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Preservation
over imitation.

An in-home device that learns someone's voice, stories, and way of seeing the world, while they're still here to tell them.

Back the project Read the story
"A few months ago my dad said something, just an offhand quip, the kind of thing he says all the time, that only he could say, and I laughed. Then right underneath the laugh I felt something else. Quiet dread. Because I realized I couldn't guarantee I'd remember it. Not the exact words. Not the exact way he said it. Not the laugh that came after."
Lou Manuele, Founder
The Moment

We think we'll remember. We don't.

We all have that moment. The parent who ends every phone call the same way. The grandparent who tells the same three stories and you'd give anything to hear them one more time. The person whose laugh you could pick out of a crowd.

I realized I couldn't guarantee I'd remember it. Not the exact words. Not the exact way he said it. Not the laugh that came after.

Candid exists because of that feeling. And because I'm not willing to wait until it's too late to do something about it.

"This is not a photo album. This is not a voicemail. This is the closest thing to sitting across the table from someone again."

  • 01
    Built by them, for you The person being preserved does the building, in their own words, on their own terms.
  • 02
    No scripts. No performance. Just talking. Candid learns how they tell a story over natural conversation.
  • 03
    Yours to keep, forever The archive belongs entirely to your family. Not a platform, not a server. Yours.
How It Works

Three phases. One archive.

Candid guides the person being preserved through a series of natural conversations. No scripts. No performance. Just talking.

01

The Conversations

Candid's built-in AI interviewer asks questions, follows up, and notices when something interesting gets glossed over. It gets curious. Over multiple sessions it builds a picture of the person, their memories, opinions, humor, and way of seeing things.

02

The Voice Model

From the recorded sessions, Candid builds a voice model trained exclusively on that person's actual recordings. After roughly 30 minutes of clean audio it begins to sound like them, their cadence, and their particular way of saying things.

03

The Archive

The family receives an archive that can answer questions, share stories, and respond in their person's voice, drawing only from things they actually said. Candid doesn't invent. It remembers.

Hardware and Housing

The bay is the product.

The enclosure is up to you.

The core hardware, the brain of the device, lives in a removable, standardized bay. The bay is the product. The enclosure is up to you.

We make beautiful enclosures. But if you want to put your father's voice in his old toolbox, your grandmother's stories in the ceramic vase she made in pottery class, or your mom's laugh in the vintage radio she kept in the kitchen, you can. The bay fits. The hardware doesn't care what it lives in.

Candid isn't just a device. It's whatever object already means something in your family.

Candid Bay — Standardized Form Factor

CPU
Storage
Mic Array

Fits into any enclosure. The hardware doesn't care what it lives in.

Back the Project

Early bird pricing.
First come, first built.

All tiers at 25% off retail for early backers. Price increases when the campaign closes.

Entry tier

Candid Entry

The accessible starting point

$224 $299 25% OFF
  • Raspberry Pi 5 based
  • Full voice preservation and conversational AI
  • Cloud processing and encrypted storage
  • Smallest form factor, fits in almost any enclosure
  • $9.99/month cloud subscription

Best for: People who want Candid in their lives today at an accessible price point.

Back at $224 →

★ Most popular

Candid Middle Ground

Your person stays in your home

$449 $599 25% OFF
  • More powerful on-board processing
  • Encrypted local NVMe storage
  • No personal data ever leaves the device
  • No subscription, one time purchase
  • Larger bay, more enclosure possibilities

Best for: People who want privacy and permanence without the top tier price point.

Back at $449 →

Heirloom tier

Candid Sovereign

Built to be passed down

$1,124 $1,499 25% OFF
  • Stacked Jetson compute, maximum local memory
  • Fully air-gapped, no internet required after setup
  • Full angled display for rich interaction
  • Zero cloud dependency, no subscription, ever
  • Premium hardwood enclosure
  • Founder direct onboarding support

Best for: People who understand that some things are worth doing right.

Back at $1,124 →

Supporter

#candidmoment

You felt it too

$25
  • Your name in the project credits
  • Project updates as Candid comes to life
  • Our genuine gratitude
Back at $25 →

Just want to support the project? Any amount helps. Every dollar goes directly into building the thing you're backing.

Support freely →
Privacy

Your person belongs to you.

We built Candid around a simple principle. Entry tier data is encrypted end-to-end. We cannot read it. We cannot sell it. We cannot access it without your explicit permission. Mid and Sovereign tiers never leave your home at all.

In a world where every platform owns a piece of you, Candid is the thing that belongs entirely to you and your family.

"We couldn't read it if we wanted to." That's not a policy promise. It's a technical guarantee, and it's provable.

On-device storage

All data lives on the device's encrypted SSD (AES-256). The device operates 100% offline for all core functions.

Family-held keys

Encryption keys are generated on the device and held by the family, not Candid. Zero-knowledge architecture.

Optional cloud backup

Encrypted backup available as a safety net only. We hold the box, not the key. You can always restore without us.

No audio to the cloud

Raw audio never leaves the device. Transcription runs locally via Whisper. Your voice stays home.

Candid is also running a campaign on Kickstarter if you prefer to back through a platform. View the Kickstarter campaign → Pre-ordering here supports the project directly, same tiers, same pricing, same commitment.

Why This Exists

I'm building this in my kitchen in New York.

I don't have a venture fund. I don't have a factory. I have this idea, the technical foundation to build it, and my dad, who doesn't know yet that he's going to be the first person to use it.

I want to do this before I run out of time to do it with him.

The $15,000 we're raising covers the hardware, the development, and the first production run. Every dollar goes directly into building the thing you're backing.

If you have someone like that in your life, even if they're healthy and here right now, this campaign is for you.

Where the money goes

Hardware and components$6,000
Development (Upwork)$4,000
Cloud and AI infrastructure$2,000
Prototyping and testing$2,000
Contingency$1,000
Total goal$15,000

Find your #candidmoment

Share the moment you felt it, in the comments, on social, anywhere. The flash of dread underneath the laugh. The phone call you wished you'd recorded. The story you can't quite remember anymore.

That feeling is why Candid exists.

Back us. Share this. Tell someone.