RelayKey

RelayKey connects the devices you already own. Install it on your phone, pair it with a computer you want to get back to, and that computer is one tap away — from anywhere, without a VPN, without opening a port on your router and without anyone else's server in the middle.

WHAT YOU CAN DO FROM THIS PHONE

• Open an SSH terminal on your own computer, with a keyboard tuned for a phone.
• Connect with Remote Desktop to your own Windows machine.
• Browse the web through a computer you own, so pages load from where that computer is.
• See at a glance which of your machines are awake and how far away they are.

Your phone and your computer talk to each other directly, end to end encrypted. Nobody, including us, can read what passes between them. Pairing is a one-time confirmation: a code on one device, six digits to compare on both. There is no account to create, no email address to give and no password to remember — RelayKey makes a key on this device and that key is your identity.

SHARE THIS DEVICE WITH YOUR OWN OTHER DEVICES (OPTIONAL, OFF BY DEFAULT)

RelayKey can also work the other way round: you can let the computers and phones you have already paired reach this device. It is off when you install the app and it can only be switched on here, by hand, on this phone. There is no link, no message and no setting anywhere else that can turn it on for you.

When it is on, your own paired devices can:

• See this phone's status — its name, its version and whether it is awake.
• Open a direct, encrypted connection to it.
• Route a connection outward through this phone's internet connection, including using it as a browser exit, so a page loads from where this phone is.

That is the whole list. This mode does not show your screen, does not read your files, does not run commands, does not read your messages, your location, your contacts or your notifications, and cannot be used to watch anybody. It is a way to reach your own hardware, not a way into anyone else's.

While it is on, a notification is shown that you cannot dismiss or hide, because a device that is reachable should always say so. The notification opens the screen with the off switch, the list of every device that is paired with this phone, and a one-tap Revoke beside each of them. "Forget this device" deletes this phone's sharing identity, every pairing and every permission you granted, and starts clean.

Android will stop background apps to save battery. RelayKey does not fight that: it asks once, during the opt-in, whether you want to exempt it, you may say no, and either way your other devices are told plainly that this is a phone — "A phone. Reachable while it is awake." When it is not answering, they say why instead of showing an error.

PRIVACY

There is no RelayKey account. Your key stays on this device, sealed by Android's keystore, and is excluded from cloud backup. Your sessions are peer to peer and end to end encrypted; our servers are not in them and cannot read them. Full policy: https://relaykey.net/privacy/

RelayKey is free for up to five machines.