Software Versions & Change Log – Light Phone

History of the various versions of software and the notable changes/improvements.

More info on how to update to latest software version.

v408 - July 26, 2023

Keyboard:

-Added emoji keyboard to message compose, notes, and event notes

-Added setting so users can disable the emoji keyboard (Settings > Preferences > General > Keyboard > Emoji Keyboard)

-Added "COPY" function to long pressing in a draft composed text message

-Added "CLEAR function to long pressing in a draft composed text message

-Retain message draft when closing message compose via the X button, unless legacy keyboard is enabled. (Use new "CLEAR" functionality to erase a draft text)

-Change layout of "Send" and "Close" keys in the compose text message keyboard. (to revert this change: Settings > Preferences > General > Keyboard > (page 2) toggle ON legacy keyboard)

-Added toggle for Legacy Keyboard (send & close button)

-Fix issue with group message names when contact names start with an emoji

-Fixed message compose from starting in uppercase keyboard if there is a draft mid-sentence

-Fixed emoji rendering in thread/contact names in recents headers

-Ensure emojis render correctly when viewing and editing contacts

-Ensure emojis render correctly when restoring drafts

-Ensure emojis render correctly in group thread titles

-Ensure auto cap doesn't spill past first letter when typing fast

-Ensure drafts are the same for a contact regardless of whether the compose screen was accessed via the contact page or Recents

-Correctly handle when a user types a space directly after a new line

-Changed E-ink refresh mode when opening the emoji keyboard

-Improved alignment and button sizing across all keyboards

-Improved (slightly decreased) refresh rate when composing messages/notes

GENERAL OS:

-Added loading indicator when on last page of recents and loading more data

-Added messaging to LightOS after a user logs out, reboots LightOS, or factory resets to inform them that the action has triggered

-Added ability to toggle vibration for messages when tone is enabled (Settings > Notifications)

-Improved recents so after sending a message to an older thread and closing activity, user returns to top of recents

-Contacts search keyboard now auto-capitalizes

-Fixed group thread overflow

-Fixed connecting-call spacing to match active-call spacing

-Fixed rendering on recents page so there is less unnecessary eink flashes, especially after sending a message

-Fixed rare crash bug that would occur when pressing MENU button in certain circumstances

-Fixed issue where screen would not update when making an outgoing call

-Fixed issue where bluetooth devices could not update music volume (from the bluetooth device)

-Fixed rare screen miss with lock screen audio player buttons

-Fixed bug where contact search results would appear incorrectly (as a string with commas in between letters)

Calendar:

-Fixed bug to ensure calendar notifications sound when phone ringer is silent

-Update 'add event' on calendar tool to default to the current day

-Fixed Multi day events so they now display on each day they cover

-Fixed Calendar notifications so they will fire regardless of ringer setting

-Set startTime and endTime using UTC dates when creating an event (this fixes the bug where users outside the US had allDay events created on the wrong day)

Podcasts/Music Tool:

-Podcast homepage redesign

-Podcast episode list view redesign

-Ability to view two lines of longer podcast titles

-Ability to search episodes within a podcast

-Ability to change chronological sorting of episodes

-Ability to change the playback speed for podcast episodes

-Podcasts/music pause when a call is received and resume after the call completes

-Added notification when the audio player gets into an error state and the audio player is reset so the user can continue to use the music/podcast tools

-Added a notification for when an audio track is missing and has been removed from the device’s playlist

-Fixed Podcasts tool to play from the paused position when it regains connection instead of skipping to the next track in the queue

-Fixed a number of bugs impacting the playback position of a buffering track when the phone reconnects to a network

- Fixed bug where a previously-played downloaded track would play instead of the track that was waiting to buffer when the phone reconnects to a network

- Fixed bug with audio player status to update when user switches between podcast tracks

-Fixed audio player status and pause/play buttons when moving between music and podcast tracks

-Fixed autoplay of next track when downloaded podcast track finishes playing

-Fixed audio player crash when connecting/reconnecting to bluetooth headphones

-Fixed bluetooth settings button on podcast list page

-Fixed bug where clicking back when playing a podcast would return to the wrong podcast

