R1 · USB-C 5G for MacBook

relay.

5G for MacBook. No drivers. No hotspot.

Relay is a USB-C card that gives any MacBook 5G. macOS sees it as ethernet — plug in, about three seconds, online.

Reserve yours — free → Explore the product →
Relay R1 USB-C 5G card in Silver — concept render
R1 · Silver + Space Black · 70 × 35 × 7 mm · 22 g USB-C · 5G RedCap (Rel-17) · macOS native
§ 00 — At a glance

Four numbers. The only ones that matter.

Relay R1 in Space Black — concept render R1 · design render
Weight
22g

No battery inside — your MacBook is the battery. Denser than it looks, lighter than your keys.

Thickness
7mm

A 70 × 35 mm slab that sits flush on the side of your Mac and disappears into a pocket after.

Plug to online
~3s

The light pulses while it finds a network, then goes solid. About three seconds. No clicks.

Drivers to install
0

Zero drivers, apps, accounts, captchas. macOS has shipped everything Relay needs since Catalina, 2019.

§ 01 — The problem

Lenovo, Dell, HP — all sell 5G laptops. MacBook never has.

01

Hotspot murders your phone battery.

Every hour you tether, your phone dies faster. You started the meeting at 78% and ended it at 31%.

02

Hotspot drops when a call comes in.

iOS personal hotspot was never built as a primary uplink. One ring and your video call freezes.

03

Public Wi-Fi is neither.

Captive portals, rate limits, MITM risk, and a different login captcha at every café you walk into.

4
decades of Macintosh.
Zero with cellular.

In four decades of Macintosh, Apple has never shipped a Mac with a cellular radio — every iPhone has one, every iPad offers one, the Mac never has. The category has been empty the whole time. Until now.

§ 02 — How it works

It looks like ethernet. Because it is.

Relay enumerates as a CDC-ECM network adapter — a standard macOS has shipped natively since Catalina (2019). No driver, no carrier app on the critical path. It works the same way Apple's own USB-C-to-Ethernet adapter works.

01

insert a SIM.

any nano-SIM with a data plan on a supported network. in the US: AT&T or T-Mobile — the two carriers with nationwide 5G Standalone. Verizon isn't supported at launch.

02

plug it in.

any USB-C port on your Mac. no driver, no app, no account, no captcha. bus-powered — under 4.5 W at peak, so there's no battery to babysit.

03

there is no step 3.

the light pulses while it finds a network, then goes solid — about three seconds. your Mac sees relay as ethernet and routes everything through it.

Under the hood: 5G RedCap (Release 17) — 5G's lighter tier. It trades peak speed for roughly a quarter of the power, which is what makes bus-powered possible. LTE Cat 4 fallback. USB 2.0 data on purpose: its 480 Mbps ceiling is more than double RedCap's theoretical peak, so the bus never bottlenecks the radio.

plug it in.

§ 03 — In the box

Everything you need. Nothing you don't.

A matte black box. Amber inside. The first words you read are the whole manual.

01

the relay R1

your choice of Silver or Space Black. factory-tested, IMEI-registered, ultrasonically welded — no screws.

02

15 cm braided USB-C extender

for crowded ports — and weak signal. distance from the aluminum helps the antennas breathe.

03

nano-SIM tray pin

a real metal pin, press-fit into the quickstart card. not a paperclip.

04

quickstart card

one sheet, two sides, riso-printed. step 3 reads: "there is no step 3."

05

Dyneema sleeve

stronger than steel, by weight — for a 22-gram modem. overkill. we know.

06

a direct line to us

email kavin@relay5g.com and a human replies — usually Kavin. that's the support model.

data plan is your responsibility — relay is carrier-unlocked and never paired to an account.

$199 USD · single SKU · Silver + Space Black

$199. Reserve yours.

Reservations are free — no payment today, no card on file. We'll email you when certification lands and your unit is ready to confirm.

Reserve a unit →

Reservation only · No charge until shipping · FCC authorization in progress · Ships Q2–Q3 2027
Questions? kavin@relay5g.com — a human replies, usually Kavin. He's 16, he's in Austin, and he reads everything.

FCC notice. Relay has not yet been authorized as required by the rules of the Federal Communications Commission. Relay is offered on a reservation basis only, and delivery to you is conditional on Relay receiving FCC authorization. No unit will ship, and no payment will be collected, before that authorization is granted. The Quectel RG255C-GL module inside Relay is FCC-certified; host-device certification for Relay itself is underway.

Consumer protection. FCC equipment authorization covers radio-frequency compliance only. The FCC's rules do not address consumer-protection matters such as delivery timelines, cancellations, or refunds — those are governed by our refund policy and by applicable consumer-protection law.

Refund policy. Reservations are free and cancellable at any time with one click. If we ever collect payment before your unit ships, you may cancel for a full refund at any point before shipment. If FCC authorization is denied, or we cannot deliver, every payment received will be refunded in full, automatically.