Faraday.dev is rebranding to Backyard AI

May 13, 2024

New Name, Same Mission #

We're excited to announce that Faraday.dev is rebranding to Backyard AI!

We love the name Backyard AI because it uniquely captures the essence of what we're building: an accessible, personal, and privacy-preserving platform where you can unleash your creativity with AI.

Whether you're running models locally on your computer with our Desktop app, or interacting with your favorite AI characters via our secure Cloud, we want it to feel like you're playing in your own backyard - a private, familiar space where you have full ownership and control.

Our team cares deeply about preserving these core values, and we believe Backyard AI reflects the spirit of our product in a more approachable and memorable way.

Why not Faraday.dev?

Faraday.dev's namesake is the Faraday cage, a shield that blocks electromagnetic fields. While the name served us well, we have received consistent feedback that (1) it sounds like a developer tool, and (2) many people get our name confused with other companies.

With our community growing quickly, we figured there's no better time to make the change!

Transition Plan #

On Monday, May 20th, we will transition all products and services to Backyard AI.

• Domain: All of our online services, including the Character Hub, will be moved to the Backyard.ai domain. Faraday.dev will automatically redirect, so you don't need to worry about updating old links.
• Icon & Logo: We will update the branding across our Desktop app and Web interfaces.
• Emails: For support emails, please reach out to [email protected] going forward.
• Socials: Please join our new SubReddit: r/BackyardAI. All other social media profiles, including the Discord server, will be updated in place with the new branding.

The core experience will remain the same across all of our products and services.

The Desktop App, Character Hub, Mobile Tethering, and Cloud will continue to operate as usual. We're excited to continue shipping improvements to these services under the new brand!

Year In Review #

With this rebrand announcement, we're also celebrating our first anniversary!

We've made tremendous progress in just one year, and we're incredibly grateful for the support of our community.

Highlights

• The first release of the Desktop app (0.5.6) went live on May 3rd, 2023.
• Our team shipped 117 app updates over the past year (about one every 3 three days on average).
• Users have download multiple petabytes of models to their computers.
• The Discord community has grown to 9.1k members.

Way Back Machine

The original Character creator:

The first version of the chat page:

Thank you to everyone who has supported us along the way. We're super excited to keep serving our community as Backyard AI.

Stay tuned for more updates. As always, feel free to reach out over Discord, X (Twitter), or Reddit.