Help, and how to reach us.

Any iPhone that runs iOS 26: iPhone 11 or later, and iPhone SE (2nd generation) or later. Wi-Fi Aware needs iPhone 12 or later, the find arrow needs Ultra Wideband, and satellite through Messages needs iPhone 14 or later where Apple offers it. The Apple Watch app needs watchOS 26.

The app costs nothing and always will: no ads, no tracking, no in-app purchases, no account to create. Printed street packs are optional, and the door card in the app is free.

• Open Lantern on both phones and give it 10–20 seconds.
• Check Bluetooth is on in Settings → Bluetooth, and allowed for Lantern in Settings → Privacy & Security → Bluetooth.
• Bring them closer. Walls, floors and bodies cut Bluetooth range a lot. Start in the same room.
• Don't swipe Lantern away in the app switcher. iOS stops Bluetooth for apps you close that way. Just lock your phone instead, and Lantern keeps relaying.
• The top bar shows a people icon and a number: that's how many phones are in direct range right now.
• Phones already linked keep relaying with their screens locked, but iOS finds new phones slowly in the background. Opening Lantern for a moment speeds that up.

• Allow notifications for Lantern in iOS Settings → Notifications → Lantern.
• In Lantern, open Settings → Notifications and check the kinds you want are on. You can send yourself a test notification there.
• A Focus mode or Do Not Disturb can hold notifications back.
• Lantern has to be running, so don't swipe it away (see above).
• With Settings → Security & privacy → Show street messages from set to Signed messages only or Paired and household only, help calls from anyone else show on the Street tab but don't alert you.

When mobile signal and Wi-Fi have both been gone for 30 seconds, Lantern switches to outage mode: links with nothing to carry drop to Bluetooth's low-power setting, while Lantern keeps listening so it still hears help calls from your pocket. The biggest drain in a power cut is your phone searching for a signal that isn't there: turn on Airplane Mode, then switch Bluetooth back on, and your battery lasts roughly twice as long. You can choose Always full power or Always battery saver in Settings → Mesh & radio → Power. iOS Low Power Mode helps too.

To see outage mode without a power cut, tap Practise a power cut on the main screen, and End practice to stop. It only changes your phone, as a drill. To practise with your neighbours, see the street power cut drill.

Every message is signed with the sender's key. “Unsigned” means your phone can't check the sender's signature yet, because it doesn't have their key. Phones swap keys with neighbours up to two hops away, so someone further down the street can show as unsigned until you swap codes with them. Swapping codes in person settles it for good.

Anyone can pick any house name. If a phone you haven't paired with uses the same name as someone you have paired with, or live with, Lantern adds “(not paired)” so it can't pass as them. Be careful what you share with it.

Private messages need both of you to trust each other: either you've both scanned each other's code, or you're in the same household. Your phone also needs to hear theirs once, directly or through other phones, to fetch their keys. A one-way scan isn't enough. That's deliberate: it stops strangers messaging you privately.

In a private conversation, tap the photo button next to the message box and pick one. Lantern makes it small enough for Bluetooth (about 16 KB), takes out its location and camera details, and shows it in the box: add a caption if you like, then send.

A photo is over a hundred Bluetooth writes on every hop, so it takes a few seconds each hop. You'll see it On its way, then delivered when the other phone confirms. If they're out of range it says Sends when they're in range and keeps trying; if it never gets there you'll see Not delivered with Try again. One photo at a time: the photo button fills back up after a few seconds. On their phone, a ring fills as it arrives.

To join, scan the household code from the House tab of a phone that's already in it, using Lantern or the iPhone Camera app. If a code opens Lantern from the Camera app or a link, Lantern asks before joining.

To leave, use House tab → ⋯ → Leave household. Leaving forgets the key on your phone only. If a phone is lost or someone shouldn't be in the household any more, use House tab → ⋯ → Make a new household code and have everyone still in the house scan the new code. The old code then reads nothing new.

Open Settings → You. In a household that's your own name, and the street sees it with your house's, like “Sarah · Mill Cottage”. On your own, it's your house's name. Neighbours and your household see the change straight away; people who paired with you keep the name they scanned.

There are two, and they do different things. Tap Invite at the top of the main screen (the person with a plus) to see both, in order.

1. Your house, for the people you live with. They scan the house code on your phone, in person: House tab → Invite. Your home is then one house on the street, with a private, encrypted house chat.
2. Your street, for neighbours in other homes: a link, a QR code, a door card, an NFC sticker or Share your street. These make you neighbours. They never put anyone in your house.

Do your house first. Each person is one or the other, never both: if someone you live with opened your street invite by mistake, have them scan the house code, and they move from your neighbours to your house. Lantern asks “I live with …?” when it can tell.

Everyone in the house needs to be in the same household. A household is one house on the street, however many phones it has.

1. On the phone that started your household: House tab → Invite to show its code.
2. On each other phone: if it started a household of its own, House tab → ⋯ → Leave household. Then, under Join my household, tap Scan and scan the code.
3. On every phone, Settings → You: put in just your own name, like “Sarah”.

Neighbours' maps catch up as soon as each phone has sent something. A street invite (a link, door card or Share your street) doesn't put anyone in your household: only the house code does.

Tap their house on the map or in the Street tab, then ⋯ → Block or Report. In a private conversation, use the ⋯ menu. Blocking hides them on your phone straight away, and they're not told. You can unblock in Settings → Contacts & blocking.

