Step 2: Connect your first phone

There are two ways to bring a phone into VMOS Cast. Pick the one that fits your situation:

Your situation	Method to choose
Physical phone, connecting for the first time	USB cable connection (you must do this once)
Physical phone that has connected over USB before and has WiFi connection enabled	Local network connection
Cloud phone / cloud phone instance	Local network connection (enter the IP directly, or scan a subnet and select it)

Option 1: USB cable (required for a physical phone's first time)

Three quick steps (for detailed walkthrough with pictures, see USB cable connection):

1. On the phone, enable "Developer options" → "USB debugging";
2. Connect the phone to the computer with a data cable (not a charge-only cable);
3. When the phone shows "Allow USB debugging?" → check "Always allow" → tap "Allow."

Once done, the phone's screen appears on the device wall automatically — no manual adding needed.

Option 2: Local network connection (cloud phones / physical phones with WiFi enabled)

1. Make sure the phone/cloud phone and the computer are on the same local network;
2. Click "Add Device" in the sidebar;
3. Enter device addresses, one per line. If you enter only the IP, VMOS Cast uses port 5555:

192.168.1.100
192.168.1.100:5555
192.168.1.101:5555

4. Click "Connect" — the screen appears on the device wall after a few seconds.

The Add Device entry is in the sidebar's shortcut area:

You can also click Scan devices to find connectable devices on the same LAN:

A physical phone's first WiFi connection fails?

Physical phones don't allow network connections by default. You must first "prime" one over a USB cable. See Local network connection: First-time WiFi setup for physical phones.

After connecting

• See it big: click a device card's screen area to open a standalone control window and drive the phone with your mouse;
• Multi-select: click anywhere on the card outside the screen (such as the title bar) to select/deselect; once selected, you can run batch operations;
• Addresses you've connected to are saved automatically — VMOS Cast reconnects to them the next time you launch it, so you don't have to add them again.

Selected devices use a blue border, and the top bar shows how many are selected:

Next, take a look at Device wall & groups and Group control & batch operations.