What exists today

Max is a prototype, not finished consumer hardware. We're building the useful parts first and letting real use decide what the final device needs to become.

Try the sound-and-light browser prototypeTry the interactive MAX demo

The first test

Can someone open the Max app, tap one enormous FIND MAX button and hear or see the walker from another room?

That's the first thing we're building properly. The public site now has a self-contained browser demonstration of the phone state, locator sound and flashing light. It is not connected to a device. The product path remains: prove FIND and STOP in software, move the same behaviour to the Pi, then test it on the real walker.

The first physical unit

The current build plan uses the existing Raspberry Pi 4 in its case, a pair of USB speakers, a small scriptable USB light, home Wi-Fi and a 20,000 mAh 5 V / 3 A power bank. The parts and cables will be strapped into the walker basket while we test sound, light, power and placement.

That deliberately rough setup is the prototype. There is no finished enclosure or hidden production unit yet.

The shape we're engineering toward.

The finished-product brief describes a compact cylindrical voice-and-locator companion that can mount to a walker tube or stand in its basket. It keeps the useful idea visible: voice, light and sound in one object the owner can find.

This is the product direction after the Pi proof—not evidence that this device has been built or qualified. The real enclosure, battery, acoustics, mounting and compliance work still have to earn their way through testing.

Engineering target
Not qualified hardware

MAX Gen 1 product design board showing a cylindrical black walker companion from front, side, rear and exploded views, with dimensions, controls, lights and mounting options
MAX Gen 1 design direction.Supplied product board based on the finished hardware brief. Dimensions, components and performance values shown here are targets for engineering, not measured results.

The better test

Can someone call “Max, where are ya?” and hear “Over here” from the walker without having to think about the technology underneath it?

Voice only matters if it is reliable enough to make Max simpler. The big phone button and push-to-talk stay as dependable fallbacks.

What we're building first

These are build priorities, not a claim that every item is already complete.

What we're not pretending to know yet

Final enclosure, final battery system, final microphone hardware, final cellular hardware, final pricing and final availability all depend on what we learn from the real prototype.

The concept images and video show the experience we're building. They are not photographs of finished shipping hardware.

Why build it this way?

Because the walker is the point. We can design a beautiful enclosure now and discover later that the speaker points the wrong way, the microphone gets buried under shopping, the battery is annoying to charge, or nobody uses half the features. It's cheaper and more useful to find that out with the real walker first.

Build it. Put it on the walker. See what gets used. Keep the useful bits.

We'll email when there's something worth showing.

Try the prototype