What is Always-OFFline Mode (AOF)?

“Always-OFFline Mode” (AOF) is a new groundbreaking feature of our robots. AOF guarantees none of your private conversations or other interactions with the robot will ever be accessed by an unauthorized third party. Our vision - some of your secrets should be kept as secrets and not broadcasted to the Internet.

A lot of modern gadgets requiring constant Internet connection. Sometimes it’s a legitimate need, but in a lot of cases it’s done primarily for tracking, subscription fee extraction, data collection (and consequently, data selling), or because of poor and lackluster engineering. Our vision is that all of the aforementioned points shall be eliminated. We believe that once you’ve bought a device, you own it completely.

If you're buying one of our robots, you can be sure there will be no subscription fee, no mandatory accounts, no data collection, or any other predatory tactics. It is up to the people to decide when and how they’d like to use their property.

With Always-Offline Mode enabled by default, you don’t need to worry about your privacy and safety of your personal data. The robot is physically disconnected from any wide-area networks, therefore it’s physically impossible to extract any data from it remotely. There’s no way to “disable” AOF without physical modification of the robot’s hardware configuration.

Another benefit of AOF is that it guarantees that nobody can remotely hack and control your robot, which ensures your physical safety as well. A lot of companies producing long speeches about their security measures, but the truth is - there always was (and always will be) a problem of “the sword and the shield”. It’s an arms race between security engineers and hackers, with the users stuck in between them, serving as guinea pigs. So instead of hoping that your device is “secure enough for now... maybe”, why not to opt for a much more stable and guaranteed solution of “no connectivity means no hacking”. AOF is exactly this solution, stable and guaranteed.

Finally, AOF means that your robot is not relying on any external servers. Many years later, your robot will still function and serve you the same way, as it’s completely independent from the Internet. Most of modern gadgets will be useless bricks just a few years in the future, as the companies produced them might go out of business or change their server infrastructure. But here at Syntheva, we believe that devices should serve people well for as long as their physical properties allow. This also helps with technology preservation, as self-contained pieces of technology could be preserved for nearly forever, serving both current and future generations. To give you an example of why it is so important: think about your favorite classic car or a retro computer - produced somewhere in the middle of the last century, it’s still being used and brings joy to many people today; while a modern smartphone produced just a couple of years ago might already be completely useless, as no apps would work due to the changed backend infrastructure.

What if I need some online activity?

If your use-case demands Internet connectivity though, there’s an extra add-on (purchased separately) which can enable wireless connectivity for your robot. External accesses are possible with a special WiFi dongle - you simply insert the dongle into a slot, and that will give your robot some connectivity. Dongles are signed, which means only a pre-approved dongle will work. The fact that a dongle is a physical device which can be physically added or removed, makes the security of the robot much more robust and easy to control. It gives you a peace of mind knowing that your robot can not communicate with external world behind your back, nor can it be accessed and hacked by any malicious third party.

How about updates?

If you’d like to update your robot’s software but don’t want to accept any risks of having even brief Internet connectivity, we have your case covered - a USB drive-based update is a very convenient way of updating your robot. Simply download new firmware and AI software onto a fresh USB drive, plug it into your robot’s USB port and select “Update” command on the robot’s control panel. This method also ensures that any update would happen only when You want it to happen.