How to use your phone as a wireless controller for your PC

Your phone can be a controller for your gaming PC without any extra hardware, and over your home Wi-Fi it feels like a wired Xbox pad. It takes two free apps: Satellite runs on your gaming PC, and Dish runs on your phone. They talk over the Wi-Fi you already have, and your games see a normal controller.

This is the five-minute guide.

What you’ll need

• A phone or tablet running Android 7.0 or newer, or an Amazon Fire tablet from 2018 on
• A gaming PC running Windows 10/11 or Linux
• Both devices on the same Wi-Fi network, ideally 5 GHz or 6 GHz

This guide uses a phone. If the controller you want to send is plugged into another PC, use Dish for Windows or Dish for Linux on that machine instead. Dish for macOS is still being built.

Step 1: Install Dish on your phone

Get Dish from Google Play, or the signed APK from the downloads page. Fire tablets don’t come with Google Play; the downloads page has the steps for them.

Step 2: Install Satellite on your PC

Download Satellite and run it. When it’s done you’ll see a small dish icon in your system tray. That’s Satellite, waiting for a controller.

Already running Sunshine, Apollo, or Wolf to stream games? Dish can pair with that host directly instead, and you can skip Satellite. The Sunshine, Apollo, and Wolf guide covers that path.

Step 3: Pair with a 4-digit PIN

Open Dish on your phone. Within a second or two your gaming PC shows up by name. Tap it, type the 4-digit PIN from Satellite’s dashboard, and you’re connected.

You only do this once. Dish remembers your PC, so next time you open the app and play.

Step 4: Pick how you’ll play

You can play on the touch screen. The on-screen controller follows the pad your game sees, in an Xbox, PlayStation, or Switch layout, with analog triggers you slide for a partial pull and an eight-way d-pad that handles diagonals well.

Or use a real controller. Plug one into your phone over USB, or pair one over Bluetooth (a DualSense, an Xbox pad, an 8BitDo, most anything Android recognizes), and Dish sends that instead. A DualSense or Switch Pro on USB can run in Direct mode, which reads it straight off the cable for motion, the touchpad, and its lights.

Step 5: Press a button. Your game responds.

That’s the whole setup. Open a game that supports a controller, which most PC games do, and play.

Why Wi-Fi instead of Bluetooth

Three reasons you’ll notice:

1. Speed. Over Wi-Fi, Dish feels about as fast as a controller plugged in with a cable, and snappier than a Bluetooth pad. In a fast game, that can decide whether a move lands.
2. Multiple controllers. Bluetooth gets unreliable once several pads connect to one PC. With Dish, four players in your living room is no harder than one.
3. Range. Bluetooth struggles through a wall or two. Dish reaches as far as your Wi-Fi does: another room, another floor.

Common questions

Do I need Sunshine and Moonlight? No. Dish and Satellite work on their own as a wireless gamepad. They also fit into a Sunshine and Moonlight setup if you want the picture on your TV; see Sunshine + Moonlight + Dish.

Will my game see a real Xbox controller? Yes, by default your phone shows up as a standard Xbox controller. You can pick a DualShock 4, DualSense, or Switch Pro per player instead.

Is this safe on a Wi-Fi I don’t fully trust? Yes. Your inputs are encrypted and private to your devices. See the security page for the details.

Can I use multiple phones at once? Yes. Several phones can pair to the same PC, each one its own controller, which makes couch co-op easy.

Where to next

• Connecting a controller to a PC from another room
• The full how-it-works walkthrough
• Why the apps are called “Dish” and “Satellite”

If Dish made your setup better, tips keep the project going.