An inspection app that works with no signal

Last updated 2 November 2026.

Inspections happen in the worst places for a phone signal: basements, crawl spaces, plant rooms, roofs, the back of a farm. An app that needs the internet stops right where the work starts, and the notes end up on paper to be typed in later.

This page is for home, building, insurance, safety and farm inspectors who want their own app, built to their own checklist, that keeps working with no connection. It is also honest about what it does not do yet.

What an inspection app needs to hold

Most inspection apps come down to the same few things:

• The site or property: address, owner, contact, access notes.
• The inspection: date, inspector, type, and the site it belongs to.
• The checklist: each item as a choice (Pass, Fail, Not checked) with a note beside it.
• Photos of what was found, kept on the inspection they belong to.
• A report the client can read, usually a PDF.

In Bionic Forms you describe that in a sentence (“properties, the inspections done at each one, a checklist of pass or fail items, photos and notes”) and the assistant proposes the collections, fields and views. You look it over and say yes. Your checklist stays yours: rename an item, add one, drop one, and it changes for everyone.

How it keeps working on site

The desktop app for Windows, macOS and Linux keeps a full, encrypted copy of the database on the computer. With no signal you can still open any site, start a new inspection, tick through the checklist, attach photos from the computer, and search past inspections at that address. There is no offline mode to switch on.

When the computer finds a connection again, the new inspections go up and everyone else’s come down, on their own. If two people changed the same record while apart, neither change is thrown away: both versions are shown side by side and a person picks.

The PDF of a record and printing both work in the desktop app too, so the report can be made before you leave the drive. See printing a record and files on records for the detail.

Where this is honest

• It runs on a laptop or a Windows tablet, not a phone. A Windows tablet such as a Surface runs the Windows app like any other computer. There is no iPhone, iPad or Android app yet. On a phone you use the browser, and the browser needs a signal.
• If your inspectors only carry phones, Google AppSheet and Microsoft Power Apps work offline on phones today, with setup and conditions. Our comparison of offline app builders covers what each one asks of you.
• Photos are added as files. The app does not open the camera itself. Take the photo, then attach it to the inspection.
• Building with the assistant needs a connection. Build the app at the office; the inspecting works anywhere.
• No formulas. Automations are sentences (“when an inspection is marked done, email the report to the owner”), and they run when there is a connection.
• The price is not per inspector. Free covers unlimited apps and 10,000 entries per app. Business is $29 a month for the whole team, with unlimited users.