Not just another chat app
Most "local LLM" apps give you a text chatbot and call it a day. Off Grid is a complete offline AI suite — text generation, image generation, vision AI, voice transcription, tool calling, and document analysis, all running natively on your phone's or Mac's hardware.
What can it do?
Text Generation — Run Qwen 3, Llama 3.2, Gemma 3, Phi-4, and any GGUF model. Streaming responses, thinking mode, markdown rendering, 15-30 tok/s on flagship devices. Bring your own .gguf files too.
Remote LLM Servers — Connect to any OpenAI-compatible server on your local network (Ollama, LM Studio, LocalAI). Discover models automatically, stream responses via SSE, store API keys securely in the system keychain. Switch seamlessly between local and remote models.
Tool Calling — Models that support function calling can use built-in tools: web search, calculator, date/time, device info, and knowledge base search. Automatic tool loop with runaway prevention. Clickable links in search results.
Project Knowledge Base — Upload PDFs and text documents to a project's knowledge base. Documents are chunked, embedded on-device with a bundled MiniLM model, and retrieved via cosine similarity — all stored locally in SQLite. The search_knowledge_base tool is automatically available in project conversations.
Image Generation — On-device Stable Diffusion with real-time preview. NPU-accelerated on Snapdragon (5-10s per image), Core ML on iOS. 20+ models including Absolute Reality, DreamShaper, Anything V5.
Vision AI — Point your camera at anything and ask questions. SmolVLM, Qwen3-VL, Gemma 3n — analyze documents, describe scenes, read receipts. ~7s on flagship devices.
Voice Input — On-device Whisper speech-to-text. Hold to record, auto-transcribe. No audio ever leaves your phone.
Document Analysis — Attach PDFs, code files, CSVs, and more to your conversations. Native PDF text extraction on both platforms.
AI Prompt Enhancement — Simple prompt in, detailed Stable Diffusion prompt out. Your text model automatically enhances image generation prompts.
Performance
| Task | Flagship | Mid-range |
|---|---|---|
| Text generation | 15-30 tok/s | 5-15 tok/s |
| Image gen (NPU) | 5-10s | — |
| Image gen (CPU) | ~15s | ~30s |
| Vision inference | ~7s | ~15s |
| Voice transcription | Real-time | Real-time |
Tested on Snapdragon 8 Gen 2/3, Apple A17 Pro. Results vary by model size and quantization.
Install
Or grab the latest APK from GitHub Releases.
macOS: The iOS App Store version runs natively on Apple Silicon Macs via Mac Catalyst / iPad compatibility.
Build from source
git clone https://github.com/alichherawalla/off-grid-mobile.git cd off-grid-mobile npm install # Android cd android && ./gradlew clean && cd .. npm run android # iOS cd ios && pod install && cd .. npm run ios
Requires Node.js 20+, JDK 17 / Android SDK 36 (Android), Xcode 15+ (iOS). See full build guide.
Testing
Tests run across three platforms on every PR:
| Platform | Framework | What's covered |
|---|---|---|
| React Native | Jest + RNTL | Stores, services, components, screens, contracts |
| Android | JUnit | LocalDream, DownloadManager, BroadcastReceiver |
| iOS | XCTest | PDFExtractor, CoreMLDiffusion, DownloadManager |
| E2E | Maestro | Critical path flows (launch, chat, models, downloads) |
npm test # Run all tests (Jest + Android + iOS) npm run test:e2e # Run Maestro E2E flows (requires running app)
Documentation
| Document | Description |
|---|---|
| Architecture & Technical Reference | System architecture, design patterns, native modules, performance tuning |
| Codebase Guide | Comprehensive code walkthrough |
| Design System | Brutalist design philosophy, theme system, tokens |
| Visual Hierarchy Standard | Visual hierarchy and layout standards |
Community
Join the conversation on Slack — ask questions, share feedback, and connect with other Off Grid users and contributors.
Contributing
Contributions welcome! Fork, branch, PR. See development guidelines for code style and the codebase guide for patterns.
Acknowledgments
Built on the shoulders of giants: llama.cpp | whisper.cpp | llama.rn | whisper.rn | local-dream | ml-stable-diffusion | MNN | Hugging Face
