update on smokeball on Arm Windows

Thanks for waiting for my reply on this one. I’ve done some digging and the short answer is: 

• It should run under emulation, but we don’t officially support it.
• ARM compatibility is complicated. 
• Let me know what features you’re looking for workarounds for and I’ll go digging for you. 

The longer answer - if you’re interested: 

We don’t officially support ARM processors, which will include the Snapdragon chipset used in Copilot+ PCs. It's not specifically about the Copilot functionality but more about the ARM chip architecture that these PC’s run on.

The Copilot onboard AI chip shouldn’t make compatibility better or worse and functions like Recall shouldn’t harm functionality of our time tracking features etc.

Testing is the only way to offer any kind of guarantee, we cannot test yet, so I can’t offer any guarantee. I wish I could!  

To officially support it, we need to thoroughly test all the deep integrations Smokeball has across the various software and chipset layers within Windows systems. This takes time to do well, and we want to ensure we don't let you down by making a promise we can’t keep, even if the majority of our functions work and look like they will continue to work into the future. 

Microsoft is doing significant work to improve cross-compatibility of software like ours with different frameworks and chip-sets. This is making it easier for us write code that runs everywhere rather than the very deep customisation and testing we often have to do at the moment.

If you have particular mission critical features in mind, I can check in about workarounds and web based solutions that we either have live now or are actively developing. Let me know and I’ll go digging for you. 

I really appreciate the update @Davidleamey! If you end up going with this PC as your daily driver for Smokeball then please flag any oddities that pop up for you as you go deeper into our features.

I’ll make sure they get in front of the team here to take a look at. 

David,

I’m looking at upgrading my laptop finally. I love what I see in Surface Pro 11. What did you come from? I’m coming from a 16GB Surface Laptop 3. I was wondering if I could stick with 16GB or if I need to select the 32GB? Do you find it really is keeping up on the ARM, or would you recommend looking at the Surface Studio Laptop 2? Appreciate it!

Louis

Hi @Davidleamey ,

Are you able to advise whether the smokeball plugins with Outlook and Word work? I feel like I saw @Ben say in another thread that he wasn’t entirely sure if they worked or not and that’s making me hold off.

Hey Alex, the plugins work. The only issue I ran into was that Print to Smokeball is not an option in any application. Also, as of right now, no scanner is compatible with the ARM. So I ended up ditching it for now and returned to a traditional Intel because the lack of compatibility with my ScanSnap coupled with the inability to Print to Smokeball just became too burdensome. But it looks like ARM is the future so I think everyone will get there eventually. 

Is there any update on this conversation. I am about to replace my Surface Pro with the newer model and got concerned over the Snapdragon v. Intel processor issue.  I do use Scan Snap and I am too new to understand how to Print to Smokeball but that sounds like an issue.  

Where is Smokeball on this as of April 2025? Anyone.  So new and loving my Smokeball and ready to max out all that I can...

Hi Irene,

I bought a surface laptop with a snapdragon in it in November, I returned it in March for a refund. Smokeball worked… ok. It crashed any time I used a mobile hotspot or it lost wifi reception (which was a lot when I was down at court etc). And lots of other programs either didnt work, or were really slow. Things you wouldn’t even necessarily think about.

I looked very closely at the surface pro myself - the only one I would get is the Surface Pro for Business which has an intel processor on it. ARM for Windows definitely isn’t up to scratch, and - I must say, if Smokeball ever natively support Arm then I’d be getting a macbook well before I got a Surface.

Overall I could only say I had a negative experience. I just bought an Asus Zenbook which has the new generation intel processor in it and I VASTLY prefer it.

I liked the 5G feature and I’ve had it so long I am spoiled. You are right, so many courthouses stink at WIFI!  I will research the Zenbook. 

The 5G feature was almost mandatory for me.
 

The Microsoft Surface Pro for Business has 5G but they are eye wateringly expensive, especially for the rest of the hardware you’re getting.

The Lenovo X1 Carbon Gen 13 Aura has a 5G card you can add into the configuration - I tried to order that instead of the Zenbook and it was a month after I ordered and not only had they not shipped, but they hadn’t given a response to my updates about when it WOULD ship - so I cancelled.

I have an android work phone and have used the “Phone Link” app to tie it to the Zenbook and I would say it’s about 95% as good as having the 5G in the device. But I totally get where you’re coming from.

I may just bite the bullet and do the surface with the intel processor.  I am waiting for my outside IT company to do more research but I think you just helped me dodge a bullet.  NO ARM processing.  thanks so much.