Setup & Pairing

How it fits together

There are two halves. The phone is the transmitter: it shows the sticks and switches, and streams their positions. The companion is a small application on the computer running the simulator: it receives that input and presents it to the operating system as an ordinary game controller, which the simulator reads exactly as it would a physical one. The two halves talk directly to each other over your local network. Nothing is routed through the internet, and no account is involved.

1. Install the companion

Install the companion on the computer that runs the simulator — not on the phone. See Download for current platform availability. On Windows the installer also sets up the driver that makes the virtual controller possible, and opens the single firewall rule the companion needs.

2. Put both devices on the same network

The phone and the computer must be on the same local network. This is the single most common reason a setup does not work. Worth knowing: many guest and corporate networks isolate devices from one another even when both are connected, so a home network or a phone hotspot is the more reliable choice.

3. Connect the phone

The companion shows a QR code. Scan it with the phone and the two are paired. There is a short code under it if you would rather type. The phone remembers the computer afterwards, so this is a first-run step, not something you repeat.

What the virtual controller does

The companion creates one virtual game controller on the computer, for the sole purpose of letting a flight simulator be flown from the phone. It behaves like a standard gamepad:

• Four analog axes — two sticks — carrying roll, pitch, yaw and throttle, plus switch inputs for the controls a simulator expects to be toggled.
• Input comes only from the paired phone. The virtual controller never synthesises keyboard or mouse events, and does not read or inject input anywhere else on the system.
• Only one device flies at a time, so two phones can never fight over the same controller. Handing over between them is deliberate and is reported on screen.
• On any handover or dropped connection the throttle is driven to its minimum first. Losing the link can never leave the aircraft holding the throttle it had.
• The virtual controller exists only while the companion is running, and is removed when it exits.

The artificial horizon is a separate matter, because it depends on the simulator sending flight data back. Liftoff does. Where it does, the phone draws an attitude display alongside the sticks, and that data stays on your local network. Where it does not, the sticks and switches work exactly the same — there is simply nothing to draw.

Network and firewall

The companion listens on your local network only. Nothing it opens is reachable from the internet, and it makes no outbound connection of its own.

On Windows the installer opens the one firewall rule the companion needs, for private and domain networks only. If you instead allow it through a firewall prompt by hand, keep it off public networks — a shared or guest network is not somewhere to run this.

About the driver

Creating a virtual controller on Windows requires a kernel-level driver, ViGEmBus, which the installer sets up for you and skips if it is already present. It is a widely used open-source component, not something specific to this app. You can decline it and the companion will still install and run — but the virtual controller is what the simulator actually reads, so without the driver you cannot fly.

Troubleshooting

Still stuck

If none of the above helps, write in via Support with your setup and what you have already tried.