__       __
     / <`     '> \
    (  / @   @ \  )
     \(  \_-_/  )/
   (\ `-/     \-' /)
    "==/   _   \=="
     .=') [_] (`=.
    ` .='     `=. '
POCKETCLAW

PocketClaw

A full AI gateway running 24/7 on any old phone. Not a stripped-down chatbot rewritten in Go or Rust — the real thing. OpenClaw, unmodified, with 30+ providers, Telegram bot, web dashboard, and REST API. Starting from a $20 Moto E2 with 1 GB of RAM.

57 hacks. The first phone is running. More devices, more hacks, and a lot more coming — follow on X and GitHub.

FIRST UNIT
DEVICEMoto E2 (XT1524)
YEAR2015
RAM1 GB
CPUSnapdragon 410
COST$20
STATUSONLINE
MISSIONANY PHONE
> POCKETCLAW SYSTEMS (TM) TERMLINK PROTOCOL
> HARDWARE DIAGNOSTIC ........... PASSED
> NODE22-ICU (NDK r26c) ......... LOADED
> V8 HEAP 150MB / SEMI 2MB ...... SET
> LD_PRELOAD (11 SYMBOLS) ....... INJECTED
> FIELD MODIFICATIONS ........... 57 LOADED
> ALL SYSTEMS NOMINAL ████████████████

How It Started

It started on a whim. February 10th, 2 AM. Robin had a Moto E2 sitting in a drawer — a phone from 2015 that nobody wanted. $20 on the used market. 1 GB of RAM. The kind of device people throw away without thinking twice.

The idea: what if this thing could run an AI? Not a toy chatbot. A real, always-on AI gateway — OpenClaw, an open-source platform that connects to 30+ AI providers (Gemini, Groq, OpenAI, Claude, Kimi, Ollama...) with a Telegram bot, a dashboard, and an API. The same software people run on $200/month servers.

No target. No deadline. No plan. Just “let's see how far this goes.” One phone to prove the concept. Then every phone.


The Problem

OpenClaw needs Node.js 22. The phone ships with Node 12. OpenClaw needs ARM64. The phone is ARM32. OpenClaw needs Android 10+. The phone runs Android 6. OpenClaw needs 3 GB of RAM. The phone has 1 GB.

Every single requirement — failed.

The first attempt used proot (a Linux emulation layer inside Termux). It worked — technically. The gateway booted at 780 MB of RAM on a phone with 898 MB usable. Constant crashes. OOM kills every few minutes. Unusable.

Most people would have stopped here. “The hardware can't do it.” But the question wasn't whether the hardware was good enough. The question was: how much of that 780 MB is actually necessary?


The Descent

What followed was a week of obsessive optimization. Every day, the RAM usage dropped. Every hack unlocked the next one.

DAY 1 — INITIAL
proot + Node 18
Ubuntu emulation layer. 144 Android packages. Unoptimized. Constant OOM kills.
~780 MB
DAY 2 — DEBLOAT
131 packages removed
Google services, Motorola bloat, telephony, camera — all gone. 13 packages remain. The phone does one thing now.
~630 MB
DAY 3 — SYSTEMUI
No more Android UI
SystemUI killed (86 MB). Custom launcher in pure Canvas replaces the entire Android home screen. 12.6 KB APK.
~500 MB
DAY 4 — DIRTY COW
Kernel exploit for root
CVE-2016-5195. Gained root to kill 6 system daemons and tune kernel memory parameters. Dirty but effective.
~393 MB
DAY 5-6 — NATIVE
Goodbye emulation
Cross-compiled Node.js 22 with NDK r26c. Built an LD_PRELOAD shim for 11 missing API symbols. Proot eliminated entirely.
~310 MB
DAY 7 — CURRENT
Proxy-based lazy loading
37 modules intercepted. 23 dead-stubbed. V8 heap capped. Gateway runs stable. Telegram bot online 24/7.
~385 MB

From 780 MB to 385 MB. Same hardware. Same software. 57 modifications between “impossible” and “running in production.” That was the first phone. The next ones will be easier — and documented on GitHub as they happen.


What It Is (And What It Isn't)

This is not a chatbot rewritten from scratch in Go or Rust to be as small as possible. Those exist — they're impressive, but they're a different product. Minimal clients that talk to one API. A different trade-off.

