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Companion App: Overview & Connecting

The ShowRevue companion app puts the show in your pocket: live cues, timecode, show state, crew chat, note capture and Stage Display messaging on iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch. It connects over the local network or through the cloud, and switches between the two automatically.

:::info Licence tiers The tier that matters is the host Mac's. An iPhone or iPad on the venue network joins over the LAN Live Notes server, which the Mac hosts from the Capture tier up. A cloud show (join from anywhere), remote-over-internet roaming and the Apple Watch app all need the Mac on the Production tier. The companion app itself is free. :::

Ways to connect​

  • Scan the QR code. Open the Connection Guide on the Mac and scan it. Fastest on the venue network.
  • Nearby Macs. The app discovers ShowRevue Macs on the same network automatically. Tap to join; enter the Live Notes PIN if one is set.
  • Cloud show code. Sign in with your ShowRevue account (Sign in with Apple supported) and enter the six-letter show code, or pick from your show list. The app jumps straight to a show that's live right now. Works from anywhere.

Your name and role come from your web profile. Your role (from the role picker. Lighting (LX), DSM, Audio 1, …) determines your department everywhere: chat chips, filters, @dept alerts and which note category the composer offers first.

Open any cloud show​

Signed in with your ShowRevue account, the app can open any of your cloud shows directly, no host Mac in the room and no recording needed. Pick a show from your list (or enter its code) and the app runs off its online data: live cues, timecode, show state and chat all arrive over the cloud.

Director tab (iPad only)​

On iPad, the companion adds a Director tab. A full stage-manager calling display that runs a show off online data alone. Open one of your cloud shows and Director tracks it live: NOW / NEXT cue cards and the standby → GO countdown, driven by the incoming LTC mapped onto the show's cue sheet. No recording has to be selected: timecoded cuepoints work without one, because they're show-level beats that belong to the show itself.

The Director tab is removed on iPhone. It doesn't appear there, where the screen is too small for a calling display. iPhone keeps Live Notes, Stage Display messaging and the show monitor; the iPad gets those too, plus Director.

Automatic LAN ⇄ cloud roaming​

Connected via the cloud but standing next to the host Mac? Every ~20 seconds the app looks for the show on the local network and, when it finds the same show, silently upgrades to the direct LAN route. Latency drops to milliseconds and the link survives internet loss. If the LAN host later disappears, it falls back to the cloud just as silently. PIN-protected shows roam too once you've entered the PIN once.

The transport badge next to the latency readout always shows which route you're on: green LAN or blue CLOUD. The latency figure beside it is the real measured delay from the Mac to your device.

Offline resilience​

LAN sessions also run a peer-to-peer mesh between every device in the room. iPhones, iPads, Mac Monitors and the host Mac. If the host Mac crashes, or the venue has no internet at all, chat keeps flowing device-to-device and queued notes relay through the mesh to whichever device can still reach a server. Nothing is lost; everything reconciles when the Mac returns.

:::note Venue WiFi Networks with client isolation (common on guest WiFi) block device-to-device discovery. Real production networks are usually fine, and the mesh also works over peer-to-peer WiFi/Bluetooth with no network at all. :::

If the Mac stops sending​

The app tells you loudly rather than showing a frozen page: a warning banner appears within seconds of the host going quiet, and a connecting spinner shows while a link is being established. Detection is based on the Mac's own heartbeat stamps, so a quiet moment in the show is never mistaken for a dead Mac.