Conduit

Publish 13 sensors of your iPhone, iPad or Mac to ROS 2: camera, LiDAR, IMU, GPS and more, over Zenoh or DDS, with no bridge.

Download on the App Store Connect with a QR code

Downloaded over 10,000 times. Ranked as high as #4 in Developer Tools on the Japanese App Store.

ros2 topic list

/conduit/audio
/conduit/barometer
/conduit/battery_state
/conduit/camera/wide/image_raw/compressed
/conduit/fix
/conduit/illuminance
/conduit/imu
/conduit/joy
/conduit/magnetic_field
/conduit/points
/conduit/pose
/conduit/range
/conduit/temperature
/tf
/tf_static

Conduit publishes the sensors of your Apple device to a ROS 2 graph over Zenoh or DDS. No bridge, no rcl / rclcpp, nothing to build on the device. Scan a QR code from your ROS 2 PC and the topics show up in ros2 topic list. Conduit has been downloaded over 10,000 times and has ranked as high as #4 in Developer Tools on the Japanese App Store.

Get started

Install Conduit from the App Store.
On your ROS 2 PC (Ubuntu, RHEL or Fedora, with ROS 2 sourced), run:
```
curl -fsSL https://conduit.direct/pair.sh | bash
```
The script checks the setup and shows a QR code.
Scan the QR code with the iPhone's Camera app. Conduit opens and fills in the connection settings.
Turn on sensors and tap Start, then check on the PC:
```
ros2 topic echo /conduit/imu
```

QR pairing needs Conduit 2.6.0 or later. See Connect with a QR code for the requirements, Tailscale and troubleshooting.

Set up by hand: Zenoh

Start the Zenoh router on your ROS 2 PC:

source /opt/ros/lyrical/setup.bash   # or jazzy / humble / …
export RMW_IMPLEMENTATION=rmw_zenoh_cpp
export ROS_DOMAIN_ID=0  # 0-232
ros2 run rmw_zenoh_cpp rmw_zenohd

In Conduit, open Settings: Transport Zenoh, Router Address the PC's IP, Router Port 7447, Domain ID the same as the PC, and Distribution your ROS 2 release (Lyrical for new installs). Tap Done.
Turn on sensors and tap Start.
Check: ros2 topic echo /conduit/imu

Set up by hand: DDS (CycloneDDS)

On your ROS 2 PC, add the iPhone as a discovery peer and restart the ROS 2 daemon:

source /opt/ros/lyrical/setup.bash   # or jazzy / humble / …
export RMW_IMPLEMENTATION=rmw_cyclonedds_cpp
export ROS_DOMAIN_ID=0  # 0-232
export CYCLONEDDS_URI='<CycloneDDS><Domain><Discovery><Peers><Peer address="IPHONE_IP"/></Peers></Discovery></Domain></CycloneDDS>'
ros2 daemon stop

Settings → Discovery → This Device in Conduit shows the iPhone's address.

In Conduit, open Settings: Transport DDS, Domain ID the same as the PC, Distribution your ROS 2 release. In Discovery, add the PC's IP under Peers and pick en0 (WiFi) as the Network Interface. Tap Done.
Turn on sensors and tap Start.
Check: ros2 topic echo /conduit/imu --qos-reliability best_effort

Run ros2 daemon stop again whenever you change RMW_IMPLEMENTATION, ROS_DOMAIN_ID or CYCLONEDDS_URI: the daemon keeps its first settings. See Troubleshooting.

Demo videos

Getting Started _{Connect Conduit to your ROS 2 system step by step}	Camera & LiDAR _{Stream camera images and LiDAR point clouds to ROS 2}	Teleoperation _{Drive a robot with a game controller through ROS 2 Joy messages}
Cyclone DDS _{Talk to ROS 2 over Cyclone DDS, with no Zenoh router}	MCAP Recording _{Record every topic to an MCAP file for Foxglove or ros2 bag}

Coming in Conduit 3: Robots

Conduit 3 subscribes as well as publishes: watch a robot's camera, map and diagnostics, and drive it from the phone. See Robots.

Drive a mobile robot
_{Drive a robot through its own camera from your iPhone}

Move a robot arm
_{Move a MoveIt Servo arm by moving your iPhone}

What Conduit publishes

13 sensors

Motion: IMU (100 Hz) · Magnetometer (100 Hz) · GPS (1 Hz) · Proximity (10 Hz) · Device Pose (60 Hz, Conduit 3)
Perception: Camera (30 Hz) · LiDAR (30 Hz, point cloud or depth image) · Microphone (audio_common_msgs/AudioData)
Environment: Barometer (10 Hz) · Illuminance (10 Hz) · Thermal (1 Hz)
Input: Game Controller (sensor_msgs/Joy, 50 Hz, Reliable)
Status: Battery (1 Hz)

Every topic, message type and frame: Sensors and topics.

