What is Local Friends?
Local Friends is an anonymous social platform connecting people to Verified Friends — community hosts, certified guides and trained peer connectors — over anonymous audio and video calls, billed per minute against a prepaid wallet. Beyond 1:1 calls, Local Friends hosts 1-to-many live sessions (₹99 per 30-min viewer pass) and supports anonymous chat with crisis-overlay safety. Built by SpikeSecure.
Is Local Friends anonymous? What data does the listener see?
Calls are fully anonymous on both sides. The listener sees only your chosen handle (no real name, no phone number) and the concern tags you opted to share. Phone is verified once during signup via OTP for fraud prevention but never shown to listeners. Calls are encrypted in transit via Agora.io. No recordings unless either party explicitly enables a session recording (off by default).
What is the Trust Mask?
Trust Mask is an in-house, on-device face overlay applied to the outgoing video frames for the first 60 seconds of every video call started by a user marked female (or anyone who opted into the safety preset). The mask auto-removes after 60 seconds; the host may also tap Remove early or Keep mask on for the whole call. The mask is composited at the camera capture stage so the remote viewer, the moderation pipeline and any local recording see identical masked frames. No frames leave the device for mask processing. No third-party SDK — runs on Apple Vision (iOS) or MediaPipe Face Landmarker bundled in the binary (Android).
How does billing work?
Local Friends runs on a prepaid wallet (Razorpay). Audio calls debit per minute; video calls debit slightly higher per minute. The first minute is pre-authorised at the start of a call; subsequent minutes debit live as the timer ticks. If the wallet runs low (under 90 seconds remaining at current rate), the user gets a one-tap recharge sheet and a grace-buffer to wrap up the conversation. Listeners receive their share (standard split, configurable per tier) into an in-app earnings ledger payable via RazorpayX to bank or UPI.
How are Verified Friends vetted?
Every Verified Friend is admin-approved before going live. Applications collect PAN, masked Aadhaar, professional licence (for coach and clinical tiers), bio, languages, expertise tags and per-minute rate request. The pipeline runs pending → interview_scheduled → approved or rejected with reason and 60-day cool-off. Tiers — peer (trained peer listener), coach (certified life/local-friends coach), clinical (licensed psychologist) — gate visibility in discovery and per-minute pricing.
What are live rooms?
Verified Friends can broadcast 1-to-many live audio or video sessions. Viewers buy a ₹99 entry pass for a 30-minute window (single ledger debit on join, no per-minute billing inside the room). Inside, viewers can fire free animated reactions — fire, heart, clap, rose, crown, confetti — that render as particle bursts over the stream and broadcast to everyone. Gifted reactions priced 1–500 paise debit the viewer's wallet and credit the host. Chat is moderated by the same Hive AI pipeline. Hosts see a live viewer list, top-gifter leaderboard and earnings ticker.
What languages does Local Friends support?
The UI ships in six languages at launch: English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada. Listeners declare which languages they take calls in; Quick Connect routes by language match first. AI moderation (Hive + Whisper fallback) is multi-lingual across the same six.
What is Quick Connect?
Quick Connect (Random Call) skips the browse step and auto-routes you to the next available Verified Friend matching your mode (audio/video), language preference and optional concern tag. A Keep connecting toggle auto-dials the next buddy when a call ends. Both parties can opt out per-call and globally. There's a short cooldown after recent matches to avoid loops, and a safety floor that excludes blocked or flagged users. Balance is pre-checked just like a direct call.
What is the crisis overlay?
Local Friends monitors for SOS keywords across chat and call transcripts (Whisper-driven) and surfaces an instant crisis overlay with verified India-wide helpline numbers (iCall, Vandrevala, AASRA), the option to broadcast location to a trusted contact, and a one-tap break-glass that ends the active call and connects the user to the helpline directly. Audit-logged with strict access.
Who built Local Friends? Can SpikeSecure build something similar for me?
Local Friends is built and operated by SpikeSecure Technologies. Yes — we white-label the same stack (Flutter mobile, Next.js web, NestJS backend, Agora.io A/V, Razorpay payments, Hive moderation) for social-anonymous, social calling, astrology consultation, fan-engagement and creator-economy use-cases. Talk to us about a clone or a fork tuned to your category.
What is Local Friends and who built it?
Local Friends, built by SpikeSecure in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, is an anonymous audio and video calling app for India with verified listeners, per-minute wallet billing from ₹4 per minute, live rooms, a Trust Mask face overlay for safety and six Indian language interfaces. The platform is also available white-label to founders across India.
Can Local Friends be adapted into a party app or group video hangout app?
Yes. A party app is the live-room module with friends instead of strangers: invite-only group video or audio rooms, games or watch-together, gifts or ticketed entry, push invites and the same moderation pipeline. SpikeSecure white-labels the Local Friends stack (Flutter, Next.js, NestJS, Agora, Razorpay, Hive) for party, social calling and creator apps; indicatively ₹6–12 lakh for an MVP in 8–12 weeks, confirmed in a fixed-scope quote.