NVDA Remote on m1 Mac

By Justin Harris, 1 December, 2021

Forum
macOS and Mac Apps

Hey everyone,
I have an m1 MacBook Air coming in in a few days. Since it can't do bootcamp, I am just trying to figure out how I will do things on my windows desktop, which I use for my online radio station.
A few months ago, someone developed an app for iPhone that would let you interface with NVDA via the remote add-on. To do this with the iPhone, one needs a bluetooth keyboard.
Since M1 Macs can run many iPhone apps, I am curious as to if this one works or not. If it does, then I really wouldn't even need bootcamp.
I know there are other solutions out there like Teamviewer, but I have found those to be rather slow in comparison to the NVDA remote add-on.
If anyone has done this, your feedback would be much appreciated.

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Comments

By Justin Harris on Wednesday, December 1, 2021 - 23:49

No, that is not the goal. The goal here is to be able to control the radio pc remotely, for example when doing a remote broadcast, and nobody else is in studio.
There are apps for running a radio station on Mac OS, but that is not something I want to do. I already have a lot invested in the Windows software I use. So, all that is needed is a way to control that pc when away, and like I said, Teamviewer and the like are a lot slower than the nvda add-on. So really hoping this will work. Looking at tracking, the Macbook comes in today, so I guess I will know soon.

By dog on Wednesday, December 1, 2021 - 23:49

You could try installing VNC server in your Windows computer https://www.realvnc.com/en/connect/download/vnc/windows/ 3
And then connect with Apple's included screen sharing tool, as in "vnc://192.168.0.1" replacing this with your Windows computer address.

So, in summary, some alternatives are:
- RealVNC (linked above)
- Jump Desktop
- Royal TS

btw, Royal TSX supports AppleScript

By Justin Harris on Wednesday, December 1, 2021 - 23:49

How does this Real VNC work with both NVDA and Voiceover? Is it faster than TeamViewer for example? I look forward to hearing a bit more about this.

By Wenwei on Wednesday, December 1, 2021 - 23:49

I thought interfacing with NVDA via a remote add-on was only an app concept that someone posted early this year. I would like to know more if this is indeed a reality. I will definitely be doing a google search whenever I have more than just a free moment!

By Justin Harris on Wednesday, December 1, 2021 - 23:49

Nope, it is a real thing. I just looked it up on the App Store. Still no idea if it will work on the m1 MacBook, as UPS hasn't made it to me just yet.

By Justin Harris on Wednesday, December 1, 2021 - 23:49

Got it downloaded, but while I can hear things happening on my studio pc, no audio comes to my Mac. Not entirely sure why. Maybe there is something I need to do to get it working?

By dog on Wednesday, December 1, 2021 - 23:49

What app are you using? TeamViewer?

If yes, you need to enable sound:

1.- In TeamViewer, go to the main window and click on Extras > Options
2.- In the left sidebar, click on "Remote Control" (third option from the top)
3.- In the Remote Control section, check 'Play computer sounds and music'
4.- Click OK to apply changes.

By Justin Harris on Wednesday, December 1, 2021 - 23:49

No, this app is called NVDA Remote. It is an iPhone app, meant to be used with a bluetooth keyboard, but since I am using an m1 Mac, I was able to download it just fine. I can even connect to my nvda installation on my desktop, but with this app I get no sound. I hope this can be fixed, as this would be ideal.

By Chris on Wednesday, December 1, 2021 - 23:49

NVDA Remote doesn't send or receive audio. If you want audio, use Team Viewer or Microsoft Remote Desktop. I don't know how accessible either are on macOS as I haven't used them in a while, but RDP works quite well. It's peer-to-peer though, so you'll either need to be on the same network or configure your Windows computer to be accessible on the Internet by port forwarding, using remote port forwarding via SSH tunneling, or configure a VPN. You also need at least the Pro edition of Windows to turn your computer into an RDP server.

By Justin Harris on Wednesday, December 1, 2021 - 23:49

Okay, will give TeamViewer another try, though from what I remember it was slow last time. If I recall, I have tried rdp before, but it literally logged me out on my studio computer to log me in remotely, which messed up everything going out to the broadcast. I need to be able to interface remotely but not have it actually effect my session Windows side if that makes sense. If there is no way to make NVDA Remote work for me, then TeamViewer it is, but I had high hopes for this app, as when on Windows, the NVDA Remote add-on is so much faster. But since there is no bootcamp for m1 Macs yet, I had high hopes that this nvda remote app would work. I hope the developer can see this and perhaps make something happen. If he was able to create an app that would interface with the nvda add-on in the first place, surely he can make it work on the Mac as well.

