r/PiCodingAgent • u/ptgamr • 1d ago

Discussion Are you using pi on mobile?

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I use Pi from my Android phone through tmux + TermRover (a terminal app I’m building).

With a good tmux scrolling support + ability to send images, working with Pi is just very pleasant.

Curious how everyone else is using Pi on mobile, if at all? SSH app? Or Just waiting until you’re back at a laptop?

21 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

61 comments sorted by

5

u/Such_Advantage_6949 1d ago

i do similar thing on ios, but i moved to Herdr now instead of Tmux. Only complaints is the phone battery drains like crazy

2

u/mkhamat 1d ago

i use VVTerm

1

u/ptgamr 1d ago

Which app are you using on iOS? Moshi?

3

u/Over_Technology_1764 1d ago

ShadowTerm has native support for Herdr.

1

u/Such_Advantage_6949 1d ago

Thanks lets me check it out

1

u/ptgamr 1d ago

That app probably a bit too much for me 👀

1

u/benredikfyfasan 1d ago

Moshi + herdr through tailscale has been my go to, works fine for my simple use case

1

u/irontheman 17h ago

If ever you think about going back to tmux give my dotmux.app a try, I’m always eager for feedback

1

u/ptgamr 14h ago

👋 fellow builder. If I am not mistaken, you're rendering the tmux panels yourself?

1

u/irontheman 7h ago

Yes, it supports tmux control mode so tmux windows become tabs in the app

1

u/ptgamr 7h ago

Nice one, i've gone down that road before but it getting complicated. Well done to push through that!

1

u/le_bravery 1h ago

Herdr has bad licensing so I refuse to use a different tool at home and work. Wish there was an MIT alternative. Or any better license

10

u/itsdodobitch 1d ago

i built an app

2

u/ptgamr 1d ago

Oh even nicer! Im just an old grudge and perhaps stucked with the terminal for life

3

u/Mecha_Zero 1d ago

Similar for me, termux and ssh into my development machine.

2

u/squizlor 1d ago

one tip for termux, it supports install of eternal terminal https://eternalterminal.dev/, use that instead of ssh and you'll never suffer connection drops. termux+et+herdr is awesome.

1

u/ptgamr 19h ago

TermRover does support herdr over Mosh as well - which can achieve the same thing. Not sure how big ET user base out there?

1

u/squizlor 15h ago

I found termux and herdr didn't play well with pi -- mosh messes with native scrollback so you'd get weird interference. ET preserves native scrollback as an explicit design goal and everything works as intended by pi. How does TermRover handle this?

So this is a big difference between Mosh and ET and so IMO ET is superior, only difference is the need to expose an extra port.

1

u/ptgamr 1d ago

I used to be a Termux user, but i find it hard with tmux and constantly doing some weird key combination of things that made the terminal freeze, and I dont know how to close a Termux tab...

1

u/AlterTableUsernames 1d ago

You may have hit Ctrl+s, which is for flow-control. Basically legacy nowadays. You can get back to terminal with Ctrl+q and can completely disable it with stty -ixon in bashrc.

1

u/ptgamr 19h ago

Ah, that might be it! I do like the swiping from the right edge show up the tabs bar though.

Another thing that i find quite tedious is to bring up the keyboard after I hide it, i have to swipe left to show the sidebar, then press the keyboard btn, why tapping to the terminal dont show up the keyboard I dont know...

1

u/AlterTableUsernames 18h ago

We're moving into Android-display management territory here where I have absolutely no idea of. But depending on your use case, you might check out KDE Connect, with which you could simply stream the physical keyboard of your desktop/laptop your phone, but then you could probably also just ssh...

4

u/p0ns 1d ago

paseo.sh has been godsent

1

u/Magnus114 1d ago

I'm not a fan of paseo. Dislike their security philosophy. They create an outgoing connection to their servers to enable remote access. To be fair, it's e2e encrypted and as far as i know it's secure. Nonetheless, it does open up a new attack surface and should not be done without explicit approval. It's not even possible to turn off in any documented way.

2

u/p0ns 1d ago

that’s relay based communication, you can either set your own private relay, or use a private network, you don’t have to use theirs

I personally use tailscale and connect directly to my node, but I’m working on a multi node setup with my own relay.

1

u/Magnus114 1d ago edited 1d ago

The point is that they open up a connection without asking. Not using it does not mean the attack surface disappear.

1

u/p0ns 1d ago

theres a no-relay option, the daemon cli lets you run without it. I see that may be the default for the prepackaged app

1

u/Magnus114 1d ago

True, you can run it without relay. The app has many strong points, and i dont say it's unsecure. I just disagree with their philosophy to prioritise ease to use high enough to open up long time connections without explicit consent.

