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Use your phone as the second screenBeta

To use Xenon you need a screen you can leave on all day. A spare monitor, an old tablet, a Xeneon Edge. That is what stops most people, not the features. But you already have a screen in your pocket. This page shows you how to use it.

What you get on the phone is not a remote and not a preview. It is your dashboard, with the same layout, the same widgets and the same theme. Deck keys really run on the PC. If you pause the music, the music stops. If you change a setting, it changes on the PC a second later. There is no account, no cloud and no app to install, and nothing leaves your home network.

PHONE: TILES STACKED, DOCK AT THE BOTTOM
TABLET: THE FULL GRID, JUST AS YOU BUILT IT

These are drawings of the layout, not real screenshots. A real dashboard shows its owner's calendar, notes and file paths, and this page is public.

What works, and what does not

Once you pair a device, it becomes one of your own. It can do everything the dashboard on the PC does, apart from a short list. Everything on that list has the same reason: it needs a person sitting at that computer.

  • ✓The whole dashboard: sensors, widgets, pages and themes
  • ✓Deck keys. They run on the PC, not on the phone
  • ✓Media, volume, mic mute and the app switcher
  • ✓The Store: widgets, icon packs, sound packs and themes
  • ✓Xenon AI, and settings that save to the PC
  • ✓Sending photos and files, both ways
  • ✗The system permission prompt. Windows, macOS and Linux all draw it on the PC screen and nowhere else, so only the PC can answer it
  • ✗Updating Xenon. The update restarts the server the phone is talking to
  • ✗System installers (the helper, PresentMon, drivers). Each one puts a program on your disk
  • ✗Adding or removing paired devices. This way a phone can never add another one, or remove the device that would lock it out

One thing to know before you start. A paired device stays a way into your PC until you remove it. So if you lose the phone or give it away, remove it. That is what the device list is for: you can remove one device, or all of them with a single tap. A device you remove loses the connection straight away.

Getting photos and files across

Once a phone is paired it can send files to the PC, and take files from it. Open Xenon on the phone, tap Photos and videos or Other files, pick what you want, and they land in Download/Xenon on the computer with their own names. It works the other way too: drop a file on the tile from Explorer or Finder and download it on the phone. Nothing goes through anyone else's server.

On an iPhone, you have to open Xenon to send something. iOS does not let any website appear in its Share button, and there is no way around that from a web page. A file you download on an iPhone also goes to the Files app rather than the camera roll: press and hold a photo and choose Add to Photos.

Two ways in. Pick one.

At home

On your own Wi-Fi

About 30 seconds, nothing to install

  • Turn it on, scan a QR code, done
  • Works while you are on the same Wi-Fi
  • Plain HTTP, so no installable app, no microphone and no notifications
Anywhere

Secure, at home and away

About 5 minutes, one button plus one switch on a web page

  • Encrypted, and it works from anywhere without opening a port on your router
  • Installs on the phone like an app, with its own icon
  • Gives Xenon AI the microphone
  • The address stays the same, even when your router changes it

You do not have to choose forever. The second way adds a door next to the first one, it does not replace it. If you only use Xenon at home, start with the first.

At home, in thirty seconds

  1. Open Settings, then Phone, on the PC

    Everything you need is in one panel, under Phone access. Shortcut: the first time Xenon opens it asks which screen you want it on — pick my phone or tablet there and it brings you straight to this panel with these same steps open inside it. The Step-by-step guide button at the top of the panel opens them again whenever you want.

  2. Turn on “Allow access from other devices”

    It is off until you turn it on. While it is off, Xenon replies to this PC and to nothing else. If something scans your network, it gets the same reply a version of Xenon without this feature would give, so there is no way to tell the feature is there.

    Allow access from other devicesWhile this is off, Xenon replies only to this PC.

  3. Press “Add device”

    The PC shows a QR code with an eight character code under it. It is an invitation, not a password. It lasts three minutes, and it stops working after a few wrong tries.

  4. Point the phone camera at it

    The dashboard opens in the phone browser. That is the whole setup. Nothing was installed, and the code never reached a server, because it travels in the part of the address that browsers keep to themselves.

Both devices have to be on the same Wi-Fi. If your router has client isolation turned on, or you are on the guest network, they can be on the same Wi-Fi and still not see each other.

Anywhere, and as an app

On plain HTTP, browsers hold back a whole group of features, and there is no way to design around it. The page cannot install itself as an app, it cannot use the microphone, and it cannot receive notifications. That is the real reason for the second way in. It is not about distance.