Report… prepares an email to us with the details. Include anything that helps us understand what happened. Because there are no servers, we can't remove messages from other people's phones, but we aim to read every report within 24 hours. You can also hide street messages from anyone you haven't paired with (help calls still show on the Street tab): Settings → Security & privacy → Show street messages from.

Yes: Settings → Mesh & radio → Relay for neighbours. Your own messages still go out, but your phone stops carrying anyone else's, which makes the mesh weaker for your street. Your phone can't read the encrypted messages it carries.

Add a Lantern widget to your Home Screen or Lock Screen (touch and hold an empty spot, then Edit → Add Widget), or add Lantern's controls to Control Centre or the Action button. I'm OK checks you in straight away without opening Lantern, and so does saying “I'm OK in Lantern” to Siri. With App lock on and your iPhone locked, it waits until you unlock it, then goes. Need help always opens Lantern and asks before sending, so a stray tap can't send a help call.

Choose what widgets show in Settings → Widgets & controls: names and notes, names only, or just counts. They never show more than your Lock-screen previews allow, and with App lock on they show counts only.

Lantern on Apple Watch is a companion to your iPhone: it shows your street, your household and your private messages, and lets you check in, reply and answer a help call with On my way. Add a Lantern complication to see your status and how many neighbours need help on your watch face.

To install it: on your iPhone, open the Watch app → My Watch → Available Apps. Your iPhone does the radio work, so keep it nearby. To keep private message text off your wrist, turn off Settings → Apple Watch → Private messages on Apple Watch.

Your keys are kept on this phone only, on purpose, so they don't move to a new phone or come back from a backup. On the new phone, set Lantern up again, rejoin your household, and pair again with neighbours. Private conversation history doesn't move either. Invite links, door cards and stickers you've printed carry your old code, so print or order new ones.

Settings → Data & storage → Erase everything removes your keys, household, pairings, the people you send news to, private conversations and settings, and starts Lantern again with a new identity. Copies already on other people's phones, such as street messages you sent, can't be removed. See the privacy policy.

Open Settings → Mesh & radio → Satellite & outside. Lantern writes a short report of you, your house and the street, and you choose whether it includes your household and the street. You choose who gets it, either from Contacts (iOS shows Lantern only the number or email you tap) or by typing a number. Apple's Messages app opens with the text, and nothing is sent until you tap Send.

No signal on your phone? Ask a neighbour you've paired with, or someone in your household, who does have signal. The request reaches them end-to-end encrypted, they see the message and who it's for, and they tap Send in their Messages app. You're told when it has gone.

Tap Invite at the top of the main screen, then Your street → Invite neighbours (or open Street milestones from the street summary). People you live with don't use this: they scan your house code. You can show a QR code, send a link, print a door card (A6, four to a sheet of A4, fine in black and white) or write the link to a blank NFC sticker (NTAG213 or bigger) for your door, gate, porch or a community noticeboard (ask first).

A neighbour scans it with their iPhone camera, or holds their iPhone to the sticker. With Lantern installed, Lantern opens and asks before adding you as a neighbour. Without it, they see the Lantern App Clip or our invite page, which explain Lantern and link to the App Store. If they came through the App Clip, Lantern asks them about your invite once it's set up; from the invite page, they tap I have Lantern: open it or scan your code again. Anyone with the invite can add you as a neighbour (never to your house), so put it where your neighbours will find it.

Your street grows on screen as more homes join: a home on its own, then a hamlet (2 homes), a village (7), a town (33) and a city (73). People in one household count as one home. The summary at the top of the Street screen shows how many more homes you need for the next size, and there are fireworks when your street reaches a new one. Every new home is also another relay, so messages reach further in a power cut.

Tap a paired neighbour or household member on the street, then the find button (or Find nearby in your private conversation). They're asked to share for 10 minutes. On iPhones with Ultra Wideband (most iPhone models since iPhone 11; not iPhone SE or iPhone 16e), Lantern then shows an arrow and how far away they are. Hold your phone upright and move it slowly so the camera can help with direction. On other iPhones, or when Ultra Wideband can't get a fix, Lantern shows warmer or colder from Bluetooth signal strength.

Both of you need Lantern open, and you need to be within Bluetooth range (about 30 metres). Your screens stay on while you're finding or being found, and the question to share pops up even if you're in a conversation. If Ultra Wideband drops out, Lantern starts it again by itself; if it still can't, the Find screen says why and carries on with warmer or colder. If you've asked the street for help in the last three hours and left When I ask for help, paired neighbours can find me on (in Settings → Private messages), a neighbour whose code you scanned face to face can find you without you having to answer. Everyone else is asked.

Not by itself: Lantern can't use the iPhone's satellite connection. On iPhone 14 and later, Apple's Messages app can send texts by satellite in some countries, so news you send out with Messages may go that way when there's no signal. Emergency SOS via satellite is part of iOS, not Lantern.

A second radio, alongside Bluetooth: phone-to-phone Wi-Fi with no router and no internet. It needs iPhone 12 or later and iOS 26 or later on both phones, and it only works between phones you've paired once through Apple's pairing sheet, in Settings → Mesh & radio → Wi-Fi Aware. It carries the same signed and encrypted messages as Bluetooth. To remove a pairing, use iOS Settings → Privacy & Security.

No. Lantern talks phone to phone over Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi Aware if you pair. It has no servers, no account, and never asks for your location. The only things that leave through the phone network are the ones you send yourself: news with the Messages app, an invite link, or a report to us.