The short version

PresenceOS progress

One page, no jargon. What we are fixing across PresenceOS, Guardian Relay, TurnByTurn and the website, and how far along each one is.

Last updated 04 September 2026 · 18 things on the list · 3 done

How a bug gets fixed

It is a loop. You tell us, it goes on the list, the list is published here, and you can sign in to see what happened to the thing you sent.

What we are fixing

Each card is one part of PresenceOS. For every problem you can see what we did and where it stands.

Section A

PresenceOS — the phone

The home experience on the device itself — the dial, the apps, themes and the lock screen.

ProblemBluetooth speakers and car kits paired but played no audio
What we didTwo separate faults. The audio repair only existed while a Bluetooth screen was open, so connecting a speaker anywhere else ran no repair at all; it is now registered for the whole app. And the device advertised itself as an audio receiver as well as a sender, which lets a car kit settle on the phone being the receiver — literally "connected, but the sound comes out of the phone".
Where it standsPart-way there
ProblemThe full dial showed the same thing whichever app was selected
What we didThe full circle used to suppress every app's own panel and show one generic recorder, so it was identical for all twenty apps and there was little reason to open it. It now carries the centred app's own instrument — calculator, alarms, compass, chats, backups, files and the rest.
Where it standsPart-way there
ProblemThe dial's record button could not be tapped, and the calculator was cut off
What we didThe record button was drawn in the middle of the circle while its touch area sat in the corner, because positioning was never passed through to the touch layer — a bug that affected every absolutely-placed button in the app. Separately, the calculator's bottom row was rendering below the bottom of the screen; the keypad now sizes itself to the visible band.
Where it standsPart-way there
ProblemText on buttons and settings rows was hard to read on light themes
What we didA palette is authored as a background plus ink that reads against it, but cards are re-drawn semi-transparent — so ink could end up on a surface it was never paired with. The real composited surface is now measured and ink is lifted only where it falls below a legibility floor, which means a theme that already worked comes back unchanged.
Where it standsPart-way there
ProblemLock screen elements were hard to make out on lighter themes
What we didThe lock screen's hero is deliberately greyscale, but it was hard-coded to light greys — right against a dark backdrop, close to invisible against a pale one. The real backdrop is now measured and the ink set matched to it, with controls drawing their own surface that contrasts against that rather than against the wallpaper.
Where it standsDone
ProblemA plain text-size slider
What we didAdded under Settings › Appearance, with a live sample sentence, and kept separate from Low-vision mode — that toggle bundles size, weight and contrast together, and "I just want bigger words" should not require the rest. The range is deliberately 85–125%: the app lays out from designed metrics, and past about +25% labels start meeting the edges of boxes that cannot grow with them. Low-vision mode now acts as a floor on top of the chosen size instead of overriding it.
Where it standsPart-way there
ProblemSwipe to type
What we didGliding across the keys instead of tapping each one now works on the in-app keyboard, and there is a switch for it in Settings. If typing feels slow on a particular device you can also switch to the built-in PresenceOS keyboard, which is a lot faster — but it does not have swipe yet.
Where it standsPart-way there
ProblemSee exactly what the server stores about you
What we didA screen in the app that shows the real record held for you — the actual fields, live, not a summary written by us. The point is that you can check rather than take our word for it. It pairs with something already built: if anyone tried to swap your key to impersonate you, your phone refuses to connect and shows you a recovery screen, so you would find out.
Where it standsPart-way there

Section B

Guardian Relay — iPhone

The parent app on iOS, delivered as an installable web app.

ProblemLocation and screenshots did not arrive from linked child devices
What we didTwo concrete causes, both fixed. A full-resolution screenshot is around a megabyte once encoded, which travels as ten separately acknowledged encrypted frames, whereas a photo is resized and compressed first and travels as one — which is exactly why photos arrived and screenshots never did. Screenshots now get the same treatment. Location was being requested at an accuracy level that depends on network positioning these devices do not have, so it fell back to nothing. Being confirmed across more devices.
Where it standsPart-way there

Section C

Guardian Relay — Android

The parent app on Android.

