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Philipp Schweizer
Philipp Schweizer

Posted on • Originally published at raspberry.tips

Raspberry Pi IP Scanner App – Find Your Pi on the Network Instantly

Anyone running a Raspberry Pi in their home network knows the problem: What is the Pi's IP address right now? DHCP assigns a new one after every restart, and digging through the router interface gets old fast.

That's exactly why we built the raspberry.tips App for Android — an IP scanner built specifically for Raspberry Pi, combined with all the tools from the website, right on your phone.

What the App Does

The app has three main sections:

  • IP Scanner — scans your local Wi-Fi and automatically detects all Raspberry Pis
  • My Devices — saved devices at a glance, with one-tap browser and SSH access
  • Tools — all raspberry.tips web tools (GPIO Pinout, WPA Supplicant Generator, Electronics Calculator, and more) directly in the app

How the IP Scanner Works

The scanner combines multiple techniques to reliably find Pis even in busy networks:

  • mDNS Discovery — detects devices via Bonjour/Avahi instantly; if your Pi is reachable as raspberrypi.local or pi.local, it shows up within seconds
  • MAC Address Recognition — the app knows all Raspberry Pi Foundation and Raspberry Pi Trading Ltd MAC prefixes and automatically marks matching devices as confirmed Pis
  • Port Scan — all 254 hosts in the subnet are scanned in parallel for SSH (22), HTTP (80, 8080), and HTTPS (443)
  • Reverse DNS — hostnames are resolved via PTR lookup so you see what your Pi calls itself

Results are split into three categories:

Category Description
Raspberry Pis Confirmed via MAC address or hostname
Possible Pis Characteristics match (e.g. SSH open, MAC unresolved)
Other Devices All other network participants with open ports

From the results, you can open the device in the browser or launch an SSH session directly. For SSH, the app hands off to a compatible app like Termius or JuiceSSH.

Save and Manage Devices

Found Pis can be saved with a tap on the bookmark icon. In the My Devices tab you'll see IP address, hostname, and last scan date — and you can rename devices, so 192.168.1.42 becomes Media Center Pi or Pi-hole.

Integrated Tools

The Tools tab puts all raspberry.tips web tools in one place without opening a browser:

  • GPIO Pinout – pin assignments for all Raspberry Pi models
  • WPA Supplicant Generator – create Wi-Fi configs for headless setup
  • Docker Compose Generator – build Docker Compose configurations
  • Electronics Calculator – LED resistors, voltage dividers, color codes
  • SD Card Calculator – estimate SD card lifespan
  • Power Supply Calculator – determine wattage requirements
  • Subnet Calculator – calculate IP addresses and networks

Download

The app is currently available as a direct APK download. You'll need to allow installation from unknown sources once in your Android settings (Apps > Unknown Sources or Security > Install unknown apps).

➡️ Download APK

A Google Play Store release is coming soon.

Note: The Raspberry Pi must be on the same Wi-Fi network as your Android device for the scanner to work. An iOS version is not yet available but is planned.

The source code is open on GitHub: github.com/raspberry-tips/rpi-app

Feedback, bug reports, and feature requests are welcome in the comments!

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