The all-new Connect

Paul Matthijs Lombert -

Three years ago, Connect was an industry-first. Getting a push notification on your iPhone or even Watch was much easier than having to check your email for a transfer report. Since then, Connect has become an essential part of many workflows.

Three years on a macOS or Windows timescale isn’t much, but for iOS and Android it’s a lifetime. With the mobile landscape changing so fast, it took us quite some time to figure out what would be the best way forward. We wanted to be able to continue building out its feature set, accomodate for other platforms beyond iOS and even mobile, and open up Connect. But most importantly, we wanted to add three things:

  • Connect for Android
  • Support for multiple apps, at the same time.
  • A live overview of all transfers
TLDR: Today, we release a new Connect, with all that, and more, together with Hedge 20.1. And yes, Connect is still free!

Like background stories? Keep on reading 😁

Connect for Android

Because, duh. When we built Connect, we hadn’t even considered building a Hedge for Windows, let alone a Connect for Android. Hedge was a three-man band that just wanted to see if this push notification idea would work in reality.

Fast forward to today: there’s a Hedge for Mac and Windows, with Linux and iOS versions in the works, and much more in development. Life is very different. But the #1 request is a Connect for Android, so here you go:

A live view of your transfers

With Hedge, we try to only confront you with actionable information: something has finished, something went wrong, something unexpected happened. No frills. It simply doesn’t make sense to stare at a display watching numbers change, waiting for something to finish.

However, with Hedge being more and more used for backups rather than offloads, just sending notifications doesn’t suffice. The new Connect therefor comes with a live view of your transfers:

Support for multiple apps and devices

Because Hedge is the only app in this space that allows you to activate up to 3 computers, many of you use Hedge on their iMac in the studio and Macbook Pro while on the go, or on a Mac at home and a PC in the lab.

Previously you could only connect to one Hedge at a time. No more: the new Connect allows you to connect as many Hedges as you see fit, simultaneously, all with their own discrete code. Security assured.

When creating a new code, you can also enter a computer name, so it’s easy to know which Hedge is which when managing multiple installations or even an ingest department:

Opening Up

As said before, we don’t like to reinvent the wheel. That goes two ways: it would be silly if you would have to install a mobile companion app for every tool you use. That’s just a waste of time and space. So, we’re opening up Connect to third parties.

Supported by a modern API, it’s super easy to hook up any app or process to Connect. Feel free to get in touch if you’d like a simple way to offer notifications and live updates to your user ✉️

The next Connect

From the get-go, we’ve had a lot more in mind for Connect than “just” push notifications. The possibilities of having a satellite app not only tickled our minds, but yours too: by far the most feature requests we receive are about Connect,

Let’s see if the new Connect has that same effect. The sky is the limit 🚀