Connect your iPad or phone to your computer
Run the heavy lifting — native Python, terminals, compilers, file access, GPU, and command-line coding agents like Claude Code — on your own computer, and drive it all from your iPad, iPhone or Android device. This guide pairs the Circuitry app on the device with Circuit running on your Mac, Windows, or Linux machine.
This is what makes real development on a tablet or phone possible. The studio itself runs on the device; the toolchain runs on the computer you already own, and the device is the screen and the keyboard for it.
And the work follows you. Sessions live on the computer, not on the device you started them from, so a terminal or a coding agent you set going at your desk is still running when you open your phone — mirrored live, on as many devices as you like at once. Watch it, then take control by typing. See Start on one device, carry on from another.
You only do this once. After the first connection the device reconnects automatically whenever both are on the same network. To reach the computer when you are not on that network — a café, a train, the office — turn on Home Circuit.
What you'll need
- The Circuitry app on your iPad, iPhone or Android device.
- Circuit installed on your computer (Step 1 below).
- Both devices on the same Wi-Fi / local network for the first pairing.
- Pairing a device to a Circuit is on the Personal plan and up.
Step 1 — Install Circuit on your computer
Circuit is a small companion app that runs on your computer and does the work your tablet or phone asks of it.
- On your computer, open the Downloads page and get Circuit for your operating system — macOS, Windows, or Linux.
- Install it and open it.
- Leave it running. It shows a QR code, along with a server address (e.g.
http://192.168.1.100:3030) and an access key. You'll use one of these in the next step.
For more on what the server does, see the Circuit overview.
Step 2 — Connect from your device (QR code — easiest)
- In the Circuitry app, tap the ⚡ lightning icon in the top toolbar. On a phone, open Menu in the bottom bar instead — the row reads Circuit — pair this device.
- Choose Scan QR Code.
- The first time, iPad and iPhone ask "Allow 'Circuitry' to find devices on your local network?" — tap Allow. This is what lets the device reach Circuit on your computer; pairing can't work without it. Android asks for camera access instead, and has no local-network permission to grant.
- Point the camera at the QR code shown by Circuit.
You'll see a "Connected" confirmation and the lightning icon turns green. Done.
Alternative — Connect manually in Settings
If you can't scan the QR code, enter the details by hand:
- Tap the ⚡ lightning icon → Settings. This opens the Circuits settings.
- Tap Add Server.
- Fill in:
- Server Name — anything you like, e.g. "MacBook Pro".
- Server URL — the address shown by Circuit, e.g.
http://192.168.1.100:3030. - Access Key — the key shown by Circuit.
- Tap Add Server to connect. The first time, you'll get the same "Allow Local Network" prompt — tap Allow.
If you tapped "Don't Allow" by mistake (iPad & iPhone)
iOS and iPadOS only ask for Local Network access once. To turn it back on:
- Open the device's Settings app.
- Go to Privacy & Security → Local Network.
- Turn on Circuitry.
- Return to the Circuitry app and connect again.
You don't need to delete or reinstall the app.
"Local Network" is already on, but it still won't connect
This is the confusing one, and it looks exactly like broken Wi-Fi when it isn't.
You'll see it as: the app says it can't reach Circuit, or that the internet connection appears to be offline — while your Wi-Fi is plainly working, both devices are on the same network, and Privacy & Security → Local Network already shows Circuitry switched on. A related version: Circuitry is missing entirely from that list, and no prompt ever appears no matter how many times you try.
A quick way to tell this apart from a real network problem: open Safari on the same device and load http://<your-computer-ip>:3030/ping. Safari is exempt from this permission, so if Safari gets a response and Circuitry can't, the network is fine and the permission is the problem.
Two fixes, in order:
- Switch the permission off and on again. Settings → Privacy & Security → Local Network → turn Circuitry off, then back on. Fully close Circuitry (swipe it away from the app switcher) and reopen it.
- If that doesn't work, delete Circuitry and install it again. A fresh install has no stale permission record, so it asks properly the first time it needs the network — tap Allow and pair as normal.
Deleting the app does not lose your work: documents and projects live in your account and on your computer, not only on the device.
If you are running a development build from Xcode rather than the App Store version, there is one more cause worth knowing: iOS ties this permission to the app's signing identity, so a build signed against a wildcard provisioning profile can never hold the permission you grant it — Settings shows it switched on while the system refuses every request. Register a real App ID for the bundle identifier and rebuild. App Store builds are never affected.
Troubleshooting
- Nothing connects — make sure both devices are on the same Wi-Fi network, and that Circuit is still open on your computer.
- The "Allow Local Network" prompt never appeared (iPad / iPhone) — enable it manually in Settings (see the section above).
- It says you're offline but you're clearly not — that message is also what iOS shows when it blocks an app from reaching your local network. See the section above.
- It worked before and stopped after an app update — same cause; switch the Local Network permission off and on, or reinstall.
- The QR code stops working while you're setting up — each code is only valid for a few minutes and your computer replaces it automatically. Show the QR code again and scan the fresh one.
- Works at home but not at the office — some workplace and guest networks stop devices from seeing each other ("client isolation"). Try a home network or a personal hotspot.
- The camera won't open to scan — use the manual Settings method instead.
What you can do once connected
- Run native Python, far faster than in a browser tab.
- Open a terminal on your computer from the device — see Terminals.
- Run a command-line coding agent — Claude Code, Codex CLI or Gemini CLI — in that terminal, on your own machine, with your own repositories. See Coding agents.
- Build and compile. Compiled languages build on the paired computer — there is no cloud build — and the finished thing runs back on the device. See Languages, and where they run.
- Read and write files on your computer, and open real projects from its disk.
- Use your computer's GPU for heavier work, and its local models.
Start on one device, carry on from another
Terminals and command-line coding agents don't belong to the device that started them — they run on the Circuit, and the Circuit is the hub every device talks to. So a session started at your desk is the same session your phone opens later, still running, with everything that happened while you were away.
- Everything is mirrored. Any number of devices can have the same terminal or agent conversation open at once, and they all render the same output as it arrives. Leave Claude Code working on the desktop, pick up your phone, and watch it work.
- Spectate several at once. Agent conversations are listed under Open chats, which has an On your other devices section, and plain shells under the Terminals panel in the sidebar. Both list what is live on that computer, from whichever device you're holding, and each row is badged with the device it was started from — so a chat you began on the phone reads "iPhone" when you look at it from the Mac.
- Take control by using it. A spectating view mirrors the one that's driving. Type into it, or tap it, and control moves to you — there's nothing to claim or hand over first. Any device can also stop a session that's running away with itself.
- Nothing ends because you left. Closing a window, locking a phone or losing wifi doesn't kill anything: a coding-agent conversation ends when the last device deliberately closes it, and a terminal keeps going until you close it. Come back and the session replays what you missed.
At home, and away from home
On your own wifi the device talks to Circuit directly across the local network — nothing leaves the house, and it's as fast as the network is.
Leave that network and Home Circuit tunnels you back to the same machine over the internet: the café, the train, the office, another country. You don't switch anything over — the device picks the local network when it can see it and the remote path when it can't, and the sessions you had open carry straight on. The connection is direct between your two devices and end-to-end encrypted; no inbound ports to open on your router.
If the computer at home is switched off, a cloud Circuit gives you a Linux machine to work on instead.