Early Access — Mac

The Emergency System
for Families.
Without the Surveillance.

DISTRESS without a stalkerware app. Dead-man check-ins without sharing your location.

Download for Mac How it works
No location data No app permissions No cloud account No central server Cryptographically signed signals
Three things it does

Everything you actually need.
Nothing that violates trust.

Family safety tools shouldn't require surveillance. These three primitives cover 90% of real emergencies.

✔

Check-in

Run family-hive checkin once a day. That's it. It proves you're OK without sending your GPS, your address, or what you're doing. A cryptographic signal — not a photo, not a location ping.

Proves you're OK
⚠

DISTRESS

If something is wrong right now, family-hive distress alerts everyone in your family instantly. Three-second cancel window. Direct to every connected device — no phone call, no message, no waiting.

Instant alert
⏱

Dead-man timer

If someone misses two check-ins, everyone gets an alert automatically. No action required from the person in trouble. The system notices silence on your behalf — because sometimes silence is the emergency.

Missed check-in alert
The pitch

"No app permissions. No location data. No cloud account. Just cryptographic signals between people who chose to trust each other."

Every commercial family safety app is also a surveillance platform. They need your location to sell ads, to build profiles, to share with data brokers. Hive for Families collects nothing. The signals go directly from your Mac to your family's Mac. There is no server in the middle. There is no company that can be subpoenaed for your data, because there is no data.

Setup

Running in four steps.

Each family member runs it on their own Mac. No accounts. No configuration service.

Step 01

Run setup

family-hive setup on each Mac. Creates your cryptographic identity in under a second.

Step 02

Add your family

Edit the config with each member's IP address. Or run family-hive add-member.

Step 03

Check in daily

family-hive checkin. One command. Resets the dead-man timer. Notifies your family you're OK.

Step 04

DISTRESS if needed

family-hive distress. Sends immediately to everyone. Three seconds to cancel.

Comparison

vs. the existing options.

Every other family safety tool is also a surveillance tool. Here's the honest comparison.

Feature Hive for Families Life360 Apple Find My WhatsApp
No location sharing Yes No — location is the product No — shares GPS continuously No — live location sharing
Dead-man timer Yes — built in No No No
Instant DISTRESS signal Yes — one command Panic button (needs app open) No No — requires typing a message
No cloud account Yes — peer to peer No — requires account No — requires Apple ID No — requires account + phone number
No data broker risk Yes — nothing to sell No — data sold to brokers Apple's privacy policy applies Meta's privacy policy applies
Cryptographically signed signals Yes — Ed25519 No Partial (E2EE in transit) E2EE messages, not signals
Works offline / local network Yes — direct TCP No — needs internet + servers No — needs internet No — needs internet
Open to inspection Yes — source available No — closed source No — closed source No — closed source
Honest note

What it is. What it isn't.

We'd rather tell you the limits now than have you discover them in an emergency.

Current limitations

  • This is an early prototype. It runs on Mac. Mobile is on the roadmap but not built yet.
  • Alerts don't pop up automatically yet — someone needs to run family-hive status to see them. A background watchdog is coming.
  • If the receiving Mac is off or unreachable, relay signals time out. Check-ins still record locally — they just can't reach the peer until they're back online.
  • Signals are not encrypted in transit (they are signed). For use over the public internet, wrap in a VPN. On a home network this is generally fine.
  • The cryptographic key lives on disk, protected by filesystem permissions. It's not hardware-backed yet (Secure Enclave is roadmap).
  • The dead-man timer is only as good as the check-in habit. The system can't tell "I forgot" from "something is wrong." That's a feature — it alerts either way.
Get started

Download for Mac.

Early prototype. Free to run. No account needed. Just unzip and run family-hive setup.

Download — vertexpaceorganization.com

This is an early prototype. It works on Mac today. Mobile is on the roadmap. Built by Vertexpace.