Asleep by default, awake while you use it

Asleep by default. Awake while you use it. Reachable when you need it.

Sleep the machine from your phone when you walk away. While something is running on it — a remote session, a file transfer, a download, a Claude Code run — it holds itself up, and ten minutes after the last activity it goes back to sleep. Waking it again is the one step that needs something inside your network to send the packet.

The free plan sleeps and wakes one machine, from anywhere, and does not expire.

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  • Sleep it from anywhere
  • Back to sleep ten minutes after you stop
  • Works with the Echo you own
  • Free agent, nothing to buy
  • No software needed to wake
  • No port forwarding
  • Open source
  • REST API and webhooks

    Every figure here is a property of the device or the licence, measured or checked. The paid tiers have only just opened, so we are not going to print a user count.

    Why something has to be inside your network

    A magic packet cannot cross the internet

    You are here because there is a machine you sometimes need from somewhere else — the files on it, the remote desktop, the render queue — and leaving it running all day to maybe use it twice is the wrong answer. Letting it sleep is the easy half. Getting it back is where every product in this category, ours included, meets the same piece of physics, and the next thirty seconds explain it.

    1. Wake-on-LAN is a LAN broadcast

      A magic packet is a UDP broadcast addressed to the whole local segment. Routers do not forward broadcasts, and no ISP will carry one to your house. There is no version of this that works purely from the cloud.

    2. So something inside the network has to send it

      Whatever you use — an app, a script, a voice assistant — the last hop has to originate on your LAN. That is a hard constraint of the protocol, not a limitation anyone has failed to engineer around.

    3. Today, that something is usually a PC left switched on

      Software-only services solve this by asking you to keep a machine awake to relay the packet. That works. It also means a computer idling at 40 to 90 watts so that a different computer can be asleep. If a machine of yours is already on all day for its own reasons — a Raspberry Pi, a NAS — that objection disappears, and our free agent will happily run there. An Echo you already own is on all day too, and it can send the packet for a voice wake. A dongle you build is for the network with neither.

    Whatever sends the packet has to live inside your network. It does not have to be something you buy.

    How it wakes

    Four things can send it. Two of them you may already own.

    Waking is the enabling step rather than the headline: the machine sleeps and holds itself awake on its own, and this is what gets it back when you ask. The sender is an Echo you already own, the free agent on a machine that already stays on, or a dongle you build — nothing to buy for the first two, and waking needs nothing installed on the PC itself. Nothing is port-forwarded, and no second computer is left running just to do this. Pick the one you have. An Echo sends voice wakes and wakes from the Alexa app; the agent and the dongle carry every way of asking — the dashboard, the phone app, Alexa and the Claude connector, plus schedules and the API on the paid plans and wake links on Pro. One piece of physics first: a Wi-Fi-only laptop cannot be woken by packet at all — its lid or its power button is the wake — and a Mac wakes by packet over Ethernet only and never from full power-off, so the plug row is how a desktop Mac starts from off.

    Scroll the table sideways to see every column.

    What it costsWhat can trigger itThe one limit
    An Amazon Echo you already ownOur free, certified Alexa skill has the Echo broadcast the packet on your home network. With the free agent on the PC, that is voice wake, sleep and status on day one.Nothing"Alexa, turn on the study PC", and a tap in the Alexa app from anywhere in the world.Voice and the Alexa app only. The dashboard, the phone app, schedules, wake links, the API and the Claude connector all need one of the rows below.
    The free agent on a machine that already stays onA NAS, a Raspberry Pi, a Home Assistant box, a mini PC — or a container on any of them. One install line.NothingEverything: the dashboard, the phone app, Alexa and the Claude connector — plus schedules and the API on the paid plans, and wake links on Pro.Needs a machine that stays on. An agent cannot wake the machine it runs on.
    A certified smart plugFor a machine that starts when power is applied — most desktop PCs can be set to, and Apple-silicon desktop Macs do. It switches on a machine that is fully off and power-cycles one that is frozen.About £10Power on and power cycle from the dashboard, through an agent or dongle that reaches the plug — on the paid plans.The machine must start when power returns: a cold boot, not a resume.
    A dongle you buildA Raspberry Pi Pico W and a few parts, for the network with no always-on machine and no Echo. The parts list names them.About £17 in partsEverything the agent carries.A small build: flash it from your browser, print or buy a case.

    Setup

    Three steps, about five minutes

    The agent goes on the machine you want to sleep, and nothing is installed on a PC you only ever wake. The compatibility check further down tells you which of the machine’s own settings to flip — Windows, macOS or Linux — with the exact click-path. The second step is the only choice you make, and two of its three answers cost nothing. A dongle you build takes longer than five minutes; its page has the parts and the flashing.

