Pairing and connecting

How the phone finds the computer, how trust is given once, and what happens when the connection drops.

Finding the computer

Open AirMouse and the computers on your network appear under On this network, found over Bonjour. Computers you have paired before are listed under Saved. A Mac can sometimes be found without a shared Wi-Fi, because Apple devices can link directly; a Windows or Linux computer cannot.

Giving trust: Allow

The first time a phone connects, the computer shows a box: "Your iPhone wants to control this computer. Allow it to move the pointer, type, and use the clipboard?". Click Allow and the phone is in. The phone shows Look at your computer while it waits.

If nobody answers within about 45 seconds, the computer opens its pairing page in its browser and the phone switches to the code.

The code and the QR

The pairing page shows the computer's name, a 4-digit code, a QR code and the computer's address. On the phone, tap Scan the code on the computer, or type the code.

• A code works once. It changes after a successful pairing and after five wrong tries.
• The page is only reachable from the computer itself, at http://127.0.0.1:1979.
• To open it again, open AirMouse Server again (or run it with --pair).

Typing the address

On networks that hide devices from each other, tap Type the address instead and enter the address shown on the pairing page, for example 192.168.1.42, with port 1978.

After pairing

The phone keeps a token in its Keychain; the computer keeps only a hash of it. Opening the app connects straight to the last computer and lands on the trackpad. If the computer's address changes, the phone looks for it on the network and remembers the new one.

If the link drops, the app tries five times, about two seconds apart, and then shows Lost with Retry now, Wake on LAN and Switch computer.

More than one computer

There is no limit. Switch from the status chip at the top, or Settings → Switch computer. Swipe a saved computer to Forget it.

Removing a phone

On the computer, the pairing page lists the paired phones with an Unpair button. From a terminal: --devices lists them, --forget <name> removes one, --reset-trusted makes every phone ask again.

Waking a computer

When a saved computer is offline, the Power panel offers Wake up, and the Lost screen has Wake on LAN. The phone sends the standard wake packet and tells you whether it left. It only works if that computer has wake-on-LAN switched on; most laptops do not wake over Wi-Fi.