🔄 Staying Up To Date
Switchboard is not in the Microsoft Store or on Google Play. Both apps are published as files attached to a GitHub Release, which means nothing tells your computer or your phone that a newer build exists unless the app itself goes and looks.
Both apps do. Neither installs anything without asking.
🖥️ On the desktop
Settings → Updates.
Switchboard checks when it starts and then every six hours, and there is a Check now button for when you do not want to wait. If it finds a newer build it downloads the installer straight away, quietly, in the background — so that when you decide to update, the only thing left is a restart.
When it is ready you get Restart and install. Pressing it closes Switchboard, runs the installer silently into the same folder you chose the first time, and starts the app again when it is done. Your settings, your paired phones and the host identity behind them all survive: the installer writes over the program files and leaves your data alone.
Nothing is ever installed on its own. The download happens without being asked; the install never does.
:::note Running from a checkout A development build is never offered an update — there is no installed copy for a release to replace. Settings will say so. :::
📱 On Android
Settings → App updates.
The app checks each time you open it. If there is something newer, a sheet comes up with what changed and two answers:
- Download, then Install — which hands the APK to Android's own package installer. That confirmation screen is the system's, it shows you what is about to replace what, and it is not skippable.
- Not now — a snooze, one day by default, and 1, 3 or 7 days on the update screen.
There is no "never". The version you are refusing is superseded next week; if you want the app to stop looking, the switch on the update screen is the honest way to say so.
"Install unknown apps"
Android will not let an app start an install unless you have allowed that app specifically. It is a per-app setting rather than a prompt, so Switchboard cannot ask you for it in a dialog — it opens the right settings page instead. Grant it once and the install goes through from then on.
:::warning Sideloading over a different build If the copy you have installed was signed with a different key from the release — for instance you built it yourself, or installed an unsigned CI build — Android will refuse the update and say so. Uninstalling first is the only way past it, and uninstalling takes your paired desktops with it. :::
🚦 Release channels
Both apps offer the same three, and each one is cumulative:
| Channel | What you are offered |
|---|---|
| Stable | Finished releases only. |
| Beta | Release candidates, plus every stable release. |
| Alpha | Everything, the moment it is built. |
Cumulative matters: on beta you still get the stable release that supersedes the beta build you are running, rather than being stranded between them.
The channel starts as the one your build came from — install an alpha and you keep getting alphas — and you can change it on either client. It is a setting on that device, not on your account, so your desktop and your phone can sit on different channels.
Newer is judged by version number and never by release date. A stable release cut after an alpha is not an upgrade for someone running that alpha, and Switchboard will not offer it as one.
🧯 When it does not work
- "GitHub answered 403" — the check is unauthenticated and GitHub allows sixty an hour per address. Wait, or press Check again later. Switchboard reports it rather than retrying in a loop.
- Nothing is offered even though a release exists — check which channel you are on. A stable install is not offered alpha or beta builds.
- A release with no matching file — releases whose Windows or Android job failed still exist. That client is offered nothing rather than being handed a file it cannot use.