Combust Media
← Hearth

Watch away from home

Hearth streams over your home network — but with a free tool called Tailscale, your phone can reach your Hearth server from anywhere, over a private, end-to-end encrypted connection. Nothing changes about how Hearth works: no accounts to create with us, no ports to open on your router, and your media never passes through anyone's servers — not even ours.

This takes about ten minutes, once.

What you'll need

  • Your computer running Hearth (macOS, Windows or Linux)
  • Your phone with the Combust Media app
  • A free Tailscale account (sign in with Google, Apple, Microsoft or GitHub — free for personal use)

1. Install Tailscale on the computer running Hearth

Download it from tailscale.com/download, install, and sign in. That's it — Tailscale runs quietly in the background.

2. Install Tailscale on your phone

Get the Tailscale app from the App Store or Play Store and sign in with the same account. Your phone and computer are now on a private network with each other, wherever they are in the world.

3. Find your computer's Tailscale address

Open the Tailscale app or menu-bar icon on the computer and copy its address — it always starts with 100. (for example 100.101.102.103).

4. Add the server in Combust Media

In the Combust Media app: Hearth → Add by IP address, and enter the Tailscale address (add :8965 if asked for a port). If this phone was already paired at home, the same server appears — your library, your progress, everything.

Pairing for the first time away from home? The PIN is on your computer's screen — or open Hearth's web admin from your phone's browser at http://<tailscale-address>:8965/admin/ to see it remotely.

Tips

  • Turn the quality down when the connection is slow. In the player, open the video settings and pick 720p or 480p — your Hearth server converts the stream on the fly. Original quality can be more than a hotel Wi-Fi (or your home connection's upload speed) can carry.
  • Tailscale uses your phone's VPN slot while active. Toggle it off when you don't need it; your home streaming is unaffected.
  • The computer running Hearth needs to be awake — check its sleep settings if the server seems to vanish.

Why we recommend it this way

We designed Hearth so your files stay yours. Tailscale connections are end-to-end encrypted between your own devices — no middleman can see your media, including us. It's the same technology trusted by companies for private networking, and it costs nothing for personal use.