BOAR runs a small model and a knowledge library on your phone. After a one-time setup download, it can answer without signal. Each answer shows the sources it used and records how it ran.
It is open source and runs on Android today.
- Install BOARGet the APK, check its checksum, and do the one-time setup download.
- See it workingFour short clips and screenshots from a real phone in airplane mode.
- Ask and checkHow BOAR answers, what the sources mean, and when to trust it.
- What stays on your phoneThe two times BOAR uses the internet, and everything it never sends.
What BOAR is
- An offline research companion. Ask it to explain, compare or work something out. It searches its library on the phone and a model on the phone writes the answer.
- A library you can check. The built-in library has about 5,300 short Wikipedia-derived articles, and an optional pack adds the introductions of Wikipedia's ~50,000 Vital Articles. Answers list the articles they used.
- Yours. MIT-licensed, no account, no API, no Google Play Services. Bring your own documents, your own model and your own packs.
- Measured. Every answer records the model, the time to the first word, the speed and the memory used. The results are published, failures included.
What it isn't
- Not a frontier model. The default model has 1.5 billion parameters. It's good at plain questions and slips on long syntheses; bigger models are slower. See Models.
- Not medical advice or emergency guidance. It can provide general information, but get real help as soon as you can.
- Not multilingual yet. The library and search are English. The app's menus are in English and Portuguese.
Where to go next
- New here: Install BOAR, then Ask and check.
- Want more knowledge on the phone: Knowledge packs and Your documents.
- Curious how it works: How it works and Results.
- Want to help: Contribute, or join the Discord.
Project background
BOAR started as an answer to poidh bounty #31, "Build the Best Offline AI Research App for Android", after Vitalik Buterin asked for a research tool that works with no signal. It is claim #124; the bounty is still open.