Status of Unity Remote

Is there an upgrade in the works? There are a few areas which I've noticed that could be improved.

 

Curious about this too.

 

I would love Unity to bring back wifi connection from earlier versions of Remote. Sometimes it is handy to not have to clear a USB port, and will be especially true of some laptops that have few ports.

 

+1. At least it should have proper full screen support on newer iOS devices.

 

Yes Wifi remote please!
Why was everything better in the past?

 

Yes input, the accelerometer and the touch gestures. Simulator is not a replacement for input testing those.
And the usb cable connection is not great because I always loose connection on my iPhone, wireless is so much better. and installing on the device is taking a very long time. I used unity 3.5 back in the the days and was play testing wireless via remote all the time. It's a serious miss not to have this.

 

I would like to see an overall update to the remote.

I'm using the Unity Remote on my iPhone which is mounted in a VR headset. The Unity Remote is invaluable in this regard, but I am noticing it crash the whole editor. If you could just fix the crashing that would be enough for my use case. The crash seems to happen when I resize the game view. Also when I assign a custom resolution to the game view, such as iPhone Wide, same crash happened. I'm on macOS Catalina. The crash freezes up Unity and I have to re-boot my computer in order to fix it.

Thanks

 

Remote is essential for me to test touch controls. The old remote had an option to not mirror the screen content and just respond to the touch. That solved the latency problem. An option to not show the screen mirrored in remote 5 could help. Remote is an essential part of mobile development testing and offers fast iterations and is intuitive. Testing smaller sample scenes isn’t practical because I need to see how touch works in my actual game. I use it regularly in the development of wilderless so I hope there will be an update or at the very least remote will not be Deprecated. I cannot imagine testing on mobile without it.

 

I’m not sure why I would use a device simulator. I can easily see how my game looks on different devices by selecting the appropriate drop down game screen size or aspect ratio. It’s less complicated and instant and built into unity.

 

Yes agreed, input only mode was another great option.

 

@michaelberg

Unity remote is the most important tool for mobile development in the Unity arsenal. Without it it's almost impossible to iterate on touch and gyro controls in a meaningful way, and this would result in games that feel decidedly less polished. Unity remote is used by everyone on our mobile projects- It's a tool that bridges the gap between PC development and mobile so that iteration times can be on par. This is incredibly important.

For remote the current latency is annoying but not a deal breaker, non-native resolution is annoying but not a deal breaker.

As an example, I've been working on some large AR projects recently and not having remote available to iterate has been absolutely awful. I've seen what Unity mobile development without remote is like- and it's absolutely worse. If Unity Remote support is dropped before something has been built to replace it your product will have become significantly less useful.

Unity remote offers near instant iteration times vs 1-10 minute build iterations. This is a much bigger difference than it sounds like when you are actually making games.

Even if you improve the build cycle times, on a large project you will still add a gulf of time between iteration cycles as compared to Remote. You develop code entirely differently when you can't instantly test something.

 

• Editor: Mark unity remote as deprecated inside ProjectSettings->Editor
  
  https://unity3d.com/unity/alpha/202...930.396814640.1589715987-919822218.1589715987
  
  Seems its getting deprecated

 

Thanks for sharing this

I understand depreciations, but can an official from Unity please let us know if there's a replacement, because a remote is an essential pipeline tool for mobile, and I can't imagine testing mobile games without one. It's one of the features that drew me to unity in the first place. I'd appreciate a heads up about the replacement so we can plan accordingly, and for peace of mind.

 

• Simulator is not a solution for input
• live link, don't know how to use it
• new input system, its still in development

So it seems until live link is able to process input and is easy to setup we are out of luck

 

@michaelberg Is there any documentation about LiveLink? I'd like to learn more about it.

 

https://forum.unity.com/threads/livelink-how.797850/

This is what I could find

 

I can appreciate what unity is trying to do here. But I have reservations. it looks like you need to actually build your app to test it via live link, is that correct? It seems like a product to serve a separate purpose than what Unity remote does.

I think unity remote workflow is perfect, just change some of the solid, workflow-relevant suggestions mentioned in this thread. Or even at the very worst, leave it in rather than eliminate it altogether. And if its going to be replaced then do a new version of the same simple workflow because it just works - no installations, no extra steps

 

None of these options appear to be a replacement for Remote. Live Link looks to be a great and welcome feature, but it does not appear to allow for quick code iterations and is thus not a replacement for Remote. I'm sure this is something Unity is aware of, but because of how important Remote is to my workflow I feel it bears repeating.

