Why we're building a voice-first messenger
Freehands is a voice-first, hands-free messenger for families where at least one person needs to hear their chats rather than read them.
Who it's for
We're starting with blind and low-vision people, and older people, together with the family members and caregivers who write to them. That might be a parent who wants a daughter's messages read aloud without hunting for the right chat. Or the daughter, who types or dictates while walking and wants to know nobody can quietly read the conversation from a server. Or a person who uses VoiceOver for everything and needs every button to have a name.
Why voice first
For many people, the hard part of messaging isn't writing. It's finding the chat, reading small text, and being sure the right words went to the right person. Freehands is designed so the main path works by voice: hear a new message, say a reply, hear it read back, then say “send.”
Confirming before sending matters. Speech recognition can mishear, especially in a noisy room. Reading the reply back is the check that stops a misheard sentence from leaving the phone.
Why private by default
New direct chats are end-to-end encrypted. Speech is recognized on the phone by default, and messages are read aloud by the phone's own voice. Freehands is built on the open Matrix protocol, and your account lives on a server you or your family choose.
Starting small
The first version is a direct-chat tool for a household, not a campaign to replace anyone's global messenger. We'd rather do a few things well, for the people who need them most, than many things loosely.