    1. Create a free account and name the machine

      Sign in with your email — no password — and add the machine by name and network address. Install the free agent on it and its row gains Sleep, holds the machine up while somebody is using it, and lets it drop back to sleep ten minutes after the last activity. One machine is free for as long as you like, and nothing is installed on a machine you only wake.

    2. Pick what sends the packet

      Own an Echo? Enable the free Alexa skill and say "Alexa, discover devices". Have a machine that stays on — a NAS, a Pi, a Home Assistant box? Paste the agent's one install line on it. Neither? Build the dongle, join its setup hotspot and give it your Wi-Fi. The table above is the choice.

    3. Sleep it, and wake it when you need it

      Press Sleep on the machine’s row when you walk away, or let it drop off by itself once nothing is running. When you need it again: the dashboard, the phone app, or "Alexa, turn on the study PC" — from anywhere. Keep awake… on Plus and Pro holds it up for a window you choose while a long job runs, and the dashboard prices the hours your machines spent asleep at your own tariff, so you can see what the arrangement saved.

    How we compare

    How this compares to the alternatives

    There are five realistic ways to wake a PC remotely. Four of them are genuinely fine for some people. Here is where each one actually lands. One note: we ship a free software agent of our own, for exactly the "software on a machine that stays on" case — so the last column is no longer only other people's products. Where a cell reads "not in the plans we reviewed", that is precisely what it means: we read the free and paid tiers of the wake-on-LAN services people actually use and did not find it. It is not a claim that nobody anywhere offers it. And a word before the table: on price alone the software-only services win — some are free — so the comparison worth making is substance. What we did not find in any of them: an answer to "did it actually come up?", schedules that retry and report, other people with their own sign-ins, or a wake URL you can hand to someone with no account. That is what the rows below are checking.

    Scroll the table sideways to see every option.

    Bring, build or subscribe

    Three ways to use this, and one clear boundary

    Everything the dongle does is open. What you pay for is hosted infrastructure — uptime, accounts, wake confirmation, power actions, webhooks, support. There is no crippled community firmware and no private premium firmware. The optional agent is the one closed binary we ship, and it is free either way: it is what sleeps a machine, holds it up while it is in use and puts it back — and installed on a machine that already stays on it is also an emitter, with no hardware to buy at all.

    • Bring it

      Nothing to buy

      An Echo you already own sends voice wakes through our free Alexa skill. The free agent on the machine itself is what sleeps it and holds it awake, and on a machine that already stays on — a NAS, a Raspberry Pi, a Home Assistant box — it sends the wake to everything else. Either one is the entire hardware list, and the free plan does not expire.

      Get the agent

    • Build it

      About £17 of parts, and the firmware is free

      For the network with no Echo and nothing that stays on: a Raspberry Pi Pico W in a case — three off-the-shelf parts, and the parts page lists exactly which ones with live links for the UK, the US and the EU. The firmware, the case and the bill of materials are in the repository; flashing is done from your browser over USB, nothing is soldered, and there is no part of this you buy from us.

      See the parts list

    • Subscribe

      Free plan, or a paid one

      The free plan sleeps and wakes one machine from anywhere, for as long as you like, includes ten sleeps a calendar month, and keeps its last ten attempts on record. Paying is about holding a machine up and about people: Plus is a household — five machines, unmetered sleeps with Keep awake…, Restart… and Shut down…, five people who can wake them, confirmation the machine actually came up, and schedules that live here, retry and report. Pro is a business — twenty machines grouped into sites, twenty-five people with roles, batch actions across a site, and wake links for someone with no account at all.

      Compare the plans

    The boundary is a service, not a feature list. If we ever move a device capability behind a subscription, we will have broken the promise this paragraph is making.

    Before you buy

    Will it work on my PC?

    Usually — and the answer depends far more on your PC than on us. At most seven questions, no email address, and you get the exact click-path for your operating system at the end.

    What paying adds

    The free plan wakes your PC. The paid plans run everything around it — power, people, schedules and proof.

    The free plan is a real product rather than a trial — one machine, unlimited wakes, ten sleeps a calendar month, the dashboard, and its last ten attempts on record. No dongle? The free agent goes on the machine you want to sleep, and on any always-on box — a Raspberry Pi, a NAS, a machine that never sleeps — it is also the emitter, so nothing on this page requires buying hardware. The paid plans are the part our servers do: sign in, pick one, and it is live in a minute. EU readers: the free plan is yours today, and the form below is where to hear first when the paid plans open.

    The paid plans

    The full pricing is below. The free plan stays free either way.