As a side note about the resolution and performance issues seen in remote:
Oculus Quest now streams 72Hz ultra high resolution video from a PC to a mobile based device over USB 3 - including low latency input back to the host machine. If desired, Unity Remote could be fixed to show near-native like performance.

 

When was making a flying game that controled with gyro, I was using it for controls finetuning, guesture testing, playstesting and as a controller for the editor playmode.

I have to say that the wireless implementation of remote 3 was the best for me, in remote 5 wireless was removed and only cable was possible.

This was not so great because the cable always kept disconnecting on iphone and the cable is in the way of your hands when controlling.

I would be very happy if wireless remote came back. ( wifi is fast enough at 5ghz )

 

Im glad to hear the feedback is being collected Thank you.

Typical case is a wide variety of things: right now I made a bunch of code updates and press play to see the game and I am in it inside 15 seconds. I use the iPad to move around my scene, I change some component values to get my water looking just right etc. I never change scripts during play mode because it crashed once and corrupted my project -it was the only one of two times I lost a project that was unrecoverable (the other was a Mac failure) - thankfully I had backup. I change the aspect ratio dropdown o the fly to instantly see how my game will look on iPads vs older iPhones vs iPhone X.

The device is just the input to see how touch functions, not the performance of the game (which is something ore for. live link tool). Imagine trying to test a Unity Mac/PC game without a keyboard and mouse. We need the attached touch input device to test touch apps. It is literally the hardware interface we need to interact with touch based software, and its more straightforward to attach a touch input device than it is to put the app running on a device. Its not about the game, its about the touch, and with mobile devices fast approaching console level power the real difference between mobile and non mobile is the touch interface, not the hardware. mobile developers are touch developers.

Live Link seems like unity remote on steroids. It looks useful but 2 pints: one is like I said the remote is just so we can test INPUT, specifically touch input, not performance. two performance of the tool is a concern - I use a 2013 MacBook Pro with remote no problem. I can't know until I try it, but im concerned if something like live link will be performance when not using the test computer. unity remote consumes few resources aside from mirroring the image on screen, which as has been mentioned we should be able to turn off like in remote 3 to negate latency.

Also remote doesn't need us to build anything at all, just to press play.

I am getting the feeling that tools like Live Link are being conflated with the purpose of tools live Unity remote - the two serve quite different purposes. I think that's why you re even asking these questions here, and the nature of the questions further back up this feeling.

If I leave you with one message its to please give us the ability to use any touch device as an input just like remote does now. Do live link etc but don't take away something that has a solid place in mobile touch based development pipelines. Just do some of the updates mentioned here and it will be win win.

 

Thanks for listening to us!
Looking forward to see the remote evolve into something better than ever before and not just a removal.

 

Thanks for receiving the feedback! In my case it is a combination of script, scene / prefab changes, as well as editor value tweaks. The thing is when iterating on touch/gyro controls I never know in advance what aspect of the project will need the actual change so having all the possibilities equally available is important.

 

In my project I have a custom touch event system so that I can control touch assignment to elements based on the gameplay rules. It is hard to get things right in the first go, so Unity Remote helps me debug and iterate these touch code very fast (much faster than building with legacy Mono backend of iOS when it was still available). Also, debugging in the editor means that I have access to the inspector to look at values, or else I have to add Debug.Log in a lot of places and filter the outputs.

On Windows, there are touch screen computers that works with the Game view, but I am using a Mac, and I usually dock the laptop to use a monitor with no touch capability. Not having Unity Remote would be a big setback to my workflow.

One thing I do not like about Unity Remote is that it limits the frame rate of the Game view, that it makes the inputs suffer (especially with touch). I know that USB 2.0 cables (which are all current Lightning cables) do not have big bandwidth, but I think the editor should render at normal frame rate to allow inputs pipe in quickly and selectively sends frames at a rate USB allows.

 

It is a wide variety of things. Unity would be a much lesser product without it, or a replacement with the same functionality.

I do use it for setting up, debugging, and tuning controls. But that is only a small bit.

Mostly it is used when adding new content and features. I can test and alter without ever building the game. It makes the iteration time orders of magnitude faster. I'm not even sure I'd be using Unity if it wasn't there, so seeing that it has been marked as depreciated scares me. Doing that without have a working replacement suggests there is a lack of understanding of mobile development within Unity.

I didn't have an iPhone when I started using Unity (Unity 2.6 / Unity iPhone 1.7 (iPhone had a separate build version back then)). Unity only really clicked once I got the phone and could use Unity Remote. It is central to mobile game development.

