't follow the Mac trackpad. scripts/mac-cursor-ring.lua works around this: a Hammerspoon script that draws a ring around the Mac pointer as a real window, so it's part of the mirrored picture. Setup is in its header. (Verified 2026-09-27.)

Going the other way, pointing a controller at the panel moves the Mac's mouse, because Remmina forwards input (viewonly=0).

C. Show the iPhone's screen inside the Frame

iOS only shares its screen two ways: AirPlay (Screen Mirroring in Control Centre) or a ReplayKit broadcast extension in an app. Nothing else can capture it.

Option	What it takes	Confidence	Verdict
UxPlay (an open-source AirPlay receiver) on the Frame	Build it for aarch64 (no Flathub package; there's a Snap and distro packages), run it in ~ or a podman container, and advertise it over mDNS. The iPhone and the Mac then see "Frame" in Screen Mirroring, with nothing to install on either	Inferred. It runs on ARM64 Linux such as the Raspberry Pi (UxPlay). Not tried on the Frame: needs mDNS registration and its ports (7000, 7001, 7100 and a UDP range) reachable	Recommended to try first. It's the only receiver-side option, and it covers the Mac too. The window shows in the Frame's Linux desktop panel
A broadcast extension in Frame Control	ReplayKit sends the screen to a small extension (50 MB memory limit), which encodes H.264 and sends it through the app's SSH tunnel to the page, shown the same way as the Frame's live view in reverse	Inferred from Apple's ReplayKit docs	Full control and no network setup, but several days' work, and the picture only shows where Frame Control's page is open in the headset

Input: type and point in the Frame from the Mac or iPhone

Built: Home → Keyboard and trackpad, in every version of Frame Control (Mac, Windows, Linux, iPhone and iPad), with nothing to install on the device you're holding. On a phone the panel is a trackpad (drag to move, tap to click, two fingers to scroll, two-finger tap to right-click) plus a text field that types on the Frame. On a computer, clicking the pad passes your mouse and keyboard through to the Frame until you press Esc (⌘ is sent as Ctrl on a Mac).

It goes through KDE Connect, the first-party route (KDE makes the Frame's desktop): Frame Control's server runs ui/frame_input_agent.py on the Frame, which talks KDE Connect's own LAN protocol to the Frame's kdeconnectd as if it were a phone. KDE Connect does the typing and clicking.

Verified 2026-09-28 (SteamOS 0.4.1, build 20260925.6191901):

• KDE Connect isn't installed on the Frame, so Frame Control ships it: Valve's own build for the Frame (kdeconnect 24.02.2-1 from its extra repository) plus the five libraries it links that the Frame lacks (kcontacts, kpeople, modemmanager-qt, pulseaudio-qt, libfakekey), pinned by SHA-256 in frame/kdeconnect/packages.json. The builds download them from the kdeconnect-frame-24.02.2-1 release (app/build/fetch-deps.js, frame/kdeconnect/fetch.py). The address of Valve's repository for the Frame isn't to be shared, and Valve's public aarch64 preview repository has KDE Connect 25.08, built against newer KDE libraries than the Frame has.
• On first use, the computer copies them to the Frame over the SSH connection it already has. The iPhone app's bundle, already copied to the Frame, has them too. The agent checks each SHA-256 and unpacks them into ~/.local/share/frame-control/kdeconnect (3.6 MB copied, 18 MB unpacked, about 2 s). There's no internet download on the Frame, no root, and nothing on the read-only system, so SteamOS updates leave it alone. A stamp there (root/.frame-control-packages) records which build it is; a newer Frame Control replaces it.
• pacman -Sp kdeconnect … also pulls in ModemManager, libqmi, libmbim, libqrtr-glib and ppp (packaging dependencies). kdeconnectd and its plugins don't link any of them (checked with ldd against the six packages alone), so Frame Control leaves them out.
• Licences: the packages are GPL and LGPL; Frame Control stays MIT because it only starts kdeconnectd and speaks its protocol. The notice, licence texts and complete source are in frame/kdeconnect, THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md and the app's About and licences (Tools).
• It pairs by itself: the agent asks to pair and accepts on KDE Connect's side over D-Bus (qdbus6 … acceptPairing). It keeps its identity in …/kdeconnect/bridge, so later connections are already paired. (A pair request to a device that's already paired makes KDE Connect unpair it, so the agent only asks when it isn't paired.)
• Protocol version 7: whoever opens the TCP connection sends its identity line in plain text, then acts as the TLS server (KDE Connect's lanlinkprovider.cpp). Remote input is kdeconnect.mousepad.request with dx/dy, singleclick, rightclick, singlehold/singlerelease, scroll, key (any text) or specialKey (1 Backspace … 14 Escape, 21–32 F1–F12) and modifier flags.
• KDE Connect runs only while something uses the keyboard and trackpad. Each device gets its own KDE Connect identity (KDE Connect keeps one connection per device, so a shared one would make a phone and a computer knock each other off). The last one to disconnect stops KDE Connect, so it isn't left running, or discoverable on your network, afterwards.
• KDE Connect 24.02 hangs or crashes when asked to unpair a device that's offline (seen twice: once spinning at 100% CPU with D-Bus unresponsive, once exiting). Frame Control never unpairs. If its copy stops answering, the agent restarts it once (tested by freezing it with kill -STOP).
• Moves from the iPhone app (Simulator) and the Mac's server moved the Frame's X pointer by exactly the amount sent, including with the bundled packages copied over SSH (2026-09-28).
• gamescope runs two Xwayland displays. :0 holds Steam's VR bar and menus and ignores injected pointer motion; :1 holds apps such as Chromium and takes it. KDE Connect runs on :1, so it reaches apps, not Steam's own menus. There's also a gamescope-0-ei (libei) socket.
• Not yet tested: typing and clicking as seen in the headset, and whether it reaches the KDE desktop panel (Plasma is its own session).
• Known limit: keys and clicks typed while the link is reconnecting wait and are sent once it's back, but anything sent in the moment the Wi-Fi drops, before SSH notices, can be lost. Confirming every event would add a round trip to each pointer move.

Our own uinput keyboard and mouse would also work (steamos is in the input group and /dev/uinput is group-writable, verified 2026-09-27), and remains the fallback if the bundled KDE Connect ever stops working on a new SteamOS.

Other option	Mac	iPhone	Why not
Bluetooth keyboard and mouse	–	–	Needs real hardware, paired in SteamOS settings. The iPhone can't pretend to be a Bluetooth keyboard: iOS won't advertise the HID service (Apple forums)
Deskflow (formerly Input Leap / Barrier)	✓	–	Moves the Mac's own mouse and keyboard onto the Frame's screen edge. Flathub has an aarch64 build (Flathub); on Wayland it needs the InputCapture/libei portal, and only works while Plasma is running. No iPhone client
Remmina / Steam Link / RDP	✓	–	Input only reaches the streamed session, not the headset's own apps

Other ways to get text in:

• Clipboard from the Mac: scripts/paste-to-frame.sh, or Frame Control's clipboard box (see file-transfer.md). Needs the desktop panel open.
• RDP session: Windows App syncs the clipboard with xrdp, but only inside that RDP session.