PairBeam

JavaScript · Node.js · WebSocket · Electron

PairBeam turns your phone into a touch remote for a Sony Bravia TV — and the PC connected to it — without installing any app. You just open a page in the browser.

How it works

The system is made of three pieces that talk to each other:

  • Relay (server.js) — a small bridge server that forwards commands from the web page to the agent, and serves the remote's web page.
  • Agent (desktop-agent.js) — runs on the PC connected to the TV. It finds the TV on the network (SSDP / subnet scan), authenticates with the Sony Bravia IRCC API, and executes the commands it receives. On startup it prints a 6-digit pairing code in its console window.
  • Web page (public/mobile.html) — the touch remote itself: opens in a browser (phone or PC) and connects using the code shown by the agent.

A desktop-app/ folder packages the relay and the agent into a single Electron desktop app that opens a dedicated window already connected to the remote — no browser, no code to type.

Features

  • Power on/off with Wake-on-LAN, volume, channels, numeric keypad, navigation, colored keys
  • Smart app shortcuts (Netflix, SEN) and PC control (Linux) from the same page
  • Automatic TV discovery on the local network, with manual IP/MAC fallback
  • A diagnostic mode that logs every IRCC command's HTTP response for troubleshooting
  • Standalone Windows installer (PairBeam-Setup.exe), or a classic two-process (relay + agent) distribution for splitting relay and agent across two machines

Waking the TV (Wake-on-LAN)

Most Bravia TVs only power on over the network via a Wake-on-LAN packet, not a regular API call, so the agent needs the TV's MAC address. It tries to detect it automatically from the OS's ARP table after the first contact with the TV; if that fails (e.g. TV on a different subnet), the MAC can be set manually in tv-config.json. The TV's Wake on LAN setting must also be enabled (Settings → Network).

Security

tv-config.json stores the TV's IP, MAC address and auth cookie — it's git-ignored and should never be shared or committed.

Build from source

Requires Node.js 18+.

  • npm install then npm start — run the relay locally
  • npm run agent — run the agent locally
  • npm run build — generate the two classic Windows executables in dist/
  • In desktop-app/: npm install then npm run dist — build the Electron installer
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