    • Sleep it as often as you like: Sleep on a machine’s row suspends it in seconds — ten a calendar month on the free plan, unmetered here — and Restart… and Shut down… come with it, from the dashboard or the API. Waking it again still takes another emitter — an agent that is asleep cannot hear anything
    • Hold it awake while the work runs: Keep awake… on a machine’s row keeps it up for a window you name — an hour, a day — and it drops back to sleep by itself when the window ends and nothing is running. The machine stops being something you have to remember to switch off
    • Did it actually come up? — we probe the machine after the packet goes out and tell you yes or no. Nothing in this category can answer that, and a voice assistant structurally cannot.
    • Wake, then connect: the row's Remote Desktop button wakes a sleeping machine and opens Chrome Remote Desktop, or the link you stored on it — rdp://, vnc://, ssh://, AnyDesk, whatever you use — and SSH… does the same for a terminal. The press itself is on every plan; what paying adds is the ten-minute hold it places so the machine cannot doze off while you sign in. Wake links carry the hand-off too, so the person you gave a URL taps Wake and then taps straight into the machine
    • Schedules that live in your account — wakes AND, through the agent, sleep, restart and shutdown, so "wake at eight, sleep at seven" is two rows on one page. They retry when one does not land, they can report a failure to a webhook, and every firing is on your history page
    • The rung below all of that: hard power cycling through a certified power switch — when a machine is so hung that no packet and no software can reach it, cut and restore its mains from the dashboard. The ladder tries a graceful shutdown first, and the hard cut is the backstop, never the routine
    • Results in your pocket: install the dashboard as an app on your phone and the paid plans push the outcome — confirmed up, failed and why, a power action landing, an emitter going silent — with the tab long closed
    • A native Home Assistant integration: your machines arrive as devices — wake and power buttons, a machine-is-up sensor, a wake-result event for automations — installable today through HACS as a custom repository
    • People, with their own sign-ins: share your machines with five others on Plus, twenty-five on Pro with roles — wake, wake and power off, manage, admin — so switching a machine off is granted rather than assumed
    • More machines — five on Plus, twenty on Pro — because the free plan deliberately covers one
    • Sites on Pro: label machines by where they live, then wake or sleep a whole site at once when that is useful
    • Wake links on Pro: a revocable URL that wakes one machine, for someone with no account at all — and deliberately nothing more than wakes
    • More emitters on Pro — dongles or agents — which is how you reach a machine on a network segment the first one cannot broadcast to
    • The REST API on both paid plans; webhooks and event history on Pro
    • A longer record: thirty days of attempts on Plus, twelve months on Pro — the free plan keeps its last ten
    • Email support from the person who wrote the firmware

    None of this changes what the device is allowed to do. The firmware is the same on every plan, the protocol is public, and self-hosting the relay gets you all of it for nothing — that boundary is not going to move. Nor is the other one: waking from the dashboard with an emitter of your own — dongle or agent — needs no Echo and no Amazon anywhere in the path, and that is true on the free plan too.

    Open almost everywhere. The EU is next.

    Sign in and upgrade from your account page — billed yearly, cancel any time. We are looking at bringing the paid plans to the EU, and the free plan is fully usable there today. Leave your address and you will be the first to hear the day they open — one message, no list, no marketing.

    It decides which currency and tax rules apply, and which market opens first.

    The case, the firmware and the bill of materials are all in the repo — you need nothing from us to start

    Ecosystem

    Ways to reach a machine

    The free agent on the machine is what sleeps it, holds it awake while it is in use and puts it back. An emitter — the same agent on a box you already leave on, or a dongle you build — does the other job: it puts the magic packet on your network. Everything below is a different way of telling them to do those things.

    • Available now

      Web dashboard

      One card per machine, with its buttons and its presence — live where an agent is connected, last-seen and dated where not. Works on a phone without installing anything, on every tier; install it as an app and the result of a wake arrives as a notification with the tab long closed — on the paid plans, that includes whether the machine actually came up rather than just that the packet went out.

      Magic-link sign-in, no password to forget.

    • Available now

      The agent

      A free download — Windows, macOS, Linux, ARM — that turns a machine you already leave on into an emitter, exactly like a dongle but with no hardware to buy. On the paid plans it is also the other half of the power button: sleep, restart and shut down the machine it runs on, from the dashboard or the API.

      Details and how to install it.

    • Available now

      REST API and webhooks

      A token, a POST, and a wake goes out. Webhooks fire on wake sent, wake confirmed, power actions, and an emitter going online or offline, so you can wire this into whatever you already run.

      The API is on the paid plans; webhooks on Pro.

    • Available now

      Scheduled wakes

      Wakes on a cron-shaped schedule, held in your account — and on the paid plans a schedule can equally sleep, restart or shut down a machine running the agent, so "wake at eight, sleep at seven" is two rows on one page. They retry when one does not land, they can tell a webhook that it failed, and every firing lands on your history page — which is the difference between a schedule and a timer firing into the dark.

      Paid plans. Alexa Routines can be set up like schedules — what they cannot do is confirm the machine actually woke.

