Plenty of things are sold as local that are a thin app in front of somebody else's server. Here is the honest split, because the parts that are local and the part that is not are both worth knowing before you decide.
These keep working with the network off, because they are models running on your own chip rather than calls going out.
A model good enough to run your life does not yet fit on a laptop. When that changes, the part that has to leave gets smaller. Nothing else about the design has to move.
Local does not have to mean chained to one desk. Maison answers from your phone, your laptop or the car, over your own private network. There is no public address and nothing is exposed to the internet.
Voice, phone, browser or your desk. It is the same Maison with the same memory, not four copies that each know a different part of your life.
The parts that listen, speak and search your memory are on the machine, so they keep working when the connection does not.
It asks a small number of questions and does the rest itself. When it finishes it is already running, and it will still be running tomorrow without you doing anything.
You are not renting access to a mind that lives somewhere else. You are installing one. See what arrives and how it sets itself up.
It is software you install on your own Mac rather than a website you log into. The parts that hear you, speak back, search your memory and store your memory all run on your machine and keep working with the network off. The reasoning runs through your own Claude account.
On your machine: speech in, speech out, your memory database and the search across it. Not on your machine: the hard reasoning, which goes through your own Claude account, signed in once during setup and billed to you by Anthropic under your terms rather than ours.
The local parts do. Hearing you, answering out loud and searching your own memory are models running on your own chip, so they keep working with the network off. Anything that needs the reasoning needs the connection.
A Mac with Apple Silicon, 16 GB of memory to run it and 24 GB or more to run it comfortably, and about 25 GB free. The install is around 10 GB, most of it the models it thinks with.
About an hour the first time, most of which is downloading the models. There is no terminal, no configuration file and nothing to read beforehand. It asks a small number of questions and does the rest itself, showing you each stage as it goes.
Yes, over your own private network. There is no public address and nothing is exposed to the internet. It is the same Maison with the same memory whether you use your voice, your phone, a browser or your desk.