Coming soon
ButtonHub is a macOS app that puts Bitfocus Companion buttons and QLab cues on any phone in the building. On the venue network, or over the internet when there is no network to share.
It runs on two Macs that watch each other, so one machine dying does not take the show with it. The standby watches the main’s Companion as well as its QLab: a dead Companion stops the main counting as healthy, instead of leaving the standby waiting while every button quietly fails.
Built for theatre, live events and broadcast, where a failure is not a bad user experience but a mistake in front of an audience.
The cue you are on, the one coming next, and the whole list underneath, marking itself as the playhead moves. Big enough to read from behind a keyboard, and about a third of a second behind QLab.
It follows the playhead and the selection, in the show file and the MD’s own, so it stays on the cue being worked on rather than the one QLab happens to be locked to.
Two Macs watching each other, and one address that follows whichever is driving. The standby asks whether the main is actually working: server up, QLab connected, Companion answering. Not just whether something is listening on a port.
Handing the show over is always a person’s call, never an automatic guess. From the outside, a network drop and a dead machine look exactly the same.
If the main’s Companion dies, the main stops reading as healthy. Without that, the standby sits there doing nothing while every button quietly fails. On a rig running Companion without QLab, the liveness check follows Companion instead.
One thing to get right: both Companions need the same layout. ButtonHub presses a position: page, row and column, never a name. So if the standby is arranged differently, the same crew button fires something else.
A chat between the people running the show, on phones and on the operators’ screens. Preset phrases for the calls that come up every night, and colour-coded full-screen flashes for the ones nobody can afford to miss. One link, as many named voices as the show needs.
Sound, comms and a runner on the floor each get their own PIN-locked link with only their own buttons on it, opened in whatever browser is already on their phone. Nobody gets handed the show file, and nobody has to look at Companion or QLab.
On the venue network it needs nothing else at all. Where there is no shared network it runs over our own relay instead, and a printed QR sheet gets each person to their own page.
Want to know when it ships?
£40
One purchase
Everything on this page, on the venue network.
One purchase covers two Macs, so a main and a standby cost the same as running one. Each Mac claims an activation, and if a machine dies you free its activation and the replacement takes it.
Buy ButtonHubPrice includes VAT
£5
Per month
For shows where there is no shared network to put everyone on.
The same links come in over our own relay, so a phone on mobile data reaches the page it would have had on the LAN. Optional, and off until you turn it on.
An ordinary macOS app, sitting alongside Companion and QLab on the machine already running the show. macOS 10.15 or later, Apple silicon and Intel, and nothing at all to install on the phones.
Companion over its HTTP API, QLab over OSC. Companion itself is never exposed to the phones.
Anything with a browser on the venue network. No app to install, no accounts, and every link is PIN locked with only its own buttons on it.
The same links come in over our own relay, so a phone on mobile data reaches exactly the page it would have on the LAN.
The mode decides what the machine does and what follows what. Here are the five, drawn the same way they appear in the app.
One Mac. The phones talk to it, nothing paired and nothing mirrored. The right mode for most gigs.
Two Macs, paired. Playheads, presses and settings follow the main. The backup fires nothing at all until somebody promotes it.
Show sync, and presses aimed at Companion fire on the other machine’s Companion too.
One Mac, nothing paired, firing straight into other machines’ QLab and Companion.
This Mac flashes MD messages and joins the talkback chat. Nothing to set up and nothing fired.