Questions

Phones talk to each other directly over Bluetooth. There is no server in the middle. If a Yonder phone is in range, you can chat with it.

No. Yonder looks only for Yonder's own Bluetooth signal, and a link counts only once the other phone has introduced itself. Between two Yonder phones, each one proves on every link that it holds its own identity key (a recorded or copied greeting does not pass), and everything on the link is then encrypted with keys made for that link alone. A device that greets wrongly or talks before introducing itself is cut off at once and ignored for half a minute, then longer each time it does it again (up to 10 minutes), and only a few unintroduced links may wait at a time, so a stranger cannot spend your battery or radio. A phone that proved itself before is never accepted again on an unverified link. Honest limit: anyone can write software that speaks Yonder's protocol with its own keys; it then counts as one more Yonder phone, held to the same limits.

Phones carry messages for each other. Your message hops through other Yonder phones until it reaches the recipient. Carriers hold it encrypted for up to a day and cannot read it.

One tick: handed to the mesh. Two grey ticks: their phone received it. Two blue ticks: they read it, if they allow read receipts. A clock means it is waiting on your phone for a route.

How that person can be reached right now. Wi-Fi's icon in blue: your phones are linked over Wi-Fi Direct. Bluetooth's icon in teal: linked over Bluetooth. The mesh's icon in amber: no direct link, but a road through other Yonder phones is known, so a message can go now, hop by hop. No badge: no road is known; messages wait and go out as soon as one appears. A chat's own header says the same in green (linked) and amber (through the mesh). With presence hidden in Settings → Privacy and locks, none are shown.

From Bluetooth, the only radio that tells an app how strong a link is: Yonder reads the link's signal every few seconds while it's open and shows it as bars, and on Nearby's radar as rings: strong (−65 dBm or better), good (to −76), fair (to −87), weak (anything weaker). A link not read yet counts as fair until its first reading, a few seconds in. It is signal, not distance: a wall, a pocket or a body can turn strong into fair at the same distance. Wi-Fi Direct reports no strength to apps, so a link over it shows full blue bars, and on the radar such a phone sits on the outer Wi-Fi Direct ring.

The mesh at a glance: how many phones are within reach now, how many people the mesh reaches through other phones, and how many messages and file pieces your phone carries for others (sealed; it can't read them). Under them, whether Bluetooth is on and whom Wi-Fi Direct links you with. Tap it for Nearby, where a radar shows who is within reach: the closer to the middle, the stronger the signal (not the distance in metres); phones known only over Wi-Fi Direct, whose strength phones do not report, sit on its dashed outer ring, with contacts Wi-Fi Direct sees; other Yonder phones it hears are small rings without a name, as their owner isn't known until you link (tap one to ask its owner to connect). With presence hidden, or while you are Hidden, the first two numbers are hidden too.

Bluetooth: roughly 30 to 60 metres between two phones at hand height in the open, and about 100 to 250 metres with long range (on by default on phones with Bluetooth 5), less through walls, trees and crops. Height helps more than any setting: a phone on a dashboard, a window sill or a post above the crop line sees much further. Every Yonder phone in between extends the reach.

Bluetooth 5 phones have a slower, farther-reaching radio mode (Coded, about 2 to 4 times the distance). Yonder keeps quiet links on it and switches to the fast mode only while a file moves over a strong link, then back. A weak link never leaves long range, and a link is never closed just for a weak signal. Settings → Network → Bluetooth → Long range turns the default off (links then start fast and slow down only when weak). Phones without it are reached at normal range.

It aims the radio's effort where a meeting could be missed: it listens at full speed with the screen off while you are on the move with messages to hand over, and at full speed whenever a Yonder phone you could link with is heard, for as long as it is heard, and at low power while the phone lies still on battery with nobody near. Once every link has been taken for a minute it advertises less often, leaving the shared air to phones that can still link. It never lowers transmit power. It is not beamforming: a phone's Bluetooth has one antenna and no app can steer it. On by default, in Settings → Network → Bluetooth. With Keep radio warm on (on by default) the radio is always at full speed and Smart radio has nothing to decide; it takes over if you turn Keep radio warm off.

No. Phones update at different times, and some never do; a phone on any version since 0.032 talks to the newest one. New features are used only between phones that both have them, and older phones keep working as before. After an update the radio comes back by itself and the phones around it notice within about two minutes; nobody needs to switch Bluetooth off and on.

Yes. At power-on, before you unlock, it carries other people's sealed messages with a separate nameless key; it cannot read anything until you unlock, and then your messages appear. It also restarts by itself after an update and, if Android stops it, within 15 minutes. Some phone makers block apps from starting by themselves: Settings → Ready to go tells you and opens the right page. You can turn carrying before unlock off in Settings → Network → Carrying for others.

Yonder remembers the Yonder phones you met in the last 48 hours, on your phone only, and turns that into a chance of meeting each again. Phones you link to receive a signed list of those chances (no names, no places), so a message for someone you never meet goes to the phone likeliest to meet them, the way cell towers know their neighbours. Hidden never shares it and is never on anyone's list; Settings → Privacy and locks → Share who I've met turns it off. Find people nearby shows whom you met and when they are usually around.

Settings → Share Yonder sends the app file to a phone nearby with Android's own sharing (Quick Share or Bluetooth), no internet needed. Their phone asks once to allow installing apps from the app that received it. Every new Yonder phone extends the mesh.

