PORI (Phone Offline, Roam Instantly)
What I Built Every outdoor or hiking app has the same fundamental flaw: you have to stare at a screen to use it. For the Hacktoberfest Touch Grass challenge, I built PORI (Phone Offline, Roam Instantly). PORI is a hyper-local, audio-first urban explorer that physically forces you to put your phone in your pocket. You input a destination, put your headphones on, and click start. The app uses…
Pori, a new urban explorative app, challenges the norm by forcing users to keep their phones in their pockets. Users simply input a destination, put on headphones, and hit start. The app uses reverse geocoding to pinpoint the exact location and feeds that information into an AI model to create a customized walking route. Once the route begins, Pori enters OLED Blackout Mode, rendering the screen black and locking the device awake. Users must listen to the AI guide them to their destination via local landmarks.
Pori was built using open-weight models, high-performance database indexing, and lightweight native browser APIs. It won three categories in the Hacktoberfest Touch Grass challenge: Best Use of Gemma, Best Use of MongoDB Atlas, and Best Use of ElevenLabs. The open-weight models allow Pori to act as a local tour guide, providing logical routes, interesting local quirks, and audio playback specifically formatted for voice actors.
By incorporating open models, Pori offers an immersive, customizable outdoor experience that proprietary map APIs cannot provide.
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