On by default
iPhone & Android
On once a paired computer or TV offers it, with a short note on what the relay sees and a switch to turn it off: Settings › Remote, under Away From Home on iPhone and iPad.
ControllerLagu Relay
Your remote,
away from home.
Lagu Remote turns your phone into the remote for Lagu on a computer, Apple TV, or Android TV. Lagu Relay takes that remote out of the house.
Queue the dinner playlist on the train home, or turn the living room down from the office. Everything between your phone and the host is encrypted end to end, so the relay passes along messages it can’t read.
Encrypted end to end Free, no account One switch to turn off
How it works
Paired at home,
reachable anywhere.
Nothing changes about how you pair or what the phone can do. Lagu Relay only adds a second way for the two to find each other.
Pair at home
Pair the phone with the computer or TV once, on your own network, with a QR code or six-digit PIN. That’s when the two swap the identities their encryption keys come from.
The host keeps a line open
With Lagu Relay on, the computer or TV holds one connection to whichever relay answers it fastest, and moves to another within about 15 seconds if that one stops answering.
The phone finds it
Away from home, the phone looks on the network it’s on first, then goes through the relay. Lagu says when it does: “via Lagu Relay”, with the relay’s city.
End to end
Only your phone
and your host
can read it.
Each message is sealed on one device and opened on the other. The relay forwards it in between and holds no key that opens it.
For the curious: X25519 to agree the key, ChaCha20-Poly1305 to seal each message. The security write-up on the forum has the rest, and what the relay doesn’t protect.
- Keys made on your devices The phone and host make a fresh key for every connection and seal each message with it. The keys never leave them.
- What stays sealed Your commands, your library, what’s playing, and your Plex token, account, and server details.
- Sealed past Cloudflare too Cloudflare sits in front of the relays, as it does for this site. It only ever sees sealed messages too.
- Remote control only The relay carries Lagu Remote’s messages and nothing else. Music and covers come from your own Plex server, never through the relay.
What the relay sees
What any connection shows,
and what we keep.
A relay can’t avoid seeing that a connection exists. Here is what that amounts to, and how long any of it lasts. The privacy policy has the full detail.
The connection itself
Your IP address, when you connect and for how long, how much data passes, and a random identifier for the host you’re reaching, held only while the connection is open.
Nothing on disk about you
The list of connected hosts lives in memory and is gone when they disconnect. Device identifiers and message contents are never stored.
Logs for 7 days
Connection logs record an address only as a one-way hash whose key changes every day at midnight UTC and is never saved, so it can’t be turned back into an address. They’re deleted after 7 days.
Counters for 13 months
Connections, bytes, errors, and response times, kept to plan where relays go. No device identifiers, no addresses, and nothing about what you play.
Where it’s on
On by default where it helps,
off wherever you like.
Lagu Relay only works between a phone and a computer or TV that both have it on. A phone whose computers and TVs all have it off never contacts the relay.
On by default
Apple TV, Android TV & Fire TV
On whenever Lagu Remote is on, in Settings › Remote on Apple TV and Settings › Lagu Remote on Android TV and Fire TV. On those, if you turned it off before, it stays off.
Host Off by default
Desktop
Off until you turn it on, in Settings › Remote. A computer hosts while Lagu is running, closed to the tray included.
Windows · macOS · Linux Pair from anywhere
Pair over Lagu Relay, off by default, lets a phone on another network pair for the first time. Turned on at the host, it adds a single-use key to the QR code that lasts ten minutes. Scan the code; a typed PIN only pairs on the same network.
Already paired
Phones paired on an earlier version don’t pair again. They pick up Lagu Relay the next time they connect at home.
The relays
A relay near you,
and a say in the next.
Lagu’s relays run in cities around the world, and your computer or TV picks the one that answers it fastest. status.lagu.fm shows how each one is doing. No relay near you? Send the ping your browser measures there. It counts toward where the next relay goes.
Questions
The ones
people ask.
Is Lagu Relay free?
Yes. Lagu Relay comes with Lagu. There is no account to make, no subscription, and no Plex Pass needed for it.
Can you read what I play through Lagu Relay?
No. Every message is encrypted on your phone or your computer or TV before it reaches the relay, with a key only those two devices hold. The relay forwards sealed messages and has no way to open them, and neither do we.
Does my music stream through Lagu Relay?
No. The relay carries Lagu Remote’s control messages only. The music plays on the computer or TV, from your Plex server, as it does at home. If you move playback to the phone, the phone streams it from your Plex server over its own connection.
Do I have to pair my phone again?
No. A phone paired on an earlier version picks up Lagu Relay the next time it connects to the computer or TV at home. To pair a new phone from somewhere else, turn on Pair over Lagu Relay at the computer or TV, then scan its QR code.
Does my phone still need to reach my Plex server?
For browsing and covers, yes. The phone loads your library and artwork from your Plex server over its own connection, as it does whenever you use Lagu away from home. Only the commands between phone and host go through Lagu Relay.
What happens if a relay goes down?
The computer or TV moves to another relay within about 15 seconds, and your phone follows it, usually within a minute. status.lagu.fm shows how each relay is doing.
How do I turn Lagu Relay off?
In Lagu’s Remote settings, on any device. Off on a computer or TV closes every relay connection to it at once; off on a phone keeps that phone to your own network. Removing a phone, or resetting pairing, on the host cuts that phone off the relay at once. Lagu Remote keeps working at home either way. The settings guide lists each switch.
Take the remote with you.
In Lagu 0.16.0 on every phone, computer, and TV that runs Lagu Remote.
Download Lagu