This week I have finished the main development of a shoot-em-up for mobile, and so as I tweak settings, debug all the new features and settings, and so on, more than half my development time is spent on the Remote, sometimes starting the game every 20 seconds or so. It is a twitch reaction game and is fully playable using the Remote (not as good as a build, but if I can play on the remote, controls should be fine for the average player).

There needs to be Unity Remote. We need to be able to go from working on the game to playing the game in seconds. I saw a webinar recently. One of the participants was a hypercasual game developer who often makes two prototypes a day. I cannot imagine that would be possible without Unity Remote.

It is not perfect, but it is the best option you have by far. These are the ways it could be improved:

• Less lag
• Higher frame rate
• Faster starting (it is impossible to debug any input during opening an app as they game has been playing for a while before it gets going

I often test stuff by cobbling bits together in the editor. I wouldn't even consider making a build. Live Link is no substitute for that.

 

Firstly, I just want to make a point. Follow advice and set Resolution to Downsize in the Unity Remote section of the Editor settings and latency is usable even for fast-paced games like the shoot-em-up I am working on.

Secondly, the Unity Manual for 2020.1 says use Device Simulator instead. That is in no way a replacement. You cannot control the game with it. https://docs.unity3d.com/2020.1/Documentation/Manual/UnityRemote5.html

 

Appreciate the use cases and feedback shared on this thread. I will circle back with the team internally and re-evaluate the messaging & deprecated label in 2020.1. Our motivation was to continue to invest more greatly in Device Simulator but understandably it has its own set of limitations which doesn't fully replace the behavior & functionality the remote provided.

 

Just chiming in... we use Unity Remote quite a lot and I was a bit frustrated to read in the beta thread that it was being deprecated in 2020.x without any replacement. We have been scratching our heads quite a lot with Unity over the last 18+ months and this is another headscratcher. A lot of our workflows seem to be going slower or backwards.

Hopefully Unity Remote will live to fight another day... or year.

 

I do sense a danger in that unity is making too much data driven decisions.

Usage data is an example where this can mislead you

For example if I would trust the data on how much time I spend using the key to my home during a day you would get an extemely low percentage.
This does not mean the key can be discarded because the little percentage of time it is actually used is essential to get in and out of the house.

 

Thank you for the information. It is much appreciated.

Device Simulator is an interesting new feature that can be very useful, but serves a different purpose to Unity Remote. It should be complimentary, not a replacement.

Unity Remote allows me to press play in the editor and play the game, just as I could with a mouse and keyboard when making a PC game. This is the core of working with Unity, and mobile is the platform many of your customers develop for. This functionality is essential, and your reply gives me hope it will be retained.

 

My game plays great on pc but for no obvious reason plus funny on android. (Items spawned not moving but tracked as if they are and glitches) without remote I have to waste a lot of time copying it about and running it

 

As practically everyone here I used Unity Remote to develop controls using accelerometers and to debug touch input.
If I didn't have Unity remote I wouldn't have probably even started the developement of my app as the test time for each changes even with the new "script only" build is like 100x slower and the app rely extensively on the sensors.
Plus with the remote I can have real feedback on the device, for example "Is my thumbs covering too much screen area if I put this control here? Is this other control visible then? etc"
For me the Remote has always worked flawlessly, have tens of android devices and it has worked in all of them without hitches.
The only minor pain I had is that if the remote app is not open before launching the editor, I need to restart the editor, but it's a real minor issue.
In my case it was mostly script editing, but of course also changing some script parameters.

@Neonlyte
On android you can still use the remote wireless if you use wireless adb.
It adds additional latency however.

 

On my... just found this out installing alpha12...
Even the app on the Play Store won't download...
Sound like a great week of work on schedule..

And that's weird cannot even find the Device Simulator package anymore.
But since it doesn't handle the input touch I do not see the point anyway.



EDIT : downloaded the remote from here :
- https://apkpure.com/unity-remote-5/com.unity3d.genericremote
But really doesn't work even with android device.
Iphone is not recognized anymore as well

 

I suggest make a placeholder app that just does touch input (new and old systems). That is the major use case (even if not seeing the screen would make it hard). Also make it connect reliably.
Without editor touch input, you're throwing out rapid iteration and going back to build based editors of the 90's. This is a huge chunk of the point of Unity. I have the same issue with networking (I resort to having 2 Unitys running and use a folder syncing program to keep some sense of iteration times)
Please stop deprecating features, with no viable replacement. Live link looks great, but won't be ready for probably a year. Device simulator looks great and is a nice *addition* to remote.
Removing editor touch controls, really is as bad as removing mouse/keyboard from the editor and forcing everyone to do a build every time.

