Sconce: Photo & Video Casting

Zone7 Studios

In-app purchases

About this app

Sconce puts the photos and videos on your phone up on the television, then gets out of the way. Pick what you want, send it to your Chromecast, and let it run. Your pictures go to the TV over your own Wi-Fi, and we never upload them.

PHOTOS AND VIDEOS ON THE BIG SCREEN
• Pick photos and videos with your phone's own picker and save them as a collection.
• Photos are handed to the TV up front, so the television holds them, not your phone. Lock the phone, pocket it, and the pictures keep turning.
• A video is too big to hand over, so it streams from the phone while it plays. Sconce says which is which the first time you cast.
• Set how long a photo stays up, the move from one to the next (fade, cut, slide or zoom), and whether the collection loops or shuffles.
• Play, pause, back and next from the phone, and pause or stop from your lock screen.

SIX LOOKS FOR THE TELEVISION
• A photo is fitted whole inside the screen, so nothing is cropped by default. The look is what fills the space around it: the photo blurred and dimmed, where every install starts, the same with the corners taken down, and four solid surrounds in warm white, warm black, cool grey and soft paper.
• Every look has a live preview from your own photos.
• Fill the screen zooms a photo to cover the whole panel instead. It is free, it starts off, and the switch says it is a zoom.
• Press stop and the TV holds a quiet Sconce page, then hands itself back a few minutes later.

BACKGROUND SOUND
• A collection can play a background sound under its pictures: one of five that come with the app, or an audio file of your own.
• It is set per collection, so a wedding and a beach afternoon need not share one.
• A video takes the sound over while it plays, and it picks up where the video left off.
• Part of Sconce Pro. Without it a collection plays silently, as it always has.

THE PRACTICAL HALF
• No Chromecast to hand? Play here runs the same collection on the phone or tablet in front of you, with the same timings, transitions and sound.
• Some televisions refuse a clip a phone recorded happily. Sconce can convert one on the phone, with its own video chip, and keeps the copy so it is only done once. That is free.
• If your TV can see Sconce but cannot reach your phone, Sconce says what to try in plain words: guest Wi-Fi, a router that keeps devices apart, or a VPN on the phone.

NO ADS, NO ACCOUNTS, NO SUBSCRIPTIONS
• No ads. No accounts. No subscriptions.
• Your photos and videos go from this phone to your TV over your own Wi-Fi. We never upload them.
• Casting needs the internet, because your TV loads Sconce's TV screen from us. Sconce also uses the network for the store's billing for the one-time purchase.
• Casting uses Google's Cast framework and is covered by Google's privacy policy. https://policies.google.com/privacy

SCONCE PRO
Free Sconce is a real one: a collection of up to 30 photos and videos, cast to the TV, the blurred fill, Fill the screen, Play here, and converting a video your TV refuses.
Sconce Pro is one purchase, yours forever, no subscription: as many collections as you like with as many photos and videos in them, the other five looks, the sound behind a collection, a time for one photo on its own, the order you want them in, and a whole collection converted at once.
Nothing renews and there is nothing to cancel. Restore purchase puts it back on a new phone.

WHAT SCONCE WILL NEVER DO
Not settings to find and switch off. Not in the app at all.
• Ask for an account or a sign-in
• Carry an ad, or an ad SDK
• Put a watermark over your photos
• Charge you weekly, monthly or yearly
• Upload your photos or videos anywhere
• Beg you for a rating
• Interrupt a collection with an upsell

Sconce casts to Chromecast and Google TV. It does not use AirPlay and it does not mirror your screen.

FROM ZONE7 STUDIOS
Small, honest tools, calm to use, and nothing that treats your attention as inventory. Tell us what it gets wrong: [e-mail]

What’s new

Background sound is here. A collection can play something under its pictures: one of five that come with the app, or an audio file of your own, set per collection with the loudness yours to move. A video takes the sound over while it plays, and it picks up where the video left off. Part of Sconce Pro.

The four bordered TV looks now draw their border on all four sides. Fill the screen is now free. And Sconce says so when a VPN on your phone is standing between your TV and your pictures.