ProblemLocation and screenshots did not arrive from linked child devices
What we didTwo concrete causes, both fixed. A full-resolution screenshot is around a megabyte once encoded, which travels as ten separately acknowledged encrypted frames, whereas a photo is resized and compressed first and travels as one — which is exactly why photos arrived and screenshots never did. Screenshots now get the same treatment. Location was being requested at an accuracy level that depends on network positioning these devices do not have, so it fell back to nothing. Being confirmed across more devices.
Where it standsPart-way there

Section D

Turn

Turn-by-turn navigation, built to be usable while driving.

ProblemA status bar for Turn, with brightness on it
What we didTurn now has its own status bar, and — as in the launcher — the bar is the brightness control: drag along it, left to dim and right to brighten, with the bar filling to show the level. It springs on release, the percentage fades in while dragging and back out afterwards, and the fill is drawn natively so it tracks a finger frame for frame. Brightness applies to Turn's own window, so it needs no permission and never leaves the whole phone dim after the app is closed.
Where it standsPart-way there
ProblemVoice guidance had gone silent
What we didA speech engine was installed, but no default engine had ever been chosen on the device. The library in use could only ask for "the default", got nothing, failed to initialise and then silently dropped every announcement. Turn now names an installed engine explicitly. It also speaks as navigation guidance rather than as media, so music ducks for a direction instead of fighting it and it plays properly over car Bluetooth — and it says so plainly in settings if no engine ever answers, instead of just going quiet.
Where it standsDone
ProblemGuidance volume and mute, on the driving screen and in settings
What we didGuidance has its own level now, independent of system media volume, so directions can be quiet while music stays loud. The driving screen carries a column of three large targets at the right edge — louder, mute, quieter — with the current level shown on the middle one. Buttons rather than a slider on purpose: a slider has to be looked at and landed on.
Where it standsDone
ProblemMore voice options, including characters
What we didCharacter presets are in, with one honest limit: licensed celebrity voices do not exist offline, and the characters originally asked for are trademarked, so they are not ours to ship under those names. What is achievable is the engine's own voice re-pitched and re-timed into a character, and that is what these are — Dark Lord, Circus and Her Majesty, alongside Standard, Calm, Brisk and Robot. Each was tuned to stay intelligible at speed, because a direction that cannot be understood is a hazard. Every voice the device's own speech engine has installed is offered as well.
Where it standsPart-way there

Section E

Website

presenceos.mobile itself.

ProblemPayments on the release page
What we didThe product catalogue behind it has been corrected. The checkout itself is still a placeholder while the payment links are finalised.
Where it standsPart-way there

Section G

Pilot readiness

ProblemSome incoming calls do not ring
What we knowEmergency and 0800 numbers connect normally, and the phone registers with the carrier correctly — but inbound calls from ordinary numbers do not come through. Because registration succeeds and only one class of call fails, the fault sits in the call-termination path rather than in the connection to the network. This blocks the pilot.
Where it standsNot started yet
ProblemVideo and voice calls drop after about 20 seconds
What we knowCalls connect reliably and the media is good — then cut out at a consistent point around twenty seconds in. A consistent time-to-failure like that usually means something is expiring on a timer rather than the network being unreliable, which is a much better problem to have.
Where it standsNot started yet
ProblemSpeakerphone is confused about which output to use
What we knowOn video and voice calls the phone disagrees with itself about whether speakerphone is on. Cellular calls show a milder version of the same thing: the output does change when asked, but the loudspeaker is much quieter than it should be.
Where it standsNot started yet

How long the battery lasts

Measured, not guessed.

We left a test phone alone with its screen off for 16 hours and 38 minutes. While it was asleep it used less than one percent of its battery every hour (between 0.6 and 0.83 percent). At that rate a full charge, left alone, would last about 5 to 7 days.

Using the phone costs more, of course — the screen, the camera and maps all take power. The point is that a PresenceOS phone sitting in a bag is really asleep, not quietly busy.