-Fixed one issue where volume of music/podcast jumps when menu button is pushed (more investigation ongoing)

-Fix height/vertical alignment of text on podcast and music player

-Ensured playback speed can be set when the phone is not connected to a network

-Ensured user can use the skip forward and back buttons on the podcast tool when the track is waiting to buffer

-Ensured podcast tool transitions to previous stage after the user clicks the manual sync, instead of always transitioning to the podcast list page

-Ensured that lastPausedPosition is set to 0 for music tracks when we close audio player (via stop button, or phone is turned off)

-Improved how we determine playback position so that it doesn’t jump around when the user switches tracks

- Removed buttons for skipping to the next/previous track on the standby screen audio player when a podcast episode is paused (since they do not function while paused)

-Fixed layout so tracks on the last page of music tool stick to the top of the page

v378 - June 8, 2023

This is a simple patch update to accommodate a recent change for how connecting external Google calendars with the Light Phone works. A larger update coming soon!

v376 - April 6, 2023

-Added support for multiple calendars imported under the same email
-Fixed bug where updating a contact would not work for devices in certain states
-Nightly reboots will now be performed at a random time between 3:30 and 4:30 AM local to the user.
-Added additional error logging around Calendar device tool metadata (to further debug users who cannot get default Light Calendar to work)
-Fixed bug that would create duplicate numbers in the phone’s database for a contact when it was edited, exported and re-imported their contacts.

v374 - March 22, 2023

-Prevent ‘phantom notifications’ related to contact/calendar syncing in the background
-Adjusted vertical spacing on the "call connecting/connected" screens

v370 - March 16, 2023

-More contact syncing improvements
-Fixed a UI bug when deleting contacts on the LP
-Final preparation for all users being able to have a default Light Calendar option created, sorry for the delay

v358 - March 8, 2023

-Improved contact syncing
-Improved UX for calendar tool

v356 - March 6, 2023

-Introducing the Calendar Tool
-Fixed an issue with scrolling in the notes tool
-We've made some improvements to the handling of failed/corrupted audio downloads or deletions for music tool which could previously cause the tool/phone to freeze. If a file was corrupted it will now be removed from your playlist incase you notice a track is missing.

v354 - February 23, 2023

-Fixed delay when sending text messages and returning to the thread
-Fixed styling issue on 'compose group message' page
-Optimized list view when adding lots of contacts on 'compose group message' page
-Fixed issue receiving sms for users without Light Account
-Fixed bug to clear notes draft after saving note
-Added better error reporting to music download process

NOTE: There are some outstanding Music tool issues that surfaced with the previous update v348, we are actively working on a patch for this and apologize for the inconvenience in the meantime.

v348 - February 9, 2023

-Sending a message to a new contact now navigates to the conversation thread
-Improvements to how scrolling list work, which fixes a few instances like where a user could not add more than 10 contacts when composing a new group thread.
-Fixed a few bugs with draft messages not properly saving/clearing
-Fixed case where out-of-date Podcast information from iTunes caused downloads/streaming to fail
-Private podcast links which use basic auth can now be added to LightOS
-Fix issue with map crashing on directions tool
-Fix enclosure error thrown by podcast tool
-Fix null-pointer error thrown by spell checker
-Fix issue downloading mp3 files with music tool
-Add more details to the logs captured when an error is thrown by the keyboard cursor