By Justin Harris on Wednesday, December 1, 2021 - 23:49

Ugh, Teamviewer for Mac is a nightmare with VoiceOver. No easy way to connect. I can see the list of computers in my account as expected, but can't actually connect to one. VO + space does nothing. No context menu with an option to connect. No easy to find connect button. Only way in was through the online management console, and even when I did make it in, latency was terrible and it was not what I would consider workable.

By Ginsenshi on Wednesday, December 1, 2021 - 23:49

searching the app store , I see NVDA remote showing up in my search results.

By Justin Harris on Wednesday, December 1, 2021 - 23:49

Yeah, I downloaded it, can get it to connect, and can see that keystrokes are even going through, because I hear what is going on with the studio computer, as that installation of NVDA speaks everything, but no speech output on the Mac itself, which is what I need.

By Daniel Hawkins on Wednesday, December 1, 2021 - 23:49

This was one of the reason why I stopped suing my Mac, no way to put Windows 10 on the Mac. So I now have a Surface Pro as my primary machine. But if we can get NVDA to work on the mac that would be awesome! Now to get sound, have you thought doing Zoom remote?

By Justin Harris on Wednesday, December 1, 2021 - 23:49

Okay, so at least until NVDA remote gets an update, I found a decent solution. Chrome Remote Desktop. Not perfect, as it does require the use of Google Chrome, with no stand alone app, but it works, and latency is much lower than with Teamviewer. I still hope the NVDA remote will get updated, but this works okay for now.

By neosonic2 on Wednesday, December 1, 2021 - 23:49

A viable and simple solution nobody seems to have mentioned yet is to set up a Windows virtual machine on your M1 Mac, either by purchasing a copy of Parallels Desktop (officially supported) or by installing a free copy of the VMware Fusion Tech Preview and using advanced configuration steps to get it to run Windows (unsupported but still works for the time being).

Parallels Desktop, for example, allows you to set up a Windows 11 on ARM Insider Preview virtual machine, complete with sound, that can then be used to run traditional Windows applications including NVDA and NVDA Remote. The main application user interface is not accessible (due to the fact it was written using the QT framework), but an application like VOCR can be used to mitigate this issue and set up the Windows virtual machine. Performance is comparable to running Windows virtual machines on Intel Macs, and will of course improve with time as both Parallels Desktop and the Windows 11 on ARM Insider Preview are updated.

Alternatively, if free options are desired, the VMware Fusion Tech Preview can be set up and, through a series of steps, the Windows 11 on ARM Insider Preview can be installed to provide another way to virtualize Windows on macOS. VMware Fusion is natively accessible with VoiceOver, but only Linux operating systems are officially supported in the current version of the Tech Preview, so your mileage may vary on getting Windows up and running, though it is possible and has been confirmed to work well.

Either of these options provide a familiar Windows environment and NVDA setup on an M1 Mac, with the added advantage of being able to use other traditional Windows applications as well.

As an aside, the exclusive deal between Microsoft and Qualcomm that prevented Microsoft from licensing Windows on ARM to other chip manufacturers is reportedly coming to an end soon, and this may allow Microsoft to license Windows on ARM to Apple so that a native way to run Windows on macOS could once again be made available.

By Justin Harris on Wednesday, December 1, 2021 - 23:49

I had actually thought about a virtual machine, but was never really impressed with performance on those in the past. Granted, I have jumped from a 2015 MacBook Pro to this m1 air, so it could be different, but think I will Hold off on that for now. I would Love to see bootcamp up and running on this. With a virtual machine, I don't like the way the keyboard is layed out, but can't really change it without creating other conflicts with Mac OS. Whereas, in a Bootcamp installation, I can just run Sharpkeys, and change things back to how a normal Windows keyboard works.
For now, Google Remote Desktop seems to be my best bet. Very low latency and plays decently with VoiceOver. I still have to remember which keys correspond to the right ones in Windows, as instead of alt tabbing around Windows, I can cmd tab right out of Remote Desktop. lol Then I'm left wondering why in the world nothing is happening on my Windows. lol But other than that, it plays really well with VO, and isn't as resource intensive as a VM.
There aren't really that many Windows programs I need, other than one for my station, but not worth the fuss of setting up a virtual machine just for that.