Samsung DeX was announced with the Samsung Galaxy S8 as a way to use your phone as a desktop PC. The original idea was to dock the phone to a DeX cradle that connects to a display. This original idea didn’t work too well since the dock was too big, there was no way to use the phone while it was docked, it required an additional purchase and, well, it got annoying to use. Samsung updated DeX with the launch of the Galaxy Note 9 so that it no longer requires a dock. Now, thanks to a screen that we saw in the Samsung Tips app, we know that Samsung is still working in a DeX wireless mode.
The history of Samsung DeX is quite short. When launched with the Samsung Galaxy S8, it was quite cumbersome to use, requiring a dock, mouse, and keyboard to connect. With the Galaxy Note 9, Samsung removed the base requirement (since the phone has native support for the alternative DisplayPort mode) and at the same time allows you to use the phone’s display as a touchpad and keyboard. With the Galaxy Note 10, Samsung created an application for Mac and Windows so that you can access DeX from your PC (and not officially, in Linux and Chrome OS). There was also a brief period with running a GNU / Linux distribution through DeX, but that initiative was sadly canceled. Fortunately, we are finally seeing progress in Samsung’s DeX wireless mode, which we learned was working all the way in late 2018. In the upcoming Galaxy Note 20, Samsung can finally allow DeX to work wirelessly.
I found the above screen in the Samsung Tips app as part of the setup. On my Galaxy S20 Ultra and Galaxy Z Flip, the latter of which actually doesn’t support DeX, the page appeared in the “Become an advanced user” section. The first page in this section is the Samsung DeX wireless tip. The header is “DREAM_DEX_HEADER_USE_DEX_WIRELESSLY_M_TIPS”. This was probably accidentally pushed to live servers. The interesting thing about the header is “SLEEP” at the beginning. Dream is the code name for the Galaxy S10 series, which makes me think that the Galaxy S10 and above should be supported for DeX wireless mode.
Samsung DeX would not be the first desktop mode for Android devices to get a wireless mode. Huawei introduced wireless streaming a while back to its EMUI desktop mode. It is good to see that Samsung is following suit and working to improve DeX with significant features.
