San Francisco – September 08, 2026 -- TrustKernel has begun shipping PlugClaw worldwide, moving the device from pre-order to general availability starting at $149 with no mandatory subscription.
The product is a USB-C stick measuring 50 x 19 x 8 mm and weighing 15 grams, built around a MediaTek Helio G80 processor with up to 6 GB of memory and 128 GB of encrypted storage. It runs PlugOS, a privacy-hardened Android system, alongside Ubuntu as an agent runtime.
Plugging it in turns any device into an AI workstation
Users connect PlugClaw to a phone, tablet, or computer, which then acts only as a display and input source. The AI agent, its applications, login credentials, and full execution environment run entirely on PlugClaw's own hardware rather than the host device.
The agent can open apps, read and reply to messages, organize files, browse the web, and complete multi-step tasks on its own. It cannot obtain administrator access to the host device and has no path to photos, contacts, documents, or account data stored there.
The company built the device after agents overstepped permissions elsewhere
TrustKernel points to a series of public incidents in which AI agents exceeded their permissions or executed unintended commands, putting user data at risk. Running PlugClaw confines any unexpected agent behavior to the stick itself; unplugging it ends the session instantly and leaves the host phone or computer untouched.
PlugClaw runs Android natively alongside OpenClaw, an open-source agent framework extended with GUI-agent and Android-Use capabilities, allowing the AI to operate apps the way a person would.
Sensitive tasks route through encrypted cloud servers, not the host device
When a task requires a more powerful frontier model, PlugClaw sends the request to a hardware-encrypted Trusted Execution Environment in the cloud using remote attestation and memory encryption. Neither the cloud provider nor TrustKernel can read the underlying plaintext data under this setup.
Following preview testing in which users chose confidential models over cheaper non-confidential options, TrustKernel has deployed dedicated servers offering free confidential-model inference. Users can also connect their own model service through a bring-your-own-API-key option.
The stick works across nearly every major operating system
PlugClaw connects to Android phones, iPhones, iPads, Windows, Mac, Linux, and HarmonyOS devices. Applications, AI memory, custom skills, and workflows carry over when a user switches between devices.
TrustKernel's consumer hardware line previously included PlugMate, a similar thumb-sized private computer for protecting personal data and applications.