v344 - October 20, 2022

-Added Wifi Calling to settings (Settings > Preferences > Phone > Wifi Calling). There are three options, 'off', 'cellular preferred' and 'wifi preferred'.
- Updated the main phone recents page to include a Contacts Icon which allows you to view all contacts. Compose a group message now lives in that contacts page as well.
- Redesigned Bluetooth settings page. It now shows all previously known devices, with the added ability to disconnect/reconnect to previously known devices. There is a new page for pairing a new device which does not time out listening for new devices until you leave that page.
- Reconnecting to some bluetooth devices like AirPods is greatly improved
- Bluetooth no longer disabled by turning on airplane mode
- Fixed draft creation in message compose and notes. You can leave a text draft using menu button. If you get an incoming call/alarm, the draft is also preserved.
-Fixed issue where you can't send a second text message (in very quick succession) if previous message hasn't been successfully sent.
- Fixed a compose text overflow bug for texts and notes
- Force screen refresh when emojis displayed in messages
- Fixed an issue in Notes tool which should prevent the tool from getting stuck/not loading after a failure to create a note
- Updated when a notification plays (such as an alarm sounding) during an active call, the corresponding notification sound is now less intrusive
- Pressing the power button now disables alarm too (all buttons disable alarm)
- Additional stability improvements: we fixed a handful of minor errors in the OS that we found in our error logs

v338 - August 17, 2022

-Introducing Notes Tool (for text & audio notes + syncing with dashboard)
-Supporting Call Waiting function
-Ability to navigate out of a “call connected” screen to use other aspects of the OS as many times as you’d like by using the menu button
-Ability to return to the “call connected” screen by long pressing the menu button
-Enables Haptic Feedback when using the Dialpad during a connected call
-Adds Return Key to the keyboard when composing messages or notes (can be toggled OFF in Settings > Preferences > General > Keyboard)
-Refactor of existing code for movable cursor and scrolling through messages/notes while composing them (so we could support return key/general improvements)
-Increase spacing for spellcheck suggestions
-Ability to re-arrange the "Settings" in the toolbox menu
-Threads will force a full screen refresh automatically for pages with emojis to ensure they are legible
-Fixes bug involving the recent activity page position after making a call
-Forward MMS for muted group threads
-Allow LightOS Bluetooth discovery by other devices (specifically cars) to improve compatibility
-Fix a rare bug where toggling bluetooth off and on could cause a LightOS fatal error crash
-Bluetooth State (when underlined in Music/Podcast) reflects if actually connected to a device, not just if bluetooth is ON
-Fix issue with “keep history for 30 days” setting in Settings > Account & Info > Storage
-Fix issue when rapidly hitting skip forward/backward buttons in music tool

June 3, 2022 (dashboard)

-Ability to Export Contacts as a single .VCF file

v318 - May 26, 2022

- Long pressing a contact in recents list now navigates to 'contact details' page (for easier clearing, blocking, adding or editing contacts)

- Increase max number of blocked numbers to 999

- Fixed bug with alarm not firing after device power-cycle

- Fixed a bug with "Keep History: 30 Days" setting that cleared some group threads

- Fixed a cause of incorrect ordering of recent threads, other slight improvements
- Fixed bug where incoming messages when recents page is empty would result in blank screen
- Fixed a typo in the directions tool's "offline mode info" dialog
- Fixed bug where on the blocked contacts list names/numbers were visually cut off
- Several improvements to error logging in sentry

- Temporarily removed regularly scheduled storage monitoring job (low storage notification)

v312 - May 11, 2022

-Spellcheck setting when composing message
-Hotspot at an optional tool
-Ability to Copy, Forward to Email or Delete individual text messages (via long press)
-Ability to Paste when composing a message (long press in compose message)
-Auto-period setting when pressing space twice (settings > general > keyboard)
-Updated Alarm tool design
-Ability to set multiple alarms
-Ability to repeat alarm daily (set an alarm, then click that time to toggle this ON)
-Ability to control alarm volume when using UP and DOWN buttons in the alarm tool
-Added Storage section to settings (settings > account & info > storage)
-Ability to view device storage breakdown by tool, history and OS
-Ability to clear all phone history or just MMS history
-Ability to automatically clear phone history older than 30 days ("keep history" setting)
-Warnings for when device storage is low, and preventing it from trying to update LightOS

