Instant phone controllers
for indie games
Turn any phone into a game controller in under 2 seconds. Stop building and maintaining networking infrastructure — spend that time on your game instead.
Drop in a controller template. Ship.
Pick a template — buzzer, drawing pad, steering wheel — and handle inputs.
let room = try await Beacon.host(controllerTemplate: "trivia-buzzer")
room.onPlayerJoined { player in
print("\(player.name) joined with buzzer ready")
}
room.onControllerInput { player, input in
// Player pressed their buzzer, drew something, moved a slider, etc.
handlePlayerAction(player: player, input: input)
}Unity SDK (primary, Asset Store distribution), Unreal, native iOS / Android TV / macOS / Windows, and plain WebSocket for everything else.
Ready-made controller templates
Ship on day one with production-ready controllers — or open the no-code designer and drag-and-drop your own. Every template is white-label: your colors, your fonts, your logo.
Game Controller
D-pad, buttons, and joystick. The host receives directional and button events — ready for action games, trivia buzzers, or any input that maps to discrete controls.
Phone sends
Trackpad & Keyboard
Phone becomes a touch surface and text input. The host receives normalized pointer coordinates and keystrokes — for presentations, kiosks, or collaborative control.
Phone sends
Poll
Multiple choice, rating scales, or free response. The host receives aggregated results in real time — for classrooms, live events, and audience Q&A.
Phone sends
Drawing Canvas
Freeform drawing surface with color and brush controls. The host receives stroke paths as they're drawn — for Pictionary, whiteboard annotation, or collaborative art.
Phone sends
Motion Sensor
Streams accelerometer and gyroscope data from the phone hardware. The host receives orientation vectors — for tilt steering, shake gestures, or Wii-style controls.
Phone sends
Media Remote
Transport controls for media playback. The host receives play, pause, seek, and volume events — for video walls, shared music, or watch parties.
Phone sends
Need something custom? Open the controller designer and drag together buttons, sliders, touch areas, and gyroscope controls. Mix types in a single session — some players on buzzers, others on drawing pads.
Ship a game, not a networking platform
Every piece of the stack you'd have to build, maintain, and patch at 2am on launch night — device discovery, reconnection, cross-platform UI, relay fallback. Handled so you can put that time into the part players actually care about.
Instant connection
Players scan a QR code and their phone becomes a controller in under 2 seconds. No app store, no install, no friction.
No-code controller designer
Drag-and-drop interface builder — buttons, sliders, drawing areas, gyroscope controls. Design the controller your game needs without writing a line of UI code.
Ready-made templates
Trivia buzzers, drawing pads, steering wheels, voting interfaces, and mini-game collections — ship the controller on day one.
Custom branding
Your game's colors, fonts, and logos. White-label phone controllers so players never see Beacon — they see your game.
Up to 32 players
Massive party games on a single host with sub-20ms input latency. Optimized routing keeps the room responsive as devices scale.
Universal compatibility
Works in any phone browser — iOS Safari, Android Chrome, no app store required. If it has a browser, it's a controller.
Auto-reconnection
Dropped connection? Beacon buffers inputs on the controller and reconnects to the same session automatically. No user action needed.
Local-first architecture
Lightning-fast local network sessions with transparent cloud relay fallback. You get the speed of LAN with the reach of the internet.
SDK, not a walled garden
The other option is to ship inside someone else's player, hand over 30% of your revenue, and let their brand sit on top of your game. Beacon is the SDK — you keep everything.
Works where you build, runs where your players are
Integrate in your engine of choice. Controllers run in any mobile browser — no app store required.
Game development
- U Unity — primary SDK, Asset Store distribution
- UE Unreal Engine — C++ SDK
- NA Native — iOS, tvOS, Android TV, macOS, Windows
- JS Web games — JavaScript SDK for browsers
- WS Custom — WebSocket API for any platform
Controller deployment
- Zero app installs — runs in any phone browser
- Universal — iOS Safari, Android Chrome, any mobile web
- Offline capable — works on LAN with no internet once connected
- QR code joining — scan and play in under 5 seconds
Pricing that stays out of your way
The SDK is free. Local network sessions always cost $0. You only pay when traffic routes through our cloud relay.
Hobbyist
Personal projects, prototypes, learning
- Unlimited local-network sessions
- Up to 32 devices, under 20ms latency
- Discovery, session management, reconnection
- End-to-end encryption
- Full no-code controller designer
Commercial
Indie games and small commercial projects
- Everything in Hobbyist
- 3,500 cloud relay device-minutes included
- Analytics dashboard and session insights
- Custom branding / white-label controllers
- Priority support
Enterprise
High-volume games, venues, corporate training, education
- Dedicated relay infrastructure
- Volume discounts
- SLAs and dedicated support
- Custom integrations
- Procurement, legal, and security review
Usage overages
When you exceed your Commercial tier limits:
per device-minute
per GB
What 3,500 device-minutes covers
- • ~75 sessions, 4 devices for 12 minutes each
- • ~50 sessions, 4 devices for 18 minutes each
- • ~115 sessions, 3 devices for 10 minutes each
Most indie games stay well within this limit. Only your most successful titles will generate meaningful overages.
Contact us for volume pricing if you're consistently exceeding 50,000 device-minutes per month.
The next Jackbox could be yours
Stop building and maintaining networking infrastructure. Put that time into the gameplay that makes people laugh, compete, and come together around a screen.