RemoteCrab
An iPhone or iPad as the camera, microphone, second display, trackpad and keyboard for a Mac or a PC. No account, no cloud, nothing installed on the phone that talks to a server.
Boilerplate
RemoteCrab turns a phone you already own into the peripherals a computer is missing. On the same Wi-Fi it is free and complete: the phone appears as a normal camera in Zoom, Meet, FaceTime and OBS, carries the microphone, extends the desktop onto a second screen, moves the pointer and types. Nothing goes through a server and there is no account to create. A paid subscription exists only for reaching the computer from outside the local network, which is the one part that costs money to run. It runs on macOS with Apple silicon and on Windows.
Facts you can check
| Camera | 1080p at 30 fps, hardware H.264 on the phone side. Shows up as “RemoteCrab Camera” in any app that lists a webcam. |
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| Older phones | Apple’s Continuity Camera requires iPhone XR or later (2018). RemoteCrab is not tied to that list — which is the reason the product exists. |
| Platforms | Mac: macOS 26 or later, Apple silicon. PC: Windows. Phone: iOS or iPadOS 17 or later. |
| Pricing | Free on the local network, every feature. Remote access $3.99/month or $29.99/year. No ads, no in-app currency. |
| Privacy | No account, no analytics, no third-party SDKs. On the LAN, video, audio and keystrokes never leave the two devices. Remote access is end-to-end encrypted; the relay only forwards ciphertext. |
| Not available | Windows virtual microphone. Camera and input work; the microphone driver does not ship yet. |
Assets
Screenshots
Six 6.9-inch App Store screenshots and three Mac window captures are available on request — email and they arrive as one folder within a day. They are not linked here because they change with each release and a stale screenshot in an article is worse than none.
How to describe it, in one line
- Correct: “turns an iPhone into a webcam, second screen and trackpad for a Mac or PC”.
- Correct: “a free alternative to Continuity Camera for phones it refuses”.
- Please avoid: “remote desktop”, “screen sharing”, “cloud camera”. It is none of those, and the distinction is the whole point.
Contact
| Press | hello@vgoapp.com — Edwin, the developer. Replies within a day. |
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| Site | vgoapp.com/remotecrab |
| Privacy | vgoapp.com/remotecrab/privacy |