Beam: Stream Your Screen

Beam 3.3: a new streaming engine, stream modes, and audio that stays put. Everything from v3 is here too. • New streaming engine. Video, audio and controller input travel over a transport built for games: lost packets are repaired in milliseconds instead of stalling the stream, so a busy Wi-Fi network no longer means hitches. If it ever struggles, Beam falls back to the old path on its own. Needs Beacon 1.6 on the Mac (it updates itself). • Stream modes. Game trades a little picture detail for the tightest input response, Video gives the picture everything, Auto picks Game whenever a controller is attached or click mode is on. Change it in Settings or from the in-stream sheet, it applies live. • Audio that stays put. Sound no longer crackles or drops out when the radio hiccups. Beam sizes its audio buffer to what your network actually does. • Much lower latency. A press reaches the screen in about a third of the time it took before. The Mac sends video at the pace your Wi-Fi can carry and frames go straight to the display. Needs Beacon 1.5.1 or later on the Mac (it updates itself). • 120 fps. Beam streams at your screen's refresh rate, up to 120 fps, for smoother motion and lower latency. • Advanced settings. Frame pacing (lowest latency for games, smoothest for video), a bitrate cap for shared Wi-Fi, codec choice, a Legacy Transport switch and a latency meter. • Play Mac games with a controller. Pair a controller with your iPhone or iPad and your Mac sees a real gamepad: both sticks, analog triggers, every button. • Beam on iPad. Same pairing, same stream, more screen. • Click the Mac from your phone. Turn on click mode and tap the stream. The Mac clicks the same point, with zoom, viewport lock and window mode taken into account. • Type on the Mac live. The Keyboard button opens your phone keyboard and each key goes to the Mac as you type. Sticky ⌘ ⌃ ⌥ ⇧ buttons turn the next key into a shortcut. • Your buttons, your layout. In Beacon Settings, build the media bar you want: up to eight buttons with their own icons and actions. • Pick the window from your phone. Lock the stream to one Mac window, or go back to the full display. • Stream without audio. Turn audio off in Settings or with the speaker button. The new engine needs Beacon 1.6 on the Mac. Everything else works with Beacon 1.5.0 or later.