Enclayve Is a Drab Black Box for Your Private Group Chats
Key takeaways
- The device is a little rectangular plastic box, smaller than a credit card.
- Enclayve is meant to be a rebuttal to social sites like Facebook and X.
- Courtesy of EnclayveDavid Chura, CEO of Enclayve, is a former director at Northrop Grumman and father of two.
Why this matters: a development in AI with implications for how people work, create, and decide.
Courtesy of Enclayve Comment Loader Save Story Save this story Comment Loader Save Story Save this story Enclayve is a private social service hosted on a physical device. Plug it in, connect to Wi-Fi, and the device acts like a central server for a social network that can accommodate up to a few hundred people. Only the person with the device and the people they invite can log in and see what is shared there.
The device is a little rectangular plastic box, smaller than a credit card. It costs $129, but only one person needs to own it, and they can invite others in. (They’ll also have to download the app.) Once allowed in, the app looks like a bare-bones social media site. People can post in groups to chat and share photos. All messages and media sent between people in a group are stored on the device, which comes with a 32-GB microSD card that can be swapped out as needed. There is no subscription cost, no ads, no in-app purchases, and no data tracking by Enclayve, the company says.
Enclayve is meant to be a rebuttal to social sites like Facebook and X. Instead of having to post everything publicly and tacitly allow a company to suck up all data about your interactions on its platform, Enclayve stores all that information on a physical device and encrypts everything. It is the latest in a lineage of privacy-focused devices that aim to help users control their own data, like security cameras that keep footage local or hardware firewalls that protect you online.