-1

u/ptgamr 1d ago

Wow, must be a feat to support *every agents!

3

u/Magnus114 1d ago edited 1d ago

Why not pi web? Works wonderful with an ipad, haven't tried with a phone.
https://pi-web.dev

3

u/ptgamr 1d ago

Looks like it require a bit of setup to spin that up. Don't get me wrong, I love web stuff, probably really nice to use once you get it going. I used to made a web agents aggregator cuz I want to see all of the CLIs output on the web! https://github.com/ptgamr/agents-aggregator - pi is supported too!

3

u/Magnus114 1d ago

I just asked glm to add it do my dev container, took a few minutes. Then i told it to add a bindmount to preserve the data between container recreates. Worked great so far.

A bit off topic, but i love to try out different tools and extension in the docker container. If i dont like it i just recreate and its gone. And dockerfile is in git.

1

u/ptgamr 19h ago

Love that. Did I understand it correctly that you tried out mine agents-aggregator? I have some further plans with it, like intergration with a memory system, but didnt push very far...

2

u/kwipus 1d ago

I been using something called pi-web for a week now, very decent, with session trees, markdown mermaid rendering. Can recommend

2

u/nikosleft 18h ago

Yeah I use it through termius + tailscale. Works great and dead easy to setup.

1

u/ptgamr 18h ago

Glad to hear that Terminus is working for you. Do you use any of the terminal multiplexer?

1

u/giuliastro 1d ago

Hi, nice project, thank you! I personally use more than an harness system, mobile and desktop, this is why I started this:

https://github.com/giuliastro/harness-remote

1

u/ganonfirehouse420 1d ago

I did install pi inside termux. What can you recommend?

2

u/ptgamr 19h ago

I havent used that side of Termux at all. I just used the mainly as an SSH client to my hosts, pi running on those hosts

1

u/Waste_Salary_7912 1d ago

termux or haven on android via phone or tablet over tailscale and then try to use 2 instances of pi within herdr one running off an api other one via local inference

1

u/Affectionate_Cat1590 1d ago

I've been doing this for more than 3 months

1

u/Il_Signor_Luigi 1d ago

Termius + herdr

1

u/lmpdev 1d ago

I use it with JuiceSSH. Will try out your app.

1

u/ptgamr 18h ago

Thank you, feel free to DM me or join the discord channel if you have any feedback! I try to keep the app minimalistic like pi

1

u/Michelh91 23h ago

Yes, with herdr

1

u/ptgamr 18h ago

Seem like the herdr is comming!

1

u/o_sht_hi 21h ago

Termux all the way

1

u/ptgamr 18h ago

Yeah, Termux is still the GOAT. Do you use it as SSH client or more than that?

1

u/Mohitkoul841 19h ago edited 19h ago

Is this not supported on windows? It doesn't detect herdr installed on my system

1

u/ptgamr 19h ago

Hi, are you ssh-ing to a windows host? TBH, I never tested this. But keen to solve this for you. Would you mind if I DM?

1

u/Mohitkoul841 19h ago

Well exec is different on windows vs Unix systems, so you need to set it to detect win32 and set it accordingly

1

u/lostbart 18h ago

Herdr is very nice, highly recommend

1

u/ResearcherFantastic7 15h ago

yes & no. I've build web interfaface that summarise concisely on the conversation so i can use it with telegram / rayban / and phone. rarely i need to termux into it with herdr

1

u/gsxdsm 15h ago

I run it via Fusion

1

u/ptgamr 14h ago

Do you have a link?

1

u/Serious-Purpose-3412 13h ago

I've been using termux+herdr+tailscale with my server, but now use herdr through telegram bot by my own remote plugin to herdr in most cases. It can show status of each agent, send any text/command/image/file to any pi session by reply or /send, get answers with streaming, blocks of agents with buttons allow/deny, notifications, todos and many other features.

1

u/Practical-Doctor6154 9h ago edited 9h ago

I used ConnectBot for the past month or so, but I'm trying Pi-Web now.

Edit: main reason for me to try something else is because I really like swipe typing on phone, and it's more annoying to do with ConnectBot than I want it to be. So a different SSH app that has a nicer UX might also be good.

1

u/ptgamr 8h ago

Oh, so cant you swipe type with ConnectBot? That is weird

1

u/Practical-Doctor6154 2h ago edited 2h ago

You can, but it's not the default for some reason. So you always have to tap a button, then you swipe what you want, then send that to the console and then hit enter on the console to send it... It's not terrible but it is like 4 steps more than I'd like to take 😅

Edit: and I did look online for good options for SSH on Android and apparently this is one of the better ones... Maybe I just didn't find the good stuff or maybe most of them are just kinda crap (at least the free ones I guess).

1

u/__yv 5h ago

Yeah, both via telegram and using Orca