    • Available now

      Self-hosted relay

      The reference relay is in the repository today, AGPL-3.0, single-tenant, and about five minutes to stand up. Point the dongle at it and we are entirely out of the loop.

      Node and ws. No database required.

    • Available now

      Home Assistant

      A native integration, installable today through HACS as a custom repository — add the repository and your machines arrive in Home Assistant as devices: a wake button each, sleep, restart and shutdown buttons, a machine-is-up sensor, and a wake-result event your automations can act on — "when the render box confirms up, start the queue".

      It signs in with an API key, so it rides the paid plans. The power buttons appear only where they can actually act: the machine needs the agent on it, and the key needs the power scope.

    • Available now

      Siri Shortcuts

      "Hey Siri, wake the studio." A Shortcut you build in Apple's Shortcuts app in about two minutes calls our documented REST API — from an iPhone, an Apple Watch, a HomePod or a Mac, with a phrase you choose. It is a recipe rather than an app we ship, and the step-by-step build is documented in full, including the longer variant that has Siri wait for the paid plans' confirmation probe and speak what actually happened.

      It authenticates with an API key — the same credential any script uses — so it rides the paid plans. Voice with Alexa is a separate route, and stays included on every plan.

    • In certification

      Amazon Alexa

      "Alexa, turn on the study PC." A smart-home skill linked to your account. The skill declares your machine's address to Alexa and your own Echo broadcasts the wake on your own network — our servers never touch it, which is exactly why it is free on every plan. Free voice wake is the baseline across this whole category now; what no voice assistant can do is say whether the machine actually came up. That answer takes a probe on your network, which is what wake confirmation on the paid plans is.

      Built and running on real hardware; with Amazon for certification, so it cannot be enabled from the skill store yet.

    Reach it

    Wake it, then connect — one press on the row, and it sleeps again after

    • Remote desktop

      Wake it and hand the session over, in one press

      Remote Desktop on a machine's row wakes a sleeping PC, holds it up for ten minutes on Plus and Pro while you sign in, and opens the connection itself. Where the machine runs Chrome Remote Desktop it waits for that host to sign in before handing you over, so the client lists the machine online rather than offline — and nothing has to be saved for it; every other tool opens from a link you stored once, whether that is AnyDesk, TeamViewer, RustDesk, Parsec, Moonlight, VNC or a Remote Desktop address. While the session lasts the row reads in use — Remote Desktop, and the machine goes back to sleep ten minutes after you disconnect.

      Remote desktop to a PC that sleeps — the guide

    • SSH

      Wake the box, and your terminal opens signed in

      SSH… on the row opens a card that asks the two things that matter — Type, Terminal or File transfer, and Connect with: Open in my SSH app, PuTTY, Open in my file-transfer app or WinSCP, with the command line and a Copy beside it. Connect then wakes the box and opens that client already signed in; where the computer you are reading on holds no key yet it stops and offers Authorise this computer right there. Keep awake for sets how long the press holds the box on Plus and Pro, the row reads in use — SSH while you work, and the box sleeps ten minutes after the last thing happened.

      Sleep a Linux box and still SSH in — the guide

    • Remote AI

      One button runs Claude Code on it — even when it is asleep

      Press Remote AI on a machine's row: a sleeping PC is woken, held awake for the window you choose, and Claude Code starts headlessly in a folder you registered — Open in Claude then hands you the live session on the device in your hand, and ending it lets the machine sleep again. It works with your own Claude Code install and sign-in, on your own Claude plan; the free plan includes ten sessions a month and Plus runs them unmetered. Rooster Wake is in the Claude connectors directory too — one click adds it to your Claude account — and then any Claude chat can wake and reach your machines by name.

      Run Claude Code remotely — the guide

    Pricing

    Free gives you the wake. Paid puts it to work.

    Every tier speaks the same protocol to the same firmware. Paying changes what our servers will do for you, never what your device is allowed to do — and "device" includes the free agent: install it on any always-on box and no plan here needs a hardware purchase.

    • Free

      £0always

      Remote wake, from anywhere, indefinitely.

      • Wake one machine, with a dongle, the free agent, or your own Echo
      • Web dashboard from any browser
      • Unlimited wakes
      • Wake history — the last ten attempts, and why each failed
      • Magic-link sign-in
      • Voice wake with Alexa — in certification
      • Remote Desktop hand-off — one press wakes the machine, then opens Chrome Remote Desktop or the connect link you stored
      • SSH set-up and connect — the dashboard sets the login service up, authorises the computer you are reading on, and opens your terminal already signed in
      • Remote AI — ten Claude Code sessions a calendar month
      • Sharing with other people
      • Confirmation that the machine came up
      • Alerts when a scheduled wake here fails, or an emitter goes silent
      • Sleep, restart and shut down, through the free agent
      • Keep awake… — hold a machine up for a window you choose
      • Hard power cycle, through a certified power switch
      • Scheduled wakes here, with history and retry
      • REST API
      • Email support

      Included with any device

    • Special launch price

      Plus

      £12per year, inc. VAT

      For a household with more than one machine.