PocketClaw runs OpenClaw — the full, unmodified, open-source AI gateway. Node.js 22. 30+ provider support. Conversation history. File handling. Tool use. Web search. Telegram bot. REST API. Web dashboard. Module system. The same thing you'd deploy on a VPS.

It started on a Moto E2. The mission is bigger: make it run on any old phone. The $30 Galaxy J2 in your drawer. The cracked Redmi 4A your kid stopped using. Any device people consider dead.

No server bill. No vendor lock-in. Powered by whatever free or paid AI provider you choose. Yours, on hardware you already own.

7DAYS
69COMMITS
57HACKS
$20TOTAL COST
1OPERATOR

System Schematic

4-layer native execution stack. No emulation. No WebView. No Electron on-device.

LAYER 0 — Termux (native) │ LAYER 1 — bash │ LAYER 2 — node22-icu (58 MB, NDK r26c, API 24) + LD_PRELOAD libapi23compat.so (11 symbols) │ LAYER 3 — OpenClaw Gateway (155 MB RSS) + hijack.js (--require) │ ├── API :9000 (status, keys, modules, heap, history) ├── Dashboard :9003 (CRT green-on-black, 4 pages) ├── Telegram Bot (@pocketclawbot, 24/7) ├── Auth (X-PocketClaw-Token) └── SSE (/api/logs/stream, real-time)

Compatible Interfaces

30+ verified external AI providers. OpenAI-compatible protocol. Free, paid, or local — your choice.

InterfaceClassificationAllocationContext Window
Google GeminiFree1,000 req/day1M tokens
GroqFree500K tokens/day131K
CerebrasFree~1M tokens/day128K
MistralFree1B tokens/month128K
OpenRouterFree:free modelsVaries
AnthropicPaidPay-per-token200K
OpenAIPaidPay-per-token128K
Kimi K2.5Paid~$19/month262K
OllamaLocalUnlimitedDepends on model

Live Readout

POCKETCLAW SYSTEMS — TERMLINK
$

Interface Units

Two display units. Same CRT protocol. One operates on-device. The other provides remote management.

┌─────────────────────────────┐ │ POCKETCLAW OS v4.0 │ │ │ │ Gateway: RUNNING (PID 20122)│ │ Uptime: 5d 17h 00m │ │ RAM: 385 MB / 898 MB │ │ [██████████████░░░░] 43% │ │ Heap: 150 MB (V8) │ │ Battery: 87% 31.2°C │ │ │ │ STATUS LOGS KEYS CTRL │ │ ────── │ │ │ │ 🦀 │ │ [floating home btn] │ └─────────────────────────────┘

PocketClaw Launcher

Native Android application. Pure Canvas rendering protocol. No XML layouts. No WebView runtime. 4-tab interface: STATUS, LOGS, KEYS, CTRL. Floating navigation element. Replaces default Android home screen.

12.6 KB APK55 MB RSS0 dependencies
┌─── PocketClaw 3000 ──────────┐ │ ┌───┬───┬───┬───┬───┐ │ │ │STA│LOG│KEY│MOD│SET│ │ │ └───┴───┴───┴───┴───┘ │ │ │ │ ■ Gateway ONLINE │ │ RAM 385 MB Heap 150 MB │ │ [██████████████░░] │ │ │ │ Uptime: 5d 17:00 │ │ Providers: 4 active │ │ Kimi K2.5 (primary) │ │ Gemini (fallback) │ │ │ │ Theme: [CRT Green ▼] │ └─────────────────────────────┘

PocketClaw 3000

Electron desktop application. Pip-Boy inspired display interface. 5 CRT color themes. Real-time status monitoring, log streaming, API key management, provider control, garbage collection trigger, gateway restart. Full remote operation.

Pip-Boy UI5 CRT themesSSE streaming

If it runs on a phone from 2015, it runs on anything.

This is Phase 1 of 5. One phone proven. The goal is every phone. New devices, new hacks, new features — everything shared live on X and GitHub. The story is just getting started.

Phase 2 is coming — Operator dashboards, early access, and a way to support the mission. Drop your email to be first in line.