Rent a phone on the web

Sign in

Anyone can sign up. Go to pocketshare.io/app/ and choose Sign in. Use Google (when it’s offered), or enter your email and we’ll email you a sign-in link (it works once, for 15 minutes, in any browser) and an 8-digit code to type instead. If you don’t have an account yet, using the link or the code creates one, which can rent and host phones. If PocketShare sent you an invite, by email or as a sign-in link with a code, it adds what it grants the first time you sign in. After that your email is enough.

Find a phone

The marketplace lists every phone hosts have put up, including ones in use or offline, so you can see what exists. Filter by:

• Search: brand, model or device code (for example sapphire for a Redmi Note 13).
• Brand, Android version (that version or newer) and max price per hour. The slider’s first stop, Free, shows only phones their hosts list for free: their phone time costs nothing, but data through PocketShare is still charged per GB from your credit, and without credit for it the rental ends at the next minute.
• Reliability: the share of rental attempts in the last 90 days that started and ran without the host’s side cutting them short. New listings show no score until they have three attempts. A host’s free tests of their own phone don’t count.
• Available now: only phones you can rent right now.

Each phone’s page shows its manufacturer, model, device code, Android version and API level, ABI and build fingerprint, its availability and its recent rental outcomes. Nothing on it identifies earlier renters.

Phone not listed? Choose Request a model and tell us the brand, model and Android version you need. Requests decide which hosts we recruit. Tick Email me when this model is listed to be told when one appears. On a phone that’s in use or offline, choose Notify me when available.

Rent with a spending cap

1. On the phone’s page, pick a spending cap ($1, $2, $5, $10 or $25, or type an amount). The panel shows how many minutes of phone time the cap covers, and your balance.

2. Choose Review rental. You’ll see the hourly price, the per-minute charge, the bandwidth rate per GB and your cap. Rates are locked when you rent.

3. Choose Rent for up to $…. The host’s hub prepares the phone, usually in under a minute. Billing starts only when the phone is ready; failed starts are never billed.

Every rental needs a cap. Your account also has limits per rental (the cap, open rentals at once and the longest rental), shown in Settings. The rental ends automatically when it reaches the cap or your balance runs out, with a warning a minute before.

Connect

When the phone is ready, the rental shows its connect command:

pocketshare connect <rental-id>
adb devices

Keep pocketshare connect running. The phone appears in adb devices, Android Studio’s Running Devices, scrcpy, Appium and Maestro, as if it were on your desk. See Ways to use a phone.

Open live view opens the session page: the phone’s screen with back, home, recent apps, rotate and screenshot controls, Logcat, APK install and file panels, the connect command, and a live cost meter with the elapsed time, data used and how long your cap lasts at this rate. See Use a phone in your browser.

Your rentals and ending one

Rentals lists active rentals with their live elapsed time, cost so far, data used and cap, and buttons to open the session, copy the connect command and End rental. Ending stops billing at once and cuts access within seconds; the phone is then wiped and verified for the next renter. You pay for each started minute plus the data carried.

Past rentals show the billed time, data and final cost. A rental that never started shows Not billed.