Frank
Practical AI that helps people understand and interact with the world around them.
What Frank Does
It listens, understands conversations in context and uses a camera to interpret the surrounding environment, providing helpful spoken responses in real time.
Who Frank's For
It's for anyone that wants/needs it, with a focus on improving accessibility and supporting greater independence for people in everyday situations.
Why Frank Exists
Frank exists because existing visual aid tech are either inconvenient for everyday use or too expensive for the general public.
Key Features
Powerful AI capabilities at your fingertips
Voice Conversation
Natural voice interactions
Visual Understanding
Advanced image recognition
AI Assistance
Intelligent task automation
Android Integration
Seamless mobile experience
Spoken Responses
Clear audio feedback
Accessibility Focus
Inclusive design for all
How Frank works
Your AI assistant in action
Voice / Camera
Frank Client
Android • Raspberry Pi
Future Devices
Frank Server
AI Models
Spoken Response
Development Journey & Roadmap
Frank has never been about building another chatbot. From the beginning, the goal has been to create an AI assistant that can understand the world around a user, remember previous conversations and provide genuinely helpful assistance in everyday life.
Smart Glasses
Frank originally began as a pair of smart glasses connected to a Raspberry Pi acting as the system's brain. A USB camera attached to the glasses captured the user's surroundings, while the Raspberry Pi streamed images to the AI and returned spoken responses.
Although the concept worked, it quickly became clear that it wasn't practical for everyday use. The glasses required multiple cables between the camera, Raspberry Pi and power supply, making the setup inconvenient to wear.
Raspberry Pi Assistant
Instead of abandoning the hardware entirely, the Raspberry Pi prototype was redesigned into a standalone voice assistant connected to a speaker.
This version focused on testing Frank in real-world conversations. It introduced continuous voice interaction, speech recognition, text-to-speech responses and detailed logging of every request.
Android
The latest version of Frank moves the experience onto Android. Instead of requiring dedicated hardware, users can install the application on a device they already own, dramatically reducing the cost of using Frank.
The Android client combines voice interaction, camera understanding and conversational memory into a single experience.
Looking Ahead
Frank continues to evolve with a clear set of long-term goals. Future development focuses on making Frank faster, more intelligent and more accessible while reducing the cost of using the system.
- Wake-word activation for hands-free interaction
- Offline capabilities for core features where possible
- Improved long-term conversational memory
- Smarter visual understanding and contextual reasoning
- Bluetooth-connected smart glasses powered by the Android client
- Continued optimisation to make Frank as affordable and accessible as possible
The long-term vision remains unchanged from the original prototype: to create an intelligent assistant that understands the world around its user, remembers what matters and provides meaningful assistance whenever it is needed.
Frequently Asked Questions
Everything you need to know about Frank
Android offered greater flexibility for developing a voice assistant and allows users to set Frank as their default assistant more easily. iOS has stricter platform limitations for assistant integration, making Android the better platform for the first release. An iOS version is planned for the future. Android also offers practical foundation for future wearable devices.
Not yet. Offline support is a major goal, allowing core features to remain available even without an internet connection.
Frank is currently available as an Android prototype, but it is not yet publicly available on the Google Play Store while development and testing continue. If you're interested in trying Frank, please get in touch to sign up for the testing programme.
Smart glasses are the long-term vision for Frank. They offer a natural, hands-free way to receive information while keeping users focused on the world around them.
Yes. Frank stores conversation history so interactions feel continuous and personalised, rather than treating every request as a completely new search.
No. Frank combines voice, vision and memory to understand both the user's surroundings and previous interactions, creating a more natural assistant experience.
The next steps include wake-word activation, offline capabilities, smarter memory, improved visual understanding and seamless integration with lightweight smart glasses.