Now accepting pre-orders

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Think about how hard drives used to work. The drive itself was a standardized unit, a specific size, a specific connector, and it slotted into whatever machine needed it. The enclosure didn't matter. The data inside did. Candid works the same way. The bay contains everything: the processor, the microphone array, the storage, the AI. It has one job, and it does it wherever you put it.

We make beautiful enclosures. Warm wood, clean lines, designed to sit on a shelf next to books, not next to an Alexa. 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.

This matters because the object that holds someone's voice should already mean something. Candid isn't just a device. It's whatever your family decides it is.

Candid Bay | Standardized Form Factor

CPU

Storage

Mic Array

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

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.

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.

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

FAQ

Things people ask.

When does it ship?

Estimated delivery for all Kickstarter and pre-order backers is December 2026. Hardware always has the potential to run late, and we'd rather under-promise and over-deliver. You'll receive regular updates as development progresses. Building in public is part of how we're doing this.

Is it a subscription or a one-time purchase?

It depends on the tier. The Entry tier requires a $9.99/month cloud subscription for compute and encrypted storage. The Middle Ground and Sovereign tiers are one-time purchases with no ongoing fees. Everything runs locally on the device. We wanted a tier for every philosophy on this.

Can I use my own enclosure?

Yes, and we encourage it. The Candid bay is a standardized form factor designed to slot into almost any housing. If you have an object that already means something to your family, an old radio, a wooden box, a ceramic piece, that's exactly the kind of home we had in mind. Custom enclosure consultation is available at the Sovereign tier, and we're working on making it more accessible across all tiers over time.

What happens after the person passes away?

The device transitions to a read-only memorial mode. The family can ask questions, hear stories, and get responses in their person's voice, drawn only from things that person actually said and recorded. Candid doesn't invent or extrapolate. It works strictly from what was captured. How and when that handoff happens is controlled entirely by the person using it during their lifetime.

What happens to my data if Candid shuts down?

Nothing, because your data was never ours to begin with. On the Middle Ground and Sovereign tiers, everything lives on the device in your home. We have no access to it and never did. On the Entry tier, your data is encrypted with keys only you hold. Even if Candid ceased to exist tomorrow, your archive would remain fully intact and accessible. That's not a policy promise. It's how the architecture works.

Preservationover imitation.