      • Wake up to five machines
      • Web dashboard from any browser
      • Unlimited wakes
      • Wake history — every attempt, kept for thirty days
      • Magic-link sign-in
      • Voice wake with Alexa — in certification
      • Remote Desktop hand-off — one press wakes the machine, holds it awake for ten minutes while you sign in, then opens Chrome Remote Desktop or the connect link you stored
      • SSH set-up and connect — the dashboard sets the login service up, authorises the computer you are reading on, and opens your terminal already signed in
      • Remote AI — Claude Code sessions, unmetered
      • Share with up to five people — they wake and sleep machines, you stay in charge
      • Confirmation that the machine came up — we probe it and tell you
      • Alerts when a scheduled wake here fails, or an emitter goes silent
      • Sleep, restart and shut down machines running the free agent
      • Keep awake… — hold a machine up for a window you choose, and it sleeps again when the window ends
      • Hard power cycle, through a certified power switch — cut and restore mains when nothing else can reach the machine
      • Scheduled wakes here — and scheduled sleep and shutdown — with history and retry
      • REST API
      • Email support
      Sign in and subscribe
    • Special launch price

      Pro

      £24per year, inc. VAT

      For people wiring this into something else.

      • Wake up to twenty machines, across five emitters
      • Web dashboard from any browser
      • Unlimited wakes
      • Wake history — every attempt, kept for twelve months
      • Magic-link sign-in
      • Two-factor sign-in (TOTP) — included on every plan, listed here because business buyers check for it
      • Voice wake with Alexa — in certification
      • Remote Desktop hand-off — one press wakes the machine, holds it awake for ten minutes while you sign in, then opens Chrome Remote Desktop or the connect link you stored
      • SSH set-up and connect — the dashboard sets the login service up, authorises the computer you are reading on, and opens your terminal already signed in
      • Remote AI — Claude Code sessions, unmetered
      • Share with up to twenty-five people, with roles
      • Confirmation that the machine came up — we probe it and tell you
      • Alerts when a scheduled wake here fails, or an emitter goes silent
      • Sleep, restart and shut down machines running the free agent
      • Keep awake… — hold a machine up for a window you choose, and it sleeps again when the window ends
      • Hard power cycle, through a certified power switch — cut and restore mains when nothing else can reach the machine
      • Scheduled wakes here — and scheduled sleep and shutdown — with history and retry
      • REST API, webhooks and event history
      • Sites — group machines by place, then wake or sleep a whole site at once
      • Wake links — a revocable URL that wakes one machine, for someone with no account
      • Audit export — the full event history as CSV or JSON, ready for the pipeline that watches your fleet
      • Mass deployment — a silent Windows installer and revocable enrolment tokens that bind a whole fleet, with nobody signing in at the desk
      • Email support, one working day
      Sign in and subscribe

    Need more? Pro takes add-on slots for both: £3 a year (inc. VAT) per extra machine and £5 a year (inc. VAT) per extra emitter, from your dashboard. Plus takes emitter slots only — growing past five machines is what Pro is for.

    In the rest of the world the plans are $12 and $24 a year, add-on slots $3 and $5. Cancel whenever you like; the device keeps working on the free tier, and if you would rather not deal with us at all, point it at your own relay and it keeps every paid capability that does not require a server we run.

    Self-hosting is free and always will be. It is not a downgrade path — it is the same firmware talking the same protocol to a relay you control.

    Open source

    The device is yours, including the parts that make it work

    There is no community edition. The firmware in the repository is the firmware our hosted relay speaks to, and the protocol between them is a published contract rather than an implementation detail.

    Firmware, case and tools are MIT. The reference relay is AGPL-3.0. The name and logo are not open — you can fork all of it, you just cannot call your fork ours.

    Read the source Read the wire protocol

    • firmware/

      Pico W and Pico 2 W firmware in C on the pico-sdk. Builds with CMake.

      MIT

    • relay-reference/

      The self-hostable relay. Node and ws, no database.

      AGPL-3.0

    • case/

      Snap case as STL, with print notes.

      MIT

    • tools/mkconfig/

      Generate a config UF2 for headless provisioning.

      MIT

    Self-host the relay in about five minutes

    The reference relay is single-tenant, has no database, and implements the whole protocol including the challenge-response handshake. It is a real implementation, not a demo.

    Then point the dongle at your own wss:// endpoint from the setup page, and we are out of the loop entirely.

    Questions

    The things that actually go wrong

    Ordered by how often we expect them to come up rather than by how flattering they are.

    Do I need the dongle at all?

