Microsoft's 'Your Phone' App With Android Screen Mirroring Now Available in Beta for Windows 10

Microsoft has rolled out an early preview of the phone screen feature in the Your Phone app. This feature will allow users to mirror their Android phone's screen directly onto a PC. This new feature in Your Phone app was first demoed at the Surface event in October last year, and it's now up for testing in the latest Insider build of Windows 10. There are a lot of limitations as to who can use this feature, set by Microsoft for now, but it should be available to a broader set of audience when it launches commercially.

For the phone screen feature to work on the Your Phone app, the user needs to be on a Windows 10 PC running Windows builds 1803 or newer and should have a select Android phone running Android version 7.0 Nougat or newer. Microsoft notes that the Surface Go will be the first device in the Surface lineup to preview this feature, however it looks to expand the list of supported devices over time.

Furthermore, the new Your Phone app feature only works with select phones running on Android 7 Nougat like Samsung Galaxy S8, Samsung Galaxy S8+, Samsung Galaxy S9, and Samsung Galaxy S9+ for now. Also, the Windows 10 PC must support Bluetooth with Low Energy Peripheral mode as a mandate for screen mirroring to work. In order to check if your PC supports Bluetooth Low Energy Peripheral mode and activate it, follow the steps on this Microsoft post.

If the user manages to meet all the requirements, the Your Phone app will support app mirroring on Android, giving users access to their texts and photos. To recall, the Your Phone app that was first released for systems running build 1803 Spring Creators Update back in August last year, however, soon after, Microsoft limited access to Windows 10 Insider Preview users. The official launch of Your Phone was announced in October at Microsoft's Surface event in New York, where hardware products including Surface Pro 6, Surface Laptop 2, and Surface Headphones were also launched.