Éist
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About

Hi, I’m William, the solo builder of Éist.

The origin story

After returning from travelling to my family’s farm in Ireland, I began building Éist. It remains a solo project: I design, build, and maintain the app from Ireland.

What Eist is, in one paragraph

Éist is an Android and iOS app that turns EPUBs and PDFs into audiobooks with on-device AI voices. Listening is free forever, with a three-book library and three included AI voices. Free readers can use Read-along for up to 30 minutes a day. Premium expands the library, unlocks the full voice catalogue, and removes the Read-along limit. Once a voice is downloaded, synthesis and playback work offline.

Built around reader choice

Éist lets readers choose the books and voices they want to keep together. It supports imported EPUBs and PDFs, public-domain books, local playback controls, and word-by-word Read-along for supported languages.

The goal is to use the computing power already in modern phones, so imported text can be narrated on-device without depending on cloud inference servers. The app includes labelled controls and support for larger text, dark appearance, sufficient contrast, reduced motion, and text shown alongside narration. I keep improving the experience through reader feedback.

About me

William is based in Ireland and runs Éist solo.

Why "Éist"?

Éist (pronounced "aysht") is the Irish word for listen. It’s also the imperative form, closer in feeling to "hear this" than to a passive label. The name is meant as a small gesture toward the Irish language and a reminder that listening is an active choice, not background filler.

Privacy and offline use

Your imported books, reading progress, downloaded voice models, and locally generated audio stay on your device. Éist does not require an account or show ads to listen. The app does use optional, anonymous usage analytics and crash reporting, which you can turn off in Settings. See the Privacy Policy for the full details, including services used for downloads, book discovery, metadata, and subscriptions.

What Éist will not do

  • Upload your imported book files for text-to-speech processing
  • Show you ads
  • Require an account
  • Cap your free listening hours
  • Sell personal data

What I’d love to hear from you

If you use Eist and have ideas, complaints, accessibility needs, weird use cases, or just want to swap audiobook recommendations, email me at hello@eist.app. The fastest way to get a feature built is to write a good email about why it matters.

Last reviewed: September 16, 2026. Page lives at https://eist.app/about.