    Only for the waking half, and only if nothing else on your network can do it. Sleeping a machine and holding it awake is the free agent on that machine, which is a download rather than a purchase. Waking is the part that needs something on your own network to broadcast the packet, and there are three candidates: a dongle plugged in near your router, the agent installed on a machine you already leave on — a Raspberry Pi, a NAS, a home server — and an Echo you already own, once our Alexa skill is published; the pricing table above says which of those is true today. If you have an Echo and one machine to wake by voice or from the Alexa app, you will need no hardware from us at all once the skill is live. For everything else — waking from the dashboard or the REST API, the history page, scheduled wakes, confirmation that the machine came up, reaching a machine on a segment your Echo is not on — you need an emitter of your own, and the agent counts: it is a dongle in software, minus the purchase.

    What is actually in the free plan?

    One machine, ten sleeps a calendar month through the free agent, unlimited wakes, ten Remote AI sessions, the web dashboard, and your last ten wake attempts with the reason any of them failed — recorded when the wake goes through an emitter of yours, a dongle or the agent, so that part needs one rather than only an Echo. The agent holds a machine awake while somebody is using it and lets it go back to sleep ten minutes after the last activity on every plan, this one included. There is no card, no trial clock and no expiry. What it does not include is unmetered sleeps and the Keep awake… hold, confirmation that the machine came up, scheduled wakes that live in your account, the REST API, sharing with other people, restart and shutdown, and email support — those are the paid plans, and the pricing table is the complete list. We would rather you read that list and decide the free plan is enough than sign up for a trial that turns off.

    What does wake confirmation actually do?

    After the magic packet goes out, a dongle on the same network segment probes the machine and watches for it answering, and the result goes on your history. So what you get back is "it came up" or "it did not", rather than "the packet was sent" — which is all Wake-on-LAN can tell you by itself, because the protocol has no acknowledgement of any kind. It is also the one thing a voice assistant structurally cannot do: Alexa knows it broadcast something on your network, and nothing whatsoever after that.

    Can it connect me after it wakes?

    It can hand you over, yes. Every machine row carries a Remote Desktop button, on every plan: press it and it wakes the machine, watches for it to come up, and opens the session itself. Chrome Remote Desktop needs nothing stored at all; every other tool opens from a connect link you put on the machine once — a remote-desktop address, an ssh:// host or vnc://studio, AnyDesk, Parsec, RustDesk, Moonlight, or a plain URL like a LAN dashboard. A server is SSH… instead, a card that wakes the box and opens your own terminal already signed in. A wake link carries the hand-off too: whoever you gave the URL taps Wake, and the same page offers the connection once the machine is up. One grammar worth knowing: Microsoft's Remote Desktop apps refuse a bare rdp://name — they want their attribute form with the inner colons encoded, rdp://full%20address=s%3A192.168.1.20%3A3389 (the raw-colon form in Microsoft's own docs fails Safari's URL parsing, and home networks usually need the IP rather than the machine's name). And two limits. The connection itself is not ours — the button launches whatever client the link names, so that client still has to be installed and able to reach the machine. And the wake, the watch and the button are free on every plan: what the free plan does not have is the probe on your own network that confirms the machine came up, which is a paid feature, and the ten-minute hold the press places so the machine cannot doze off while you sign in.

    What happens if Amazon changes something?

    The voice route stops and nothing else does. That is a rule we wrote into the code rather than a hope: no paid feature is allowed to depend on Amazon's side of the line. Waking from the dashboard, the REST API, a webhook or a schedule goes through an emitter you own and a relay we run, with no Amazon anywhere in the path — and the free plan's dashboard wake uses that same path.

    Can I wake it with Siri?

    Yes — through Apple's Shortcuts app, as a recipe rather than an app we ship. A Shortcut you build in about two minutes calls the REST API with one of your API keys, and its name becomes the phrase: call it "Wake the studio" and that is what you say to your iPhone, Apple Watch or HomePod. Because the credential is an API key, it rides the paid plans — unlike voice with Alexa, which is included on every plan. The step-by-step recipe covers the plain wake, the failures you will actually hit, and the longer build where Siri waits for the confirmation probe and speaks the answer.

    What does "special launch price" mean?

    That the current prices — £12 a year for Plus and £24 for Pro, VAT included, or $12 and $24 outside the UK — are launch pricing for early users, and may be revised after this first launch phase. It is the price you pay at checkout, not a discount off a bigger number. Plans renew automatically each year, and you can cancel any time from the billing portal before a renewal is charged.

    Do I need to forward a port?

    No, and you should not. The dongle opens an outbound TLS WebSocket to the relay and keeps it open. Your router treats that like any other outbound connection. Nothing on your network becomes reachable from the internet because you plugged this in. One note: every serious product in this category can say this now, so treat "no port forwarding" as the baseline rather than the selling point. The question that actually separates them is what happens after the packet goes out — whether anything checks the machine came up, and whether anyone can tell you why it did not.

