I build small, private assistant devices that replace a stack of cloud subscriptions — so the tools that run your life actually belong to you.

WHY I MADE THIS

Somewhere along the way the simple things I used every day — contacts, notes, a calendar, a budget — turned into a pile of monthly subscriptions, each one quietly copying my personal life to somebody else's computer. It felt backwards. The thing that runs your life should be private, simple, and yours. So I built what I wanted, and then made it something you can buy

HOW THESE ARE BUILT, AND WHY IT MATTERS TO YOU

There is a way software usually gets made: somebody starts with a blank page and writes the whole thing. It takes a year, it costs a fortune, and every fault in it is brand new. I do not work that way, and it is the reason these cost what they cost.

THE ENGINE— Every program I make runs on the same engine — one set of code that stores your records, draws the screens, prints a page, keeps the calendar. It was written once. It has been running in the field, on a dozen different products, for years. It is not new, and that is the point.

THE BRICKS— On top of the engine go the bricks. A brick is one job, done completely and separately: the check register. The medicine reminder. The password vault. The time clock. Each one can be lifted out and set down in another product, and it behaves exactly the same way there. Nothing is welded to anything else. Making a new assistant, then, is mostly choosing which bricks belong in it — not inventing it from nothing.

WHAT THAT GETS YOU— RELIABLE— When I fix something, I fix it in one place and it is fixed everywhere. Your product does not wait its turn, and it does not get a slightly different fix that works slightly differently.

PREDICTABLE= Nothing here is an experiment. The parts in the assistant you buy have already been running in somebody else's for a long time. The same checks are run against every product, every time, before a card is written — including one that copies the program somewhere else entirely and makes sure it still starts on its own.

AFFORDABLE— Most of the work is already done before your product begins. That is not a discount, it is arithmetic. Less to build means less to bill — and it is why a custom job here is days rather than months. The process is the product. The assistants are what it produces.

WHAT I BELIEVE— You should own your tools. Pay once and keep it. No subscription holding your information hostage, and nothing that stops working because a company changed its mind. Private by default, not as an upgrade. Your information stays on the device in your house. It does not go to a cloud, and it does not come to me. There is no account to create and nothing for anyone to leak. Simple is harder than clever. Anyone can add another button. These do the ordinary things well and then get out of the way.

WHEN SOMETHING GOES WRONG— You will be writing to me, not to a support queue. That is the honest advantage and the honest limitation of buying from one person: the reply comes from the man who wrote the software, and sometimes it comes after dinner.

FAQ—

WILL IT RUN ON MY RASPBERRY PI? If it is a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W or newer, yes. That covers the Zero 2 W, the Pi 3, 4, 5 and the Pi 400. It must be running Raspberry Pi OS WITH DESKTOP — not the "Lite" version, which has no screen for the program to draw on. The original Pi Zero and Zero W from 2015 are not supported. They will run it, but they take about forty seconds to open, and we will not sell you that.

DO I NEED A RASPBERRY PI ALREADY? Yes. We send the software on a ready-to-run memory card, or as a download; you supply the Pi, the screen, the keyboard and the mouse. We do not sell hardware — Raspberry Pi prices and supply move around too much for us to promise a price.

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE CARD AND THE DOWNLOAD? Nothing, in the software. The card arrives ready to put straight into the Pi. The download is twenty dollars less because you are supplying the card and doing the two minutes of setting up. If you already own a working Pi and are happy to extract a zip file, take the download.

DOES IT NEED THE INTERNET? No. Everything runs on the Pi in your house, and it works with the internet unplugged. A connection is only used if you want the extras: sending yourself a text reminder, Emails, video calls, installing updates or upgrades ( I wouldn’t try video calls with less than a P-4).

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THERE IS AN UPDATE? If there is a bug fix or if there is an enhancement and you have internet access with your consent we can turn on VPN to download the code and then turn it off to insure your data remains safe and private. are free, for as long as the product exists. You will be told when bug fixes and upgrades are available. Some upgrades may incur and additional cost. Nothing installs itself behind your back.

I AM BUYING THIS FOR MY MOTHER. CAN I SET IT UP FOR HER? That is exactly who the card version is for. Put it in the Pi, plug it into her television, and it opens by itself. If you would rather do the setting up from your own house, take the download and put it on her Pi when you next visit.

WHO DO I CONTACT? jerry@rbp-systems.com. It reaches one person, and that person wrote the software.

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