 

Really glad to hear that it won't be deprecated. Testing touch input with the Unity Remote has been vital for us. I can't imagine having to build and deploy the entire app to test minor tweaks to input.

 

hi Lucian, thanks very much to you and your team for keeping the very useful Unity Remote alive

 

Thank you for asking, listening and letting us know. Remote is such an important and intuitive tool in the touch testing process and it's a relief knowing it won't be eliminated without a replacement.

 

Thank you for listening to us. I am about to start testing a concept. It is good to know the workflow for that is something I will be able to continue using.

 

thank you so much for listening to us and taking us into consideration

 

Thanks for the quick response. Just a note, the new app doesn't need to be 100% a replacement. A lot of us would be happy for a gradual rollout of features.

Here's a few ideas I personally would love

• Touch new/old input system
• Screen mirroring
• Gyro/Accel
• AR camera tracking coordinates (using Apple/Android AR APIs)
  • Think of this as a 6 dof controller
  • For realistic camera movement realtime recording
  • For setting of ANY position/rotation transform. Imagine keyframing camera positions in the timeline instantly.
    • Click the phone's volume key to start syncing selected GO’s transform, relative to it's starting position, click again to stop/add a keyframe. With some solid keyboard shortcuts for timelines you'd have ultra quick iteration (better than any animation program)
    • Now imagine clicking a character's bone GO and immediately have *6* axis aligned. That takes ages with a mouse and actively discourages speed (and fun!) of animating.
• Audio/microphone mirroring. This one seems pointless, but as a musician and audio guy, to be able to hear an approximation live on the phone speakers would be great. The mic is a bonus, but even that would be useful to get a real world quick test.
• Camera mirroring. So editor gets a live view from the phone camera(s)

 

Hey look what I found. Not a lot of people said yes at Unite Copenhagen...

 

Thanks for the link

I have to point out that this has me concerned. In the video it sounds like the people at Unity were expecting everyone in the room to laugh when asked if the unity remote was useful, and it looks like in their experience no one likes or uses it. This is the opposite of the experience as a mobile developer where the unity remote is an essential iterative tool.

What concerns me is that how can Unity developers not understand how important unity remote is? Like how did this divide happen? Do they not develop mobile games?

Like many people I have loved Unity for a long time and still do. I think we are trying to protect it from itself because there are quite a few examples like this where the roadmap doesn't seem to match the needs and reality of mobile game development. And the attitude in this video clip is a revealing, and upsetting, example of that.

 

I think most indie developers, which may be the majority of people going to Unite, are targeting PCs.

First off, one needs adequate knowledge of the mobile platform in order to develop for it -- just look at most of the thread topics in the iOS and Android forum. The development hardware is also a big investment for many people, like having to own a Mac, an iPhone and an iPad to develop for iOS, and having to own a bunch of Android phones of various price ranges and brands for testing. Also, to make a good experience, one needs more effort to design and optimize for mobile devices than for a PC (raw performance, input device choices, screen size, etc.)

Mobile game market is already saturated and "pay-to-win", so incentives are less and less for small developers to join, unless they can strike a deal with a publisher. And, there are a lot more effective distribution channels for PC (Steam, GOG, or even itch.io) than there are for mobile, like you only get App Store for iOS and all of its app review mess, and Android users are very unlikely to download a game outside of Google Play (sorry Amazon...).

And I agree with you. Not suggesting they have done so, but Unity people should not make big decision like deprecating a product just based on a row call at a convention where only the biggest fans are going to be there. (I can't imagine myself using paid time-off to go to this kind of convention, unless it's a business trip. )

 

Its hard to know without being there, but lets be honest as this thread has shown there are plenty of people who've used Unity Remote, there are a good number of people who still do, though probably even more that don't. However this is not because it has no use, but because its not been updated in any meaningful way for almost 4 years!

I just tried using it now after playing around with the Device Simulator ( which is looking like it has a lot of potential but is no replacement ) only to discover on a iPhoneX that the display is shrunk way down as its never been updated to respect safearea or explicitly use the entire display, which makes it pretty much useless for checking UI usability on the device. Its a shame really as there isn't much that needs to be done to make it useful, it just needs some period maintenance.

Question - if wireless support was added back does that mean you could use it to connect to iOS device via Windows without having to install iTunes? I mean i'd love wireless support just in general anyway, but not having to have iTunes installed would be icing on the cake.

 

Thanks Lucian for listening to us!