    Does it matter if my home IP address changes?

    No. Nothing ever connects to your network, so nothing needs to know where it is. The dongle re-establishes its outbound connection after a reconnect and carries on. You do not need dynamic DNS, a static IP, or a VPN.

    My router has client isolation or a guest network. Will this work?

    Yes — the answer is placement. Client isolation, AP isolation and guest SSIDs separate devices on purpose, and a magic packet is a broadcast, so it has to be sent from inside the same segment as the machine it wakes. Usually that just means putting the dongle on your main SSID, in the same VLAN as the target. And where machines deliberately live behind an isolated segment, put an emitter inside that segment too — an additional dongle, or the free agent on an always-on box there. A wake fans out across all your emitters, so whichever one shares the machine's segment carries it.

    How do I find the right MAC address?

    On Windows, run getmac /v and take the Physical Address of the Ethernet row — not a VirtualBox, VMware, Hyper-V, WSL or VPN adapter. On macOS, System Settings, Network, Ethernet, Details, Hardware, or ifconfig en0 | grep ether. On Linux, ip link show and read link/ether off the physical interface. Give the dongle the address of the card the machine will be listening on while asleep — if it is wired, that is the Ethernet one, even if Wi-Fi is also enabled.

    It is not waking, and I have checked everything. What is it?

    In our experience, in this order: Windows fast startup, the adapter's Allow this device to wake the computer checkbox, a BIOS Wake on PCI-E setting that was never enabled, and the wrong MAC address. Run the compatibility check — it produces the click-path for each of these on your specific OS.

    What is Windows fast startup, and why does it break this?

    Fast startup makes "Shut down" a partial hibernation instead of a real shutdown, so the machine boots quicker. In that state most network cards end up in a power mode where they will not wake. It is on by default. Turn it off under Control Panel, Power Options, Choose what the power buttons do, Change settings that are currently unavailable, and untick Turn on fast startup.

    What do I set in the BIOS?

    Enable whichever your board calls it: Wake on PCI-E, Power On By PCI-E/PCI, Resume by LAN or Wake on LAN. Then disable ErP Ready or EuP 2013 if it is there — that option cuts standby power to the network card and quietly undoes everything else you just enabled.

    Why does waking from a full shutdown behave differently from waking from sleep?

    Asleep, the network card is powered by the standby rail and already armed, so it just works once the settings are right. Fully off, the motherboard has to keep feeding that rail while the system is down, which is exactly what the BIOS Wake-on-LAN option controls. Some drivers additionally need a separate Wake on LAN after shutdown setting. If you cannot get shutdown wake working, sleep is a fine target — a sleeping desktop draws two to five watts.

    My PC is on Wi-Fi, not Ethernet. Will it work?

    Best-effort, and we would rather say so here than in a support ticket. Waking over Wi-Fi means WoWLAN: support varies by adapter and driver, group-key rekeying interferes with it, and Modern Standby complicates it further. We do not promise it. If you can run a cable to the target, do — it turns a maybe into a yes. The dongle itself is Wi-Fi only, and that is fine; it is awake, so none of this applies to it.

    Can it turn my PC off as well?

    Yes, and that is the half most of this is about. Not by magic packet — there is no such thing as a sleep packet; Wake-on-LAN is one-way by design. Sleeping a machine means software on the machine itself, and that is what the agent is for: install it and the row gains Sleep, ten times a calendar month on the free plan and unmetered on Plus and Pro, which also add Restart…, Shut down… and the Keep awake… hold. The agent holds the machine up while somebody is genuinely using it and lets it go back to sleep ten minutes after the last activity, on every plan. Two boundaries worth knowing. "Nothing installed on the PC you are waking" stays true unless you choose otherwise — waking never needs the agent on the target. And an agent cannot wake the machine it runs on: asleep, it is asleep too, so the wake still comes from a dongle or an agent on another machine. That is also why, when you share your account, power is a separate permission from waking — a shutdown can leave a machine stranded in a way a wake never can.

    Can the agent wake the machine it is installed on?

    No — and nothing could make it: an agent on a sleeping machine is asleep along with it, because software does not run on a machine that is powered down. That is the whole reason Wake-on-LAN is a network protocol rather than a program. The first packet always comes from something that is awake — a dongle, or an agent on a different machine. While its own machine is up, the agent wakes any other machine on the network; and on the paid plans it can put its own machine to sleep, ready for something else to wake.

    Can other people wake my machines?

    Yes — by invitation, with their own sign-ins, never by handing yours around. Plus covers a household: up to five people who can wake, and sleep, the machines you choose to share. Pro covers a business: up to twenty-five, each with a role — wake, wake and power off, manage or admin. Powering a machine off is its own rung rather than something waking implies, because shutting a machine down is a bigger thing to hand out than switching it on. Revoking an invitation is instant, and everything anyone does lands in the account's history under their own name.

