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Phone Setup (PWA)

dnaidoo621 edited this page Jun 15, 2026 · 1 revision

Phone Setup (PWA)

Glide is a Progressive Web App — you can add it to your phone's home screen and it opens fullscreen, just like a native app. No Play Store or App Store involved.


Android (Chrome)

  1. Open Glide in Chrome (scan the QR code on your HTPC)
  2. Tap the (three-dot) menu in the top right
  3. Tap "Add to Home Screen"
  4. Name it Glide and tap Add

The Glide icon appears on your home screen. Tap it to open the controller directly in fullscreen — no browser chrome, no address bar.

Chrome on Android may show a banner at the bottom of the screen automatically offering to install. You can tap that instead of going through the menu.


iOS (Safari)

  1. Open Glide in Safari (Chrome and Firefox on iOS don't support PWA install)
  2. Tap the Share button (box with arrow pointing up)
  3. Scroll down and tap "Add to Home Screen"
  4. Name it Glide and tap Add

The icon appears on your home screen. Opens in standalone mode with no Safari navigation.


What you get

Feature Browser tab Installed PWA
Works offline (cached UI) Yes Yes
Home screen icon No Yes
Fullscreen (no browser chrome) No Yes
Status bar teal accent Partial Yes
Instant load (cached assets) Yes Yes

How it works

Glide's service worker pre-caches 14 static assets on first load:

  • The HTML shell, CSS tokens, and all JS/JSX files
  • React 18 and Babel (served locally — no CDN)
  • All 4 icon sizes

This means the controller UI loads instantly from cache even on a slow LAN connection. The service worker only fetches fresh files when CACHE_VERSION is bumped in a new release.

What's NOT cached: WebSocket connections (always live), the QR code image (/qr.png), and the health endpoint — these bypass the service worker entirely.


Updating after a Glide upgrade

When you install a new version on your HTPC, the cached files on your phone may be stale. The service worker clears the old cache automatically on first load after an upgrade — just open the app once while connected to the LAN and it will update itself.

If the controller looks wrong after an upgrade, force-refresh: on Android hold the Glide icon → App Info → Clear Cache, then reopen.

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