Device	Sensors
iPhone (iOS 16+)	All 13. LiDAR on Pro models (iPhone 12 Pro and later)
iPad (iPadOS 16+)	All except Proximity. LiDAR on iPad Pro (2020 and later)
Mac (macOS 13+, Mac Catalyst)	Camera, Microphone, Battery, Thermal, Game Controller

Transports

Transport	ROS 2 RMW	Router required	Best for
Zenoh	`rmw_zenoh_cpp`	Yes (`rmw_zenohd`)	Across subnets, over Tailscale, networks without multicast
DDS	`rmw_cyclonedds_cpp`	No	One LAN, an existing CycloneDDS setup

See Zenoh or DDS.

MCAP recording

Record every topic to an MCAP file and open it in Foxglove or replay it with ros2 bag play. Recording is free and works without a network: pick Record instead of Publish next to the Start button. The message schemas are written into the file, so it opens without your .msg files. See Recording (MCAP).

In-app purchases

IMU, Magnetometer, GPS, Proximity, Barometer, Illuminance, Thermal, Battery, Microphone, the front camera and MCAP recording are free. One-time purchases unlock the Back Cameras (Wide, Ultra Wide and Telephoto), LiDAR, Game Controller, Background Mode and Recording Export (sharing recordings off the device).

Screenshots

Connect _{Run one line on your ROS 2 PC and scan the QR code it shows}	Pick sensors _{Turn sensors on, choose Publish, Record or Both, and tap Start}	Motion _{IMU, GPS, Magnetic Field and Proximity with live rates}	Perception _{Microphone, cameras and LiDAR}
Status _{Battery, Thermal, Barometer, Illuminance and Game Controller}	Recordings _{MCAP files on the device, behind the folder button}	Settings _{Transport, router, Domain ID and Distribution}	DDS Discovery _{Peers and network interface for DDS}

Docker test environments

Zenoh router (Docker)

Pre-built images on ghcr.io:

# ROS 2 Lyrical
docker run -d -p 7447:7447 --name ros_lyrical_zenoh ghcr.io/youtalk/conduit-support:lyrical
# ROS 2 Jazzy
docker run -d -p 7447:7447 --name ros_jazzy_zenoh ghcr.io/youtalk/conduit-support:jazzy
# ROS 2 Humble
docker run -d -p 7447:7447 --name ros_humble_zenoh ghcr.io/youtalk/conduit-support:humble

Or with Docker Compose:

git clone https://github.com/youtalk/conduit-support.git
cd conduit-support/docker

# Default domain ID (0)
docker compose up ros-lyrical -d

# Custom domain ID via .env (recommended for persistence)
echo "ROS_DOMAIN_ID=5" > .env
docker compose up ros-lyrical -d

# Or override per-invocation
ROS_DOMAIN_ID=5 docker compose up ros-lyrical -d

# Stop
docker compose down

DDS subscriber (Docker, Linux only)

macOS note: Docker Desktop on macOS does not provide true host networking, so the container cannot receive DDS traffic from an iPhone on the same LAN. On macOS, run your DDS subscriber natively or in a Parallels/UTM VM.

cd conduit-support/docker
echo "ROS_DOMAIN_ID=0" > .env
docker compose -f compose-dds.yml up ros-lyrical-dds -d

# Verify
docker exec -it ros_lyrical_dds bash
source /opt/ros/lyrical/setup.bash
ros2 topic list
ros2 topic echo /conduit/imu --qos-reliability best_effort

See docker/README.md for the complete Docker guide.

Built on swift-ros2

All of Conduit's ROS 2 work (Zenoh and DDS transports, the CDR codec, the Humble to Rolling wire formats, publishers and subscriptions) is done by swift-ros2, a native Swift client library for ROS 2 that started inside Conduit. To put ROS 2 in your own Swift app, use swift-ros2 directly: it runs on iOS, iPadOS, macOS, Mac Catalyst and visionOS, and builds from source on Linux, Windows and Android.

Documentation

Connect with a QR code: the fastest way to connect
Zenoh or DDS: which transport to use
Platform notes: what each device supports
Sensors and topics: every topic, message type, rate and frame
Recording (MCAP): record, open and share MCAP files
On-demand capture: publish only when subscribed
Game controller teleop: drive a robot with teleop_twist_joy
Robots: coming in Conduit 3
FAQ, Troubleshooting, Known issues
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