Choose your hardware

You don’t need anything special to host: a small computer that stays on, your spare phones and a powered USB hub between them. Don’t buy a phone just to host; check Earnings first.

The hub computer

Computer	Notes
Raspberry Pi 5 or 4	Quiet, low-power and easy to dedicate to hosting. Use its official power supply and a case that cools it. See Raspberry Pi.
A Debian or Ubuntu computer	A mini PC or an old laptop works well. Turn off sleep. See Debian and Ubuntu.
A Windows 10 or 11 PC	Supported, but newer than the Linux hub. See Windows.

Whichever you choose, it should be 64-bit, stay on all the time, and be dedicated to hosting rather than a computer you use every day. Plug it into your router with Ethernet if you can.

A powered USB hub

A phone in use for hours needs steady power, and most computers can’t give it over USB:

A Raspberry Pi 4 shares about 1.2 A across all four USB ports.
A Raspberry Pi 5 shares 1.6 A across its ports, and only with the official 27 W power supply (600 mA with others).
Desktop and laptop ports usually give 0.5 A to 0.9 A each.

A modern phone draws more than that while its screen is on, so its battery runs down during a long rental. The fix is a powered USB hub: it has its own power supply, so the phones charge from the hub while the computer only carries data. Plug the hub into the computer and the phones into the hub. Use one even for a single phone.

What to look for:

Its own power adapter, sized for your phones: at least 1.5 A (7.5 W) per phone, for example a 7-port hub with a 60 W adapter. A hub powered only by its USB cable doesn’t help.
Charging data ports. Look for USB Battery Charging 1.2 (BC 1.2) ports that charge at up to 1.5 A while carrying data. Ports marked as charge-only don’t carry data, so the hub computer can’t see a phone plugged into one.
Per-port power switching (Linux and Raspberry Pi). If a phone doesn’t come back after the restart at the end of a cleanup, the hub turns its port’s power off and on with uhubctl, which usually brings it back without you. That needs a hub that can switch each port on its own. The Raspberry Pi’s own ports switch all together, so the hub only does this when no other phone is rented or being cleaned.

Examples. The Plugable USB3-HUB7BC (7 ports, 60 W adapter, BC 1.2 charging at up to 1.5 A on every port) switches each port’s power. uhubctl’s compatibility list names other powered hubs that do, such as the AmazonBasics HU9002V1SBL (10 ports) and HU9003V1EBL (7 ports), the Anker AK-68ANHUB-BV7A-0004 (7 ports) and the Rosonway RSH-A10 (10 ports). That list comes from its users and hardware revisions change, so check it before you buy, and check the hub’s charging current per port too.

Cables

Use short cables (1 m or less) that carry data. Many cables that came with chargers are charge-only: the phone charges, but the hub never sees it. If a phone doesn’t appear, try another cable first. Label each cable with the phone it belongs to.

Your phones

Android 8.0 or newer, with at least 4 GB of free storage, and no SIM card.
A healthy battery. Never host a phone with a swollen, damaged or overheating battery.
A charge limit, if the phone has one. A phone that stays plugged in lasts longer when it stops charging at about 80%. On recent Pixels it is under Settings › Battery › Battery health › Charging optimization › Limit to 80%; Samsung calls it Battery protection. Turn it on while you prepare the phone, before you plug it into the hub.

Less common brands, budget and Android Go phones, and specific model and Android version combinations are often exactly what developers can’t find elsewhere.

Where to put it

A cool spot with airflow, out of direct sun, on a hard surface rather than a bed, sofa or carpet. The hub pauses a phone whose battery gets too hot (45 °C) until it cools down.
Lay phones side by side, not stacked, and keep them away from anything flammable.
Somewhere others won’t pick the phones up: a rented phone’s screen shows what the renter is doing.
Plug the computer and the USB hub into a surge protector.