Xenon uses Tailscale for this. Your PC and your phone join a small private network of your own, your dashboard gets a real certificate and an address that never changes, and no port on your router is opened. The address does not exist in public DNS, so there is nothing out there for anyone to find.

Press one button and Xenon does the rest

In the same panel, under Secure access, also away from home, there is a button that installs Tailscale, opens the sign in page, waits for you to finish, and then starts the secure connection on its own.

Secure access, also away from homeUses Tailscale with HTTPS. Turns on the installable app, the microphone and notifications.
Set it up for me

It stops once, and that is on purpose. Certificates are a setting for your whole private network, and you change them on the Tailscale website. Xenon could do it for you, but only with a key you would have to create on that same website, which is more work rather than less. So Xenon stops there, gives you the link, and then notices on its own when you are done. You can leave the window open.

  1. Press “Set it up for me”

    Your system will ask for permission to install Tailscale. Then a browser tab opens for the sign in. Any Google, Microsoft or GitHub account works, and you are not creating an account with Xenon.

  2. Turn on HTTPS certificates

    This is the one step Xenon cannot do for you. When it asks, press the button it shows. It opens login.tailscale.com/admin/dns. Scroll down to HTTPS Certificates and press Enable. It is free on every plan. Then go back to Xenon, which has already carried on.

  3. Install Tailscale on the phone with the same account

    Get it from the App Store or Google Play, sign in with the same account you just used, and turn its switch on. This is the step people forget, and it is easy to spot: the phone says it cannot open the address at all. Nothing is broken. That address only exists inside your own network, which is also why nobody on the internet can reach it.

  4. Pair the phone again on the new address

    Press Add device and scan again. The browser ties a pairing to the address it was made on, so a phone paired on the home address is not paired on the secure one. After this you only need the new address. It works at home and away.

  5. Add it to the home screen

    In Safari, press Share and then Add to Home Screen. On Android, Chrome offers to install it. Xenon then opens with its own icon, full screen, with no address bar. The microphone works here, so Xenon AI can listen through the phone instead of the PC. Notifications work too: in Settings, then Phone, turn them on for this device and a timer that runs out will reach you with the app closed.

If something does not work

The phone says it cannot open the address

Almost always the phone is not on your private network yet. Open Tailscale on the phone and check the switch is really on. Installing the app is not enough. On an iPhone you can tell because VPN appears in the status bar. Also check you signed in with the same account as the PC, because two accounts mean two separate networks that cannot see each other.

A widget looks like a white box with plain text

On an iPhone or an iPad, up to version 4.11, this happened every time: a security rule stopped widgets from loading their own design, and only on Safari, so the same widget looked right on a PC. Update Xenon and it is gone. If it still happens after updating, the page is running older code than the PC: usually a tab left open since before an update, brought back from memory instead of reloaded. Pulling down to refresh is often not enough, so close the tab completely and open the address again.

It worked before, and now the phone looks unpaired

Your router probably gave the PC a different address. A pairing belongs to the address it was made on, so when the address changes the phone looks unpaired and you have to add it again. Two ways out: reserve a fixed address for the PC in your router settings, or use the secure way above, where the address never changes.

The installed app asks me to pair again

On an iPhone, an app added to the home screen keeps its own storage, separate from Safari, so the pairing you made in the browser does not come with it. Create a second code and pair from inside the installed app. It shows up as its own entry in the device list, and you can rename both to tell them apart.

Xenon says HTTPS certificates are not enabled

That is a setting for your whole private network, not for this PC. Open login.tailscale.com/admin/dns, find HTTPS Certificates and press Enable. Xenon notices within a few seconds.

My tablet shows the desktop layout and I wanted the stacked one

That is on purpose. A tablet is big enough for the real grid, which is rather the point of a tablet, and an iPad is well above the size where Xenon switches. If you prefer the stacked layout on a particular device, you can choose it, and Xenon remembers it on that device only. It never travels to the PC and your saved layout is never overwritten.

What this does not do

There is no Xenon account, no server of ours in the middle, and nothing about your dashboard is uploaded anywhere. On your own Wi-Fi the connection is not encrypted, which is why the panel tells you to use it on a network you trust. The secure way exists to solve exactly that. Tailscale is a company you would be adding by choice, so its own privacy terms apply to it, and Xenon takes nothing from it except the address and the certificate for your own machine.

Everything else Xenon does and does not send is on the privacy page.