← Back to Product Feed

Hacker News Show HN: Roadie – An open-source KVM that lets AI control your phone

An open-source hardware KVM extending existing KVM capabilities with multi-touch support for mobile devices and a focus on agent-driven, programmatic control via HTTP/WebSocket, enabling AI interaction with phones and tablets.

4
Traction Score
1
Discussions
Apr 1, 2026
Launch Date
View Origin Link

Product Positioning & Context

AI Executive Synthesis
An open-source hardware KVM extending existing KVM capabilities with multi-touch support for mobile devices and a focus on agent-driven, programmatic control via HTTP/WebSocket, enabling AI interaction with phones and tablets.
Roadie addresses a critical emerging demand for programmatic interaction with mobile devices, particularly for AI and automation. Existing KVMs lack multi-touch and direct agent-driven control, limiting their utility for modern mobile interfaces. By integrating multi-touch and exposing HTTP/WebSocket endpoints for automation, Roadie enables sophisticated remote control and testing scenarios. This positions it as a foundational tool for developers building AI agents that interact with mobile applications or for advanced mobile device farms. The open-source nature and low hardware cost ($86) lower barriers to entry for experimentation and adoption. This product taps into the growing demand for robust, hardware-level automation solutions for mobile platforms, a significant trend in AI development and quality assurance.
Roadie is an open-source hardware KVM controlled via HTTP. HDMI capture in, USB keyboard/mouse/touch out, all from a browser.Hardware KVMs with web UIs have existed for years (PiKVM, TinyPilot, JetKVM, etc.). Roadie adds two things they don't generally have: multi-touch support (so it works with phones and tablets) and a focus on agent-driven use: any browser automation tool can drive the /view page directly, or connect to the WebSocket endpoint for lower-level programmatic control.~$86 in parts, including two CircuitPython boards, an HDMI-to-USB dongle, and a Go server running on the host. No software needed on the target.
open-source hardware KVM HTTP control HDMI capture USB keyboard/mouse/touch out web UIs multi-touch support agent-driven use browser automation tool

Community Voice & Feedback

No active discussions extracted yet.

Related Early-Stage Discoveries

Discovery Source

Hacker News Hacker News

Aggregated via automated community intelligence tracking.

Tech Stack Dependencies

No direct open-source NPM package mentions detected in the product documentation.

Media Tractions & Mentions

No mainstream media stories specifically mentioning this product name have been intercepted yet.

Deep Research & Science

No direct peer-reviewed scientific literature matched with this product's architecture.