iPhone and iPad
Pairing
How an iPhone or iPad pairs with your Mac, how it reads the Mac at home and away, what each message means, and how to unpair.
Kairos Code has no account and no server of its own. It reads your Mac: directly over your Wi-Fi at home, and away from home through a relay that cannot read what passes through it. Pairing is how the phone and the Mac come to trust each other.
Pair
- On the Mac: Kairos › Settings › iPhone & iPad › Pair iPhone or iPad…. A QR code shows for five minutes, for one device.
- On the iPhone or iPad: Pair with Your Mac (on the welcome screen, or Settings › Mac › Pair with a Mac…), and scan the code. The iPhone's Camera works too: it opens Kairos Code with the code.
- Kairos Code shows the Mac's name and how it will read it — "Kairos will read the Mac directly over your Wi-Fi.", or "… over your Wi-Fi, and away from home through a relay that cannot read it." — and pairs only when you tap Continue.
- "Paired with …". Today fills in.
If the camera is not allowed: "To scan, allow the camera for Kairos in Settings." You can paste the code instead.
How it stays private
- At home, the phone talks to the Mac over TLS on its own port (47616), pinned to the Mac's own certificate, which the QR code carries. Nothing goes through a server. The port is open only while a device is paired or a pairing window is open.
- The QR code holds a one-time code. Pairing trades it for a device token that only this device keeps, in its Keychain; the Mac keeps only a fingerprint of it. A wrong code five times closes the window.
- Away from home, the phone reaches the Mac through Kairos's relay. What crosses it is encrypted end to end with keys only the Mac and the phone hold: the relay passes bytes it cannot read.
Messages you may see
| Message | Meaning |
|---|---|
| That is not a pairing code from Kairos on a Mac. | The QR code or pasted text is something else. |
| This device could not keep the pairing in its Keychain. | iOS refused to store the token; try again, or restart the device. |
| Kairos on this Mac is not answering. | The Mac is asleep, off the network, or Kairos is not running on it. |
| … did not answer: remove this device in its Settings too. | You unpaired on the phone while the Mac was away; remove the device on the Mac as well. |
Unpair
- On the phone: Settings › Mac › Unpair.
- On the Mac: Settings › iPhone & iPad, then Remove beside the device. Its token stops working at once, its open connections close, and its relay room is deleted.
The Mac's settings change, and pairing ends, only by your own action on either device.