How to Remote Control AI Agents On Your Phone

Your AI agent runs on your computer. Your phone is in your pocket. Wouldn’t it be useful to run the agent from anywhere?

You can do this in many ways, actually. We will go with the one that has the least complexity and works on any device.

To start, you need three tools:

• Tailscale — a private network between your devices, through the internet
• OpenSSH Server — a service on Windows that accepts remote connections
• Termius — an SSH client app on your phone

The connection path visualized:

Phone → Tailscale → Windows OpenSSH → AI agent

Tailscale is what makes this setup safe. It works by building a private mesh network between your devices and connecting them peer-to-peer, so you don’t have to expose SSH ports on your router.

This setup uses Windows, but it works just fine on macOS/Linux with slightly different instructions (ask your agent).

Step 1: Install Tailscale on both devices

Install Tailscale on your computer and phone.

Sign in to both devices with the same Tailscale account. Keep Tailscale active on both devices.

On Windows, open a terminal and run:

tailscale ip -4

Save the 100.x.x.x address. This is the address of your computer on the Tailscale network.

Step 2: Run OpenSSH Server on Windows

Now install OpenSSH server and do automatic startup.

Open PowerShell as Administrator and run:

Add-WindowsCapability -Online -Name OpenSSH.Server~~~~0.0.1.0
Start-Service sshd
Set-Service sshd -StartupType Automatic

Check that the service works:

Get-Service sshd
Test-NetConnection localhost -Port 22

The service must show Running, and the test must show TcpTestSucceeded : True.

Step 3: Get your Windows credentials

Run:

$env:USERNAME

You need this username and your Windows account password to sign in from the phone.

Use your password, not the Windows PIN.

Step 4: Install Termius on your phone

Install Termius from the app store. This is free and no login is required. Create a new host using these values:

Field	Value
Address	Tailscale 100.x.x.x address
Port	22
Username	Output from $env:USERNAME
Password	Windows account password

Select Connect. Accept the SSH host key only if this is your computer.

Step 5: Start your AI agent

When Termius opens the computer terminal, start your agent with the command you normally use. For example:

pi

Keep the Termius connection open while the agent works, as closing it will end the session. There is a way to work around this using tmux or similar apps, but this is out of scope for the article.

If the connection fails

These are what you need to check:

1. Tailscale is active on both devices
2. Both devices are on the same Tailscale account
3. Computer is not sleeping
4. sshd is running
5. Termius uses the Tailscale address, not local Wi-Fi address

That is all. You can now talk to your AI agent from anywhere.