Pocket Link: the bot on your own number

Set up

1. Plug Pocket Link into the phone's USB-C port. If Android asks whether Pocket may use the device, tap Allow (and tick *always* so it does not ask again).
2. Open Account → Voice → Pocket Link and tap Set up Pocket Link. The app asks for the phone permissions it needs to see who is calling and to answer (Phone, Call logs, Contacts), and pairs the adapter with your account.
3. The status line shows what is going on: Connected · firmware … when the adapter is up, Plugged in. Allow Pocket to use it when Android still needs the permission, Waiting for the adapter when nothing is plugged in, On a call during one.
4. Under Own SIM pick which bot talks on your calls, then switch on Answer calls with the bot.

Answering rules

• Answer: everyone, only unknown numbers (contacts still ring through to you), or only your contacts.
• Let it ring first: answer at once, or after 5, 10 or 20 seconds so you can pick up yourself.
• Only Mon–Sat, 9 am – 7 pm: outside these hours the phone rings as normal. The hours use the phone's time zone.

Voice

Natural (your keys) uses the speech providers under Account → Voice, so the bot sounds like a person. Free (this phone) uses Android's own recogniser and voice: no keys, no cost, more robotic, needs Android 13. Switch between them any time.

The screen

Bots can see this screen two ways. Allow screen capture uses Android's share-screen prompt (a notification shows while it is on, with a Stop button; Android asks again each time Pocket starts). Pocket's accessibility service, once on, needs no prompt and stays on after a restart; it is the same switch *Bot on my WhatsApp* uses. Hands come two ways too: Pocket Link taps and types through USB, invisibly to apps and with no permission; without the adapter the accessibility service taps for the bot, which works in most apps but is visible to them, and some banking apps refuse to run while any accessibility service is on. Either way the bot works an app the way you would: a look, one action, another look. Screenshots go to the model call and are not stored.

Pocket as the phone app

The card offers Make Pocket your phone app. It is optional, but with it the calls the bot takes show Pocket's call screen, where you can listen in, take over or hang up, and tapping a number anywhere opens Pocket's dialer. Android shows its own prompt the first time; if you have refused it twice Android stops asking, so the card then opens the Default apps page for you. Your normal calls keep working either way, and you can switch back in Android settings.

Calling out

With the adapter connected, bots place calls from this SIM too: a single place_call, or a call list worked one number at a time within calling hours. On a team, every member's phone with its adapter connected is a worker, and a list is spread across all of them.

Turning it off

Switch Answer calls with the bot off and calls ring through to you as before. Turn off stops the background service; Remove unpairs the adapter from this phone.

Taps and typing through the adapter

From firmware 0.2 the adapter is also a touch screen and a keyboard for the phone, on the same plug. The Pocket app sends it finished touches and keystrokes and Android takes them exactly as it takes your finger: taps, long presses, swipes, typing (any script or emoji goes in through a paste), Back, Home and recents. No accessibility service is involved and nothing on the adapter can produce input on its own; only the app that holds the adapter's data channel can.

What it is for: letting a bot work the apps on this phone for you, with the screen as its eyes and the adapter as its hands. Turn it on under Account → Phone control (Allow screen capture, or Pocket's accessibility service for a permanent, prompt-free version; see Phone control). Bots then get two more phone actions: screenshot, a picture of the screen, and screen_input, one tap, hold, swipe, typed text or key through the adapter. A bot works an app the way you would: a look, one action, another look. In Agent mode the first tap of a task waits for your approval; in Autonomous mode it just happens. The phone has to be on and unlocked while the bot works, and you cannot use it at the same time. You can also drive it yourself from a computer with firmware/tools/link_input_bench.py in the public repository.

• Android hides its on-screen keyboard while a USB keyboard is attached. If yours disappears with the adapter plugged in, turn on Settings → System → Physical keyboard → Use on-screen keyboard.
• This is for your own accounts and your own chores: replying to your customers, posting what you wrote, reading your numbers. Social platforms forbid automating an account for growth, and they act on behaviour, so the bot will be slow, capped and visible to you.
• Firmware updates for an adapter that is already plugged into a phone need a computer for now: Android sees the adapter's update drive but will not mount it.

Open hardware

The board, firmware, USB protocol and test tools are open (CERN-OHL-P 2.0 for the hardware, Apache 2.0 for the firmware). Any RP2040 board on a USB-C OTG cable runs the same firmware, so you can test on a phone we have not tried before buying; the files and the compatibility list are at github.com/anshkumar/pocket-link. The adapter stores nothing and only talks to the Pocket app on the phone it is plugged into.