ChimpDeck: Gamepad Remote Play

DropBowl

About this app

ChimpDeck lets you play your Windows PC from an Android phone, tablet or TV box: with your real controller, and with the PC's picture and sound on the screen in your hands. Each half works on its own.

YOUR REAL CONTROLLER ON THE PC

Plug a controller into the Android device and it shows up on your Windows PC as the same USB device, as if it were plugged in there. Windows loads the manufacturer's own driver, so the game sees an ordinary gamepad: every button and axis where it belongs, nothing remapped or emulated. Xbox, PlayStation, Switch Pro, arcade sticks, racing wheels with force feedback: if it plugs in over USB, it goes through. Rumble travels back, all four motors on pads that have them.

A pad paired by Bluetooth reaches the PC too, as a virtual Xbox 360 controller (no rumble over Bluetooth yet). It all works with no stream open: sit at the PC and play with the pad plugged into the phone.

THE PC ON YOUR SCREEN

Picture and sound of the PC on the Android device: H.264 or HEVC decoded in hardware, up to 4K and 120 fps where the device allows it, HDR10, and low-latency audio in stereo, 5.1 or 7.1 (Dolby Digital when your sound system is on optical or ARC). Touch, keyboard and mouse go the other way, and the pad can act as a mouse.

With ChimpDeck for Windows on the PC:
• Quality that adapts with the PC in the loop: bitrate and repair change mid-session, no reconnecting.
• Every frame is checked: a damaged frame is never shown.
• A session survives a network cut: the game stays open and the app reconnects by itself.
• Exact resolution: the PC renders at your device's native size through a virtual display, removed afterwards.
• Away from home with nothing to open on the router: the app finds your PC through the ChimpDeck meeting point and opens a direct path. Video and audio never go through our servers.
• Pairing without typing: the PC shows who is knocking and a number both sides computed; if it matches, accept.

ChimpDeck is also a full client for Sunshine and Apollo hosts.

MADE FOR THE TELEVISION

Three layouts from one app: phone, tablet with a side rail, and a 10-foot layout for Android TV and NVIDIA Shield. Everything is driven with the D-pad of a controller or a TV remote: no mouse, keyboard or touchscreen required.

CONTROLLER TOOLS

Button tester, stick drift and dead zone, trigger curve, four-motor rumble one motor at a time, reaction test. They run on the Android device with or without a session. Useful before buying secondhand.

PRIVATE BY DESIGN

The link between the Android device and the PC is encrypted end to end. No account needed to play. No ads, no tracking.

PLAY COOLDOWN

ChimpDeck keeps a healthy rhythm, in the spirit of the play timers consoles offer: after 2 hours of play, a 4-hour cooldown before the next session, with a heads-up 15, 5 and 1 minute before, and the game keeps running on the PC. It counts real play, not time connected: the clock runs only while you use the controller and pauses by itself when the pad sits still.

REQUIREMENTS

• Android 8.0 or later. USB OTG (USB host) for the controller server; a hardware video decoder for the stream.
• A Windows 10 or 11 PC with ChimpDeck for Windows, free at chimpdeck.com, and an NVIDIA graphics card for streaming (AMD and Intel coming soon); or a Sunshine or Apollo host.
• No root, no ADB, no cable between the Android device and the PC.
• The app is in English and Spanish.

NOT THERE YET

AMD and Intel encoding, AV1, rumble over Bluetooth, clients for macOS and Linux. This listing describes what ChimpDeck does today.

chimpdeck.com

What’s new

• 5.1 and 7.1 surround sound (Dolby Digital when your system needs it).
• HDR10 picture.
• Smoother on a TV, plus fixes.