-Added Podcast setting for disabling "Autoplay Next Show" in Settings > Preferences > Tools > Podcasts
-Rearranged the Settings menus for clarity. Notably a new "Forwarding" page for emailing links/mms to email (Settings > Preferences > Phone > Forwarding) as well as a "Home Screen" page (Settings > Preferences > General > Home Screen)
-Email links/MMS is ON by default for new devices
-Previous "Clear Phone" setting now called "Factory Reset"
-Added haptic feedback when moving the cursor
-Increase frequency and duration of gps priming
-Improve AGPS data when opening directions tool
-Improve mechanism for switching between Offline Mode/GPS Mode
-Added U-Turn icons to Directions tool
-Fixed bug when re-ordering toolbox that causes tools to duplicate in menu
-Fixed a bug that let the screen sleep while using directions
-Fixed alarm bug when receiving call/text at same time

-Fixed bug with Podcasts not always updating the screen when auto-playing a new episode
-Fixed bug in removing a number from blocked contact list
-Disable hotspot when Airplane mode is enabled
-Fixed a bug when holding delete key in middle of a sentence
-Fixed a few other issues that were causing some "fatal errors" and crashing the OS

v296 - February 15, 2022

-Fix a bug that was causing the Music tool to freeze for some users after our previous update

v294 - February 10, 2022

-E-mail forwarding of messages with links. Enable in Settings > Account and Info > Light Account > Toggle "Email Links" 
-Add timestamps to incoming messages in a group thread
 -Voicemail indicator in top bar when new voicemail is left (when possible carrier depending, internationally we have seen some issues) 
-Voicemail icon toggle in settings (Settings > Preferences > Phone)
 -Podcast Tool can now subscribe to custom/private RSS feed links on Dashboard (if you previously tried a Patreon RSS feed that failed to sync, please unsubscribe and re-subscribe after this update)
-Retain last paused position on music tracks while the tool is open. Restarting phone, pressing STOP to close music tool or changing song does clear the position in that track.
-Added STOP button to Podcast/Music tool player on lock screen. Pausing no longer auto-times out after 1 minute, STOP closes the tool right away. 
-Option to disable emergency alerts under Settings > Notifications. This is enabled by default. 
-Disable jarring voice commands for emergency alerts
 -List Pinning (remembering location in search results/recents/other lists, when pressing back) 
-Vibrate + Ring option in settings (Settings > Notifications)
 -Setting for removing the “circle” shortcut to Phone on Lock Screen (Settings > Preferences > General)
 -“Nothing” ringer setting no longer wakes screen at all
 -Fixed bug where phone would re-wake after sleeping directly after ending an outgoing call 
-Fixed bug where, after using directions or voice transcription, the phone could reset to a 5 minute sleep timer after a restart/update 
-Re-order items in Notifications settings menu

v276 - November 24, 2021

- Fixed bug with auto-cap first letter setting when moving the cursor that put the keyboard into a CAPS LOCK state

v274 - November 22, 2021

- Added the current time to the Alarm tool (also removed backspace when blank)
- Audio (music/podcast) will now pause when initiating voice transcription, and automatically resume once complete

- Added the setting to disable nightly LightOS reboot (Settings > Account & Info > Reboot LightOS > toggle Enable Scheduled LightOS reboot). The scheduled 4:00 AM background reboot of the LightOS maintains optimal performance when the device remains on for many days in a row.

- Improved the ability for Podcasts tool to hold position of episodes even after pausing for a long time or rebooting.

v272 - November 2, 2021

- Introducing Voice-to-Text feature
- Added ability to scroll on the message compose screen.
- Fixed a bug where "play icons" would remain on the home screen
- Fixed a bug that would cause podcasts to not retain their previous position after resuming.
- Fixed a bug when switching from a downloaded podcast episode to a non-downloaded podcast episode

v260 - October 8, 2021

- Public Transit Mode added map view options
- Public Transit Mode select-a-route options (3 options)
- Walking & Driving directions now default to the fastest route rather than the shortest route
- Directions 'list view' screen refresh optimization
- Added toggle for GPs background priming (settings > preferences > tools > directions)
- Show trip ETA in (manually set) offline mode
- Allow search radius to be expanded even if no location search results are found
- Added better error messaging during location and route search failures (no location found, device offline, and unknown error)
- Added "live navigation" indicator icon to top bar of settings
- Fixed typo in location status test
- Fixed issue with auto rebootLightOS with music/podcast playing
- Internal Bug tracking clean up

v250 - August 31, 2021

- Launch of the Directions Tool
- Ability to re-arrange the order of tools from settings (Settings > Preferences > Tools > Edit Toolbox)
- Ability to manually reboot LightOS from Settings (Settings > Account & Info > Reboot LightOS)
- Function for automatically rebooting the OS occasionally in the background for better general performance

