The phone remote

Running the show and setting targets from a phone on the same network.

LMX serves a small web page to any phone, tablet or laptop on the same network. Open a browser and go to the address LMX prints in its console when it starts:

[LMX Remote] http://192.168.1.24:8765

Or scan it. Configuration → Remote shows that address as a QR code: point a phone camera at the desk screen and the browser opens on it, with nothing typed. The same page is where the remote is turned on and off.

Add it to your home screen and it opens full-screen, without browser chrome.

Turning it on and off

The remote is on by default, and the setting is saved with the show - so a venue that does not want a web server on its network turns it off once.

CONFIG REMOTE OFF          the desk stops answering on that port
CONFIG REMOTE ON           and starts again
CONFIG REMOTE              says which it is, and what the address is

Turned off, the page is not served at all: a phone already looking at it stops being updated and says so rather than showing a picture of the show as it was. Any target a phone had moved and not saved goes back where the show holds it, the same as when a phone is put in a pocket.

The remote is a performance and focusing tool, not a second desk. It runs the show and it sets targets. It cannot patch, cannot edit a cue and cannot record one - see What it deliberately will not do below.

Playback

The first tab runs the cue stack.

GO names the cue it will fire, as the desk’s does, and BACK steps back. STOP stops the list.
The list below reads exactly as the cue table at the desk: green is the cue that is live, amber is the one GO would fire next. Tap a cue to go to it - the quickest way to take a rehearsal from a point.
Where a show has several cue lists, chips along the top pick one.
Blackout is held for a second rather than tapped, so a stray touch in the dark cannot put the show out. Once it is on, a plain tap releases it.
The grand master rides beside it.

Faders

The second tab is the fader bank of the page the desk is showing.

Chips along the top change page, exactly as PAGE does at the desk. Every page’s faders stay live; changing page only changes what you are looking at.
Each strip rides its fader, and FLASH is held - press for on, release for off, so a lamp can never be left latched by a touch that slid away.
RELEASE ALL fades every raised fader down.

Faders are loaded and named at the desk. The remote rides them; it does not assign them.

Targets

The third tab is the reason the remote has a programmer side at all: it lets whoever is standing on the mark set the target, rather than whoever is at the desk.

The job runs in one direction down the screen:

Pick a target. Tap the bar at the top for the list of every target in the show, with where it sits and what is captured to it. NEW TARGET makes one at centre stage (or where the current one is), ready to be dragged onto its mark.
Capture some fixtures to it. Tap change for the fixture and group grids, with a keypad for typing ids. Captured fixtures track the target: move it and they follow. Capturing also selects what you captured, so the two controls below are already pointed at the right lanterns.
See what you are doing. HL highlights the selection so you can tell which lantern you are holding, and the INT strip sets a level - bright enough to see where the beam lands, dim enough to look at. Both act on the selection, which the step above has just set for you.
Drag it onto its mark. The plan is the desk’s own target editor on a phone: the same view of the stage, the same way round (it follows the plan rotation you set at the desk), lanterns drawn as they are there, and a captured fixture filled red exactly as the desk fills it. Lines run from the captured fixtures to the target, so you can see what is aimed at it. Drag the marker; the lanterns swing across as you go, and it turns red while you hold it. HEIGHT sets how far off the floor the target sits, which a plan cannot show. Tapping another target on the plan picks that one up. Pinch the plan with two fingers to zoom in on it - a crowded bar spreads out while the fixture ids and the target’s name stay the size they are readable at, and the two fingers pan as well as zoom, so you can work close in on one corner of the stage. The badge in the corner shows how far in you are and puts the plan back to fitting the whole rig when you tap it. Nothing else on the page zooms, and a pinch never moves the target you are holding.
Keep it or drop it. A moved target shows a MOVED badge, a dashed ring where the show still holds it, and a dashed line to where you have dragged it. SAVE TARGET keeps the new position; REVERT puts it back.

This is the same live-then-commit model the Target Editor window uses at the desk: nothing is permanent until you save it.

A move you walk away from is undone. Thirty seconds after the last remote disconnects, any target still holding an unsaved move goes back where the show had it - so a phone that goes into a pocket mid-drag cannot leave a lantern pointing somewhere nobody chose. A saved move is never touched, and the delay is long enough to ride out a reconnect.

Small things that matter in a theatre

The moon button dims the screen. A bright phone in the auditorium spoils the dark for everyone; the remote remembers the setting.
The screen is kept awake while the remote is open, so it does not lock halfway through pointing a lantern.
The desk answers back. When something cannot happen the remote shows what the desk said - “Target 9 not found”, or a refusal - rather than reporting every command as a success.

What it deliberately will not do

The remote is checked against an allow-list at the desk, so these are refused rather than merely hidden:

Recording anything. No cues, palettes, presets, groups or macros. A device in a pocket must not be able to write over your show.
Colour, gobo and beam. The remote stores nothing, so a look it could not keep is a look nobody asked it to change.
Patching, cue editing, timings, effects, configuration, saving and opening files. Those are desk jobs.

The one thing it does write is a target’s position, which is the job it exists for.

Security

The remote answers on port 8765 on every network interface and does not ask for a password - the same assumption Art-Net and sACN make about a lighting network. Treat the lighting network as the boundary: do not expose the desk to an untrusted network or to the internet.

What the remote can ask the desk to do is deliberately narrow, so even a page that reaches it can only drive selection, levels, playback and targets.