The survival kit that works with no signal

Pocket Nomad is a free, open-source iPhone app for when the network is gone: first aid and water guides, an offline medical library, offline maps, an on-device AI that answers only from those sources, and text messaging over mesh radios.

  • Works offline
  • No account
  • No tracking
  • Free & open source
  • iPhone & iPad
Get Pocket Nomad What's inside
Survive tab: emergency guides and tools Severe bleeding guide, step by step Ask: an answer with its source quoted Library of offline books Offline street map Water purifier: bleach dose calculator
Survive tab on iPad Severe bleeding guide on iPad Ask with sources on iPad Library on iPad Offline map on iPad Water purifier on iPad

When you'd reach for it

Everything below works with the phone in airplane mode.

Power outage

The grid is down

Cell towers fail within hours. Look up first aid, make water safe, and message neighbours over a mesh radio.

Backcountry

Out of range

Hiking, hunting or paddling with no bars: a GPS compass, offline maps, sunset times and treatment steps for bites, heat and cold.

Disaster kit

Go-bag phone

Checklists for the bag, the car and the house, a Medical ID responders can read, and a library of field manuals.

Travel

No data plan

Street maps of the region you load before you leave, and reference books that don't need the internet.

Group comms

Stay in touch

Pair a Meshtastic or MeshCore radio and text your group, see who's in range, and send an SOS with your position.

Community

Map the mesh

Record where your radio hears others to plan repeater spots, and optionally share a privacy-filtered coverage map.

What's inside

Five tabs, all offline.

Survive

69 guides, 8 checklists, 7 tools

First aid (CPR, bleeding, burns, choking…), water and sanitation, shelter and fire, radio and comms. Compass with decimal, DMS and MGRS position; SOS and Morse light; bleach and boiling calculator; Medical ID; sunrise and sunset.

Ask

Answers that cite their source

Ask in plain words. The app finds the best passages in your guides and books, and an on-device model answers only from them, quoting the source. Doses it can calculate, it calculates itself.

Library

Whole books, offline

Reads Kiwix libraries: WikiMed, the Post-Disaster Library, military field medicine, water treatment manuals, NHS medicines and more, with full-text search.

Map

OpenStreetMap, offline

A world overview is built in; add a region or a whole state for street-level detail. Drop pins for water, shelter and rally points, and see mesh nodes live.

Mesh

Meshtastic and MeshCore

Text over a LoRa radio paired by Bluetooth. The app detects which firmware your radio runs: channel chat, direct messages with delivery receipts, the node list and one-tap SOS.

Coverage

Know where the mesh reaches

An optional scanner logs where your radio heard others, coloured by signal, to plan repeaters. Private by default.

Private by design

The App Store label is "Data Not Collected".

  • No accounts, analytics, ads or tracking. There are no servers; the developers never receive your data.
  • Everything stays on the phone: your Medical ID, messages, pins, checklists and coverage recordings.
  • The AI runs on the device. Questions and answers aren't saved.
  • Coverage sharing is opt-in and needs a private zone first. Before a file exists, the phone removes your private places, exact positions, node names and IDs, and dates finer than a month.
  • The only network use is downloads you start: books from the Kiwix library and AI models from Hugging Face.

Read the full privacy policy

Get Pocket Nomad

Free, with no in-app purchases.

iPhone & iPad

App Store

Coming soon. Requires iOS 17 or later. Apple's on-device AI needs an iPhone 15 Pro or newer; other phones can download a small open model instead.

The guides follow published guidance (Red Cross, CDC, EPA, FEMA, WHO and others) and list their sources, but they don't replace training. Call emergency services whenever you can.