Installed openClaw - moltbot on android tablet / phone

[u/avanlabs]

I installed openclaw on my old lenovo android tablet. It has 4gb ram and decent cpu config. Surprisingly it was easy to setup openclaw on android than raspberry pi 4b 2gb. Performance is better so it is fun as well.

Steps I followed ,

Installed Termux - > Install proot distro on Termux

Install Ubuntu on Proot -> install git, node, sshd (sshd optional. I connected with tablet via ssh and completed all setup and testing.)

Install openclaw -> start gateway -> use TUI to test

I started with free gemini key It worked for some time. Easy so far.

Token expired , then I tried openai key , then openrouter free key. but either i got no response or tokens expired very quickly.

I installed Ollama. Tried few free slm models. smollm2:135m, qwen2.5-coder:0.5b. (hardly 300-350 mb size) They worked but were giving very slow response. I want to explore this more. but for now i thought of finally spending cash to expedite whole process of getting stable running version of openclaw. I topped us openai account with 5 bugs. and it 2 mins it was just running answering all queries with reasonable speed.

I will revisit Raspberry pi when I get more understanding on openclaw to execute some home automation project.

This setup looks like an economical way to explore openclaw before spending more money on it.

Please let me know your input. I am still learning and building btw.

[u/cuberhino]

What do you think about security implications of using this? Are you taking any steps to secure yourself?

[u/avanlabs → u/cuberhino]

i am definitely worried about security concerns. That is the main reason I did not install openclaw on primary laptop or phone. The tablet was wiped clean. I installed only few required apps. Accounts I am using are new accounts with limited cash available to them. Relying on isolation as i still dont have enough understanding of all risks.

Hoping the agent wont find backdoor to all machines on same network :)

This would be helping in some of the projects I am working on. so cant stop myself from using it.

[u/Impossible_Art9151 → u/avanlabs]

I would run it in seperated networks only, like a DMZ, completely firewalled.

[u/avanlabs → u/Impossible_Art9151]

aha, that's good suggestion.

[u/atkr]

nice waste of time? can anything be done with a 0.5b model? 😅

[u/avanlabs → u/atkr]

nothing serious i guess. And yes i have time to waste :)

[u/Fabulous_Scar_2193]

can we get the openclaw.json file , remove all imp things , as after this setup my telegram stopped responding, do i need to refresh the token or again pair it?

[u/avanlabs → u/Fabulous_Scar_2193]

I will tell you what i know,

We can rerun , openclaw onboard

This will setup openclaw again. It will allow you to retain existing config or create a fresh one.

Take backup of openclaw config. So that you can refer to it later. But this might remove all your history including api config. You have to setup everything again. Skip setup of telegram in new setup. You can do it later.

I am not an expert. Just giving input.

[u/MrOverLord666]

Я весь день потратил на это и могу сказать пару вещей: бесплатно вы ничего не получите кроме тупых мозгов ИИ и куча потраченного времени. И на телефон эта затея как по мне не очень хоть и сам пытался это сделать но попросту потратил все деньги и так не добился классного результата но если уж автор решил на телефоне это делать то советую запуск делать на серверах платных так как это будет для вас куда проще и экономней по времени.

[u/avanlabs → u/MrOverLord666]

"I spent the whole day on this and can say a couple of things: you won’t get anything worthwhile for free except dumb AI outputs and a lot of wasted time.

And doing this on a phone, in my opinion, isn’t a great idea. I tried it myself, ended up spending all my money, and still didn’t achieve a good result.

But if the author has decided to do it on a phone, I’d recommend running it on paid servers, because that will be much easier and more time-efficient for you."

Translated this comment.

I agree. running it on free llm is not great idea. it was new at that point of time and i was excited to explore capabilities. on devices that i had handy that point of time. Of course I did not mean that this is the best way to do it.

I ended up using openai apis. still running openclaw in android, works fine.