Firmware 83 - August 3rd, 2021

- Added audio library to the device to support future features like the upcoming Directions tool's voice command option.

v158 - February 15th, 2021

- Added QZERTY & AZERTY keyboard options to settings
(Settings > Preferences > General > Keyboard)
- Optimizations to keyboard performance
- Fix bug with occasional keyboard stutter
- Added a manual sync button to the Podcasts tool
- Fixed a variety of issues with syncing podcast shows
- Fixed bugs with podcast playback
- Fixed a bug when editing phone numbers of contacts

Firmware 79 - February 2nd, 2021

- Standard security update, no effect to user experience

v150 - December 17th, 2020

- Fixed bug with alternative characters

v148 - December 17th, 2020

- Implemented moveable cursor
- Long press for alternative characters (i.e. à, á, â, ä…)
- Setting for auto-forwarding MMS (photo) to Light Account email
- Re-designed the underlying keyboard architecture for performance
- React Native upgrades across OS for performance gains
- Optimize general performance around Contact Search
- Fix issue with device crashes searching with over 1000 contacts
- Fixed some issues with auto-capitalize first letter setting
- Fix rare issue with threads sorting out-of-order
- Fix a small issue with the "Update LightOS" button in Device Settings
- Fix issue with the cursor styling not showing on the inverse color theme
- Fix rare issue where the ringtone is reverted to default after updating
- Improve tolerance for e-ink screen misses
- Fix rare issue with contact formatting crashing devices
- Fix issues with call logs on wrong side of the thread (for IMS Calls)
- Various other misc. bugs
* Beta tested voice-to-text option, will continue to optimize before releasing in a future update

v118 - October 5th, 2020

- Added search functionality to the Music tool

- Pressing Space from Symbols page of keyboard brings you back to QWERTY

- Auto-capitalization happens after "?" "." "!" and similar sequences

- Pause audio when the headphones disconnect or bluetooth disconnects

- Dashboard upgrade to show currently processing and failed tracks in Edit Playlist page

- Dashboard improved filtering of tracks that are not able to be processed

- Music player progress bar bug is fixed

- Fix the blank track bug (when navigating from the lock screen)

- Fix music downloads that are stuck in a failure loop

- Stop Audio when the tool that is playing current audio is uninstalled

- Fix bugs that occur in the music player when there is an empty playlist

v114 - September 3rd, 2020

- Introducing the Music tool

- Improvements to "playing" interface for both Podcasts and Music scrubbing and responsiveness

- Auto-Capitalization after a period and a space when texting

- Long pressing backspace when composing a text now deletes whole words at a time

v108 - July 15, 2020

- This was a Podcast tool related update, improving reliability and performance overall, especially regarding syncing with Dashboard and updating new episodes.

- Fixed bug with Podcast skip buttons using wrong timecode after waking screen

- Added states for "downloading..." and "loading..." to Podcast UX

v102 - June 22, 2020

- Introducing the Podcasts Tool
- Re-worked F.O.T.A. updater (not visible to end user)

v86 - April 21, 2020

- Fix screen waking issue, where screen would remain blank when trying to wake it from sleep. In rare cases, this also prevented incoming calls from waking screen too.
- Fix "ghost notifications" related to a "un-syncable" (invalid format) contact
- Improves overall screen performance/reliability
- Optimization in data caching and some underlying pieces in data management (so we can surface data usage on the device in settings) in preparation future tools that will use more space on the phone like podcast/music
- Adds ability to "Ping" a device from the admin dashboard to test it's live connection (for customer support troubleshooting purposes)
- Fixed a few other outlier bugs

v76 - February 24, 2020

- This version of software will replace the "factory launcher", meaning new production runs will be loaded with v76, instead of our initial factory boot updater. It will be a smoother initial start up.

