This September a bunch of KDE developers, me included, will gather for a week in Randa, Switzerland, to work on awesome new ideas for KDE. The theme of the sprint is around mobile apps, so KDE Connect will be one of the focus of attention.
The goals for KDE Connect in this sprint are the following:
- Make a release for Plasma 5
- Make a release for Android with Material design
- Add support for answering texts (SMS) from your computer
- Some more cool stuff :)
But of course it is not only about KDE Connect: we will also help to shape the future of new KDE apps on smartphones: ports of desktop apps, brand new ideas, new tools to improve the development, etc.
To make this possible, there is a fundraiser open that aims to cover the costs of this sprint. If you can contribute with some money, it is a huge way to help KDE and KDE Connect!
Since KDE is a community of people who make free software, and nowadays we use a lot of software in our smartphones, it makes me happy to see this effort to have presence there as well. I hope you share this point of view, and also that you can help the fundraiser with a donation. Thanks a lot!
PS: Aleix Pol and David Edmundson also posted in their blogs about their projects for KDE Connect in Randa, check them out!
Albert Vaca's blog 
Ive been using kde connect ever since i found out about it. its brilliant, and the new features sound exciting. cant wait.
Albert, thank you very much for KDE Connect, it is freaking amazing in the vast number of features as well as the variety of them. I also just saw the blog post by David Edmundson mentioning the syncing stuff between computers using KDE Connect as the middle man and that is fantastic idea.
Anyway, I just wanted to say how much you are AWESOME because KDE Connect is freaking fantastic and I thanks to projects like this from KDE I am getting closer and closer to switch to KDE permanently.
Will it be possible to connect a Phone (Wifi) to a computer (LAN) that are on the same network?
Currently, even if both can ping each other, KDE Connect finds neither. However, if I connect my Laptop to the same wifi, connect the phone, and then switch to LAN, the connection remains. So only the discovery and connecting do not work between LAN and Wifi.
this works for me. Maybe your Router does some blocking there?
hi,
in manjaro not working.
thank
Thank you so much for KDE connect. It’s already amazing but I’m looking forward being able to reply to sms.
I always leave the cellphone somewhere in the house, so now I can see if it’s important to reach it or not. (Maybe you could include a “ring me now” so I can locate it hehe) Cant wait for the final version, you guys are genius, thanks for making our life easier.
what is the status of “support for answering texts (SMS) from your computer”?
thanks
Just installed it in OpenSUSE 42.2 and on my faithful old Samsung Galaxy S3.
On the Android, I just installed the app from Google Play.
On the OpenSUSE machine, it was already there and I only had to adjust the firewall – dead easy, just select and allow the service.
Then I opened the KDE Connect app on my Android, and it had already found my KDE box.
I was already sold on the feature list… but wow. Been playing with it intermittently for 0.5h or so and already blown away by the seamlessness of the integration.
I started with Linux in 1997 after ditching Windows NT in disgust, so I’m coming up on 20 years, back in the old days when you had to make sure your ISA cards had the same jumper settings as the kernel. I have never, never, never in my life with Linux seen an “out-of-the-box” experience so flawlessly easy.
Connecting my phone until now has always been a patchwork of wget commands and the (very, very, very useful and good) Palapa webserver, but it’s never had features like this. Like the remote control.
And then my gripe… “Multimedia control doesn’t seem to do anything!”. D’uh! I launched VLC on OpenSUSE and KDE Connect instantly noticed it and could control it. Gripe gone.
The phone is mounted to my filesystem, df is showing it and it browses flawlessly through a 1980s serial terminal, Konsole, and Dolphin.
Ring my Phone? Battery Monitoring on my workstation’s screen? What?
“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” –Henry Ford.
KDE Connect is something special. Every contributor should be proud of this thing, you’ve created something great.
No Android app has ever been promoted to my main home screen so fast.
This is going to make Windows and Apple users jealous.
As part of the install process for Linux desktop machines, I’d go so far as to have the installer ask if the user has an Android phone and wants to connect it.
As Android takes over the mobile device segment, this tool might even be central to adoption of Linux on the desktop.
A heartfelt thank you for a truly useful tool.
Lawrence Wade
Ottawa, Canada
(lawrence p wade AT gmail dot com, remove whitespaces and figure out the rest!)
thank you very much