    Can someone wake a machine without having an account?

    On Pro, yes — a wake link: a URL that wakes one machine and does nothing else. Hand it to whoever opens up in the morning; they tap it, the till PC starts, and they never see your dashboard, your machines or your account. The URL itself is the credential, so treat it like a key: when the arrangement ends, revoke it from the machine's page and it stops working immediately. Every use lands in your history under the label you gave the link. Power actions are deliberately unreachable through a link — a URL that could shut a machine down is not a wake button.

    Does the dongle need to be near my PC?

    No. It needs mains power, decent Wi-Fi to your router, and to be on the same network segment as the target. Different room, different floor, all fine — a broadcast reaches the whole segment.

    What happens to my Wi-Fi password?

    It goes into the device's flash and nowhere else. You enter it locally, over the device's own setup hotspot or by USB. No frame in the protocol carries Wi-Fi credentials in either direction, and the firmware rejects any attempt by a relay to set them. That is a deliberate design decision, and it means compromising a relay — ours or anyone's — does not yield a single Wi-Fi password.

    How bad is it if someone steals my device token?

    They could switch your PC on. That is genuinely the whole blast radius: it is irritating, it costs you some electricity, and it could be a first step in a physical intrusion. It grants no access to the woken machine. The token is never transmitted — authentication is a mutual challenge-response — so a hostile relay learns nothing reusable even if you point a device at one. The reasoning is written up in the protocol.

    What if you disappear?

    Point the dongle at your own relay from the setup page and carry on. The reference relay is in the repository under AGPL-3.0, it implements the full protocol, and standing it up takes about five minutes: git clone, then docker compose up -d. That is not a courtesy — the protocol is a published contract precisely so that this is a real option rather than a reassuring sentence.

    Why not just use a smart plug?

    As the everyday way to wake a machine, it is the wrong tool: cutting and restoring mains cold-boots the machine rather than resuming it, loses your open applications, and only works if the board is set to power on after a power loss. A magic packet resumes from sleep with everything where you left it. But as the recovery of last resort, a plug is exactly the right tool — which is why the paid plans now drive certified power switches directly: when a machine is hung past waking and its agent cannot answer, one press asks for a polite shutdown first, then cuts and restores the feed at the wall. No vendor cloud, no vendor app — your own emitter drives it on your own network, and the same switches run lamps, heaters and other appliances from the dashboard, with live wattage.

    Why not run this on a Raspberry Pi I already own?

    Do — that is exactly what the agent is for. It is a free download that turns the Pi into an emitter on your account: the dashboard, the history, the whole product, with no hardware purchase. The trade is the reason the dongle still exists: a Pi 4 draws about 3 W idle against the dongle's 0.5 W, and it is a general-purpose computer that needs updating. If the Pi is running anyway, use the agent; the dongle is for every network where nothing stays on.

    Free services and Alexa skills wake a PC too. Why pay for this?

    If a voice wake now and then is all you need, use one — ours has a free plan for exactly that reason, and pretending otherwise would be silly. What we did not find in the free and cheap software services we reviewed is everything around the wake — starting with the other direction, since a wake service that cannot put the machine back has done half the job: sleeping a machine from your phone, holding it awake for a window while a long job runs, and letting it go back to sleep on its own ten minutes after the last activity. Then: confirmation that the machine actually came up, with the reason when it did not; schedules that live server-side, retry, and can equally sleep or shut a machine down at seven; other people with their own sign-ins and roles, rather than your password shared around; a wake link for someone with no account at all; a push to your phone with the result — on the paid plans, that the machine is up, not just that a packet went out; a native Home Assistant integration with power buttons, installable through HACS as a custom repository; and open firmware with a self-hostable relay, so none of it depends on us existing. Most of that list is what the paid plans are — the pricing table says which plan carries what, and the free plan stays free while you decide.

    Do I have to pay for anything?

    No. Build the hardware from the repository — a Pico W or Pico 2 W and a printed case — self-host the relay, and you never touch us. Or use our hosted free plan, which also costs nothing and does not expire; the agent is a free download too, and using it as an emitter never costs anything. The subscription buys hosted infrastructure — more machines, confirmation, scheduled wakes, power actions, sharing, webhooks, support — and never unlocks a capability in the firmware.

    How do I get support?

    Everything before a purchase is answered on this page and in the documentation. Found a bug, or building it yourself from the repository? Open a GitHub issue — they all get read. Subscribers get email support from the Support page in their dashboard, answered within one working day on Pro.

    Check it will work before you spend anything

    The compatibility check takes about a minute, asks for no email address, and will tell you plainly if the answer is no — before you have bought a board or spent an evening on it.

    Run the compatibility check Read the source