- Fix a few minor bugs around real time connection with dashboard

v74 - February 14, 2020

- Fix issues around device dropping live connections every 1 minute that was draining batteries quickly

- Fix invalid Regex Bug that had potential to brick device

- Fix rare issue with Contact IDs breaking recent activity feed

v66 - February 7, 2020

- Updated text "sending..." flow

- Added UX for when the device doesn't recognize it's own number (option to manually confirm the phone number or automatically do so with a text message to our cloud)

- Refresh device tools after the device has lost a data connection and regained it (for syncing with dashboard toolbox of future tools we are going to begin to release)

- Remove "IMEI" recognizer feature (only effects on-boarding experience)

v62 - January 27, 2020

- Fix rare but critical bugs that had potential to brick a phone, for example when receiving texts from an email address

v60 - January 10, 2020

- Fix issues with phone number being displayed incorrectly on the dashboard when user had inserted multiple SIM cards

- Show Phone Number in group message threads (rare bug where it would display contacts as "No Caller ID" in some cases)

- When user attempts to "Sign Up" on the device but the email already has an account, show useful messaging that funnels them to a "Log In" flow

- Various minor server optimizations, bugfixes, & dashboard work, etc

v56 - December 19, 2019

- Fix and stabilize VTObserver E-ink Architecture
- Refactor issues around Activity Streams (missing or disappearing threads)
- Fix Bricked Device due to corrupt database record
- Fix improper wake behavior when passcode set
- Fix issue with Alarm Notifications not vibrating
- Fix issue with dialing numbers that start with # (like #636)
- Fix issues with sender names not showing up in group chats
- Fix issue with deleting thread history not working properly
- Fix issue with "No Caller Id" threads not being usable
- Fix issue with "Alarm does not sound all the time, and sometimes can not be turned off"
- Fix issue where alarms set within a short time of each other are cancelled
- A variety of small other issues

v48 - December 3, 2019

- Show Number when creating a contact from a group message recipient group

v46 - November 28, 2019

- Send Product SKU & other hardware variables to Light API server
- Decouple Alarm Volume from general device volume
- Support private numbers & other outstanding caller ID issues
- Add memory metrics analytics to Device Snapshots
- Support "Logouts" from the LightOS
- Support Factory Resets "provisioning a new sync'd address book"
- Handle Null E164 activities
- Fix (many) bugs
- Implement a lot of stuff 'under hood' to support future Music Player tool
- Fix contact/dashboard sync issues

v30 - November 1, 2019

- fixed a few bugs with alarm
- fixed bug opening "settings" from menu

v26 - October 27, 2019

- added a hotspot icon so that users don't accidentally leave it on
- reworked the experience for 'failed to send' text messages
- fixed issue where speakerphone ended when the phone went to sleep on a long call
- limited the device to 200 blocked numbers (a limitation in our underlying system that wasn't known until recently)
- increased font weight on smallest text of light gray (white background) phone slightly
- ensured the device always normalizes it's IMEI to 15 characters
- fixed a variety of other small bugs coming through our reporting

v22 - October 3, 2019

- optimizations around performance when navigating conversation history
- fixed toggle state bug in settings
- fixed bug with personal hotspot
- speed up "haptic feedback" snappy-ness

v20 - September 22, 2019

- introduced personal hotspot feature to settings
- fixed rare freeze on 'applying update...' screen
- fixed "unidentified" label that was added to important contacts without a last name

v18 - September 10, 2019

- fixed spacing of elements on call connecting screen
- added "Classic" ringtone to notification settings
- fixed thread place holder bug
- improved line breaking in text history

v16 - August 24, 2019

- fixed rare duplicate names in activity feed
- prevent annoying low battery flash on update screen
- fixed standard +1 US numbers without truncation (better international compatibility)

v14 - August 11, 2019

- on-boarding update for creating Light accounts on device
- fixed issue around SIM phone number recognition (user's number)
- improvement in GPS accuracy (although not used yet in any tools other than emergency calls as required by FCC)