A spare Android phone left somewhere high and plugged in (a window, a barn roof, a pole) that carries messages for everyone around it. Settings → Network → Relay spot → Use as a relay spot turns on everything it needs, shows what Android must still allow, and reports what it is doing: the messages and file pieces it holds and for how many people, how many it handed on and delivered in the last 24 hours, and its battery and temperature. While it charges it tells the phones around it that it is a relay spot, and phones passing by leave an extra copy with it. It keeps carrying after a power cut, before anyone unlocks it.

Within reach means a radio link exists. Queued means no link has accepted the message yet; it usually clears in seconds. If it stays, the link may have dropped; Settings → Network → Mesh details (or Find people nearby → Mesh details) shows what each radio sees.

No. Your identity is a pair of keys created on your phone. Nobody registers anything anywhere.

Long-press a message for a quick reaction, or to edit your own text within 15 minutes (it then shows 'edited'). Both work in groups too. A much older Yonder doesn't show reactions and keeps the original text.

Long-press → Star keeps a message easy to find: the chat's info page lists the starred ones. Stars stay on your phone and survive disappearing messages.

On a chat's info page (Mute also from the chat list: slide the chat or long-press it). Mute: no notification, banner or sound for a while or until you unmute. Disappearing messages (one-to-one chats): both phones delete messages a day, a week or 90 days after they arrived; history before you switched it on stays.

On a chat's info page, Chat lock locks that chat; opening it then asks for your chat-lock PIN (4 digits). Once you have a PIN, locking asks for nothing: the chat locks at once and closes. The first time, you choose the PIN, and the chat closes as soon as it is set. A locked chat leaves your chat list for Locked chats, one row at the top of the list (the only way in), which opens with your chat-lock PIN or your phone's screen lock; no name of a locked chat shows anywhere else. (A chat locked before version 0.0.45 may still have its own PIN: inside Locked chats it says “Locked chat” and asks that PIN. On a phone with no screen lock, if every locked chat has its own PIN and no chat-lock PIN is set, the page opens without asking (each chat still asks its own); change one chat's PIN in its info page to make it your chat-lock PIN and keep their names behind it.) Inside, a chat opens without asking again. A locked chat, and Locked chats, lock again when you leave them or after 30 seconds without use. Every chat you lock uses the same PIN, so there is only one to remember; changing it changes it for all of them. Wrong tries count for all of them together. Forgot PIN? on the lock screen asks for your phone's own screen lock, then for a new chat-lock PIN, so your chats stay locked. From the chat list you can lock a chat or turn its lock off too (slide it, or long-press it); a locked chat is deleted from there only with the PIN or your screen lock. A chat locked long ago with a PIN of its own keeps it until you change it. Your chat-lock PIN stays when Locked chats is empty, so the next chat you lock uses it at once; only Change PIN, Forgot PIN (with your screen lock) or Delete everything change it. If you would rather turn a lock off, that choice is on the same screen.

Long-press it in the chat list and choose Pin to top. Up to three chats stay above the others, in the order you pinned them; long-press again to unpin. Pins are only on your phone.

Slide the chat towards the left (on a right-to-left language, the right): Mute, Lock and Delete appear beside it; tap one, or tap the chat to close them. Long-press a chat for the same and Pin. Deleting asks first and says what goes: messages, photos and files leave this phone; the other person keeps what already reached them. The person stays in your contacts, so their chat comes back when one of you writes, and + → Contacts lists them. A message request is deleted with the person, and they are not told. A group you're in: delete its chat and stay (it comes back with the next message), or leave and delete; the admin is pointed to dissolving instead. Your own photos and voice notes still on their way to the others stop. A group you're no longer in leaves your chats; only a new invite brings it back. A locked chat needs its PIN or your screen lock to be deleted, and 'Remove lock' turns its lock off (with the PIN). TalkBack offers the same actions on each chat.

A web address in a message shows as a small chip with the site's name under the text. Tapping it shows the whole address and asks before opening it in your browser, because a link leaves Yonder, needs the internet, and can be made to look like another site. Every link in a chat is also listed on its info page under Media, links and docs.

A new message vibrates once (two short pulses; a burst of messages, once): while Yonder is open Yonder does it, otherwise its notification does, never both. Settings → Notifications → Vibrate turns it on or off; silent mode, Do Not Disturb and Android's own settings for Yonder's messages still decide (if Android's setting is the reason, Vibrate says so, and Vibration and pop-ups below opens it). A locked chat feels the same and shows nothing. Small taps also confirm what just happened: a message sent, a reaction, a check-in, each chat-lock PIN key (the dial-pad tap) and a wrong or right PIN, a video skipped ahead or back, a switch flipped on the Settings → Network pages. Those follow your phone's touch-feedback setting (Android Settings → Sound and vibration), so turning that off turns them off in Yonder too.

A new name: at once on every phone linked to yours (also people you have not added), and further away as their road reports go out (seconds on screen, up to a minute or so in the background, for each phone in between). Older Yonder versions learn it at their next link. A new photo: at once on your contacts' phones that are linked to yours, and on the others the next time they link.

Settings: tap your photo (or initials) at the top right of the chat list (top left in right-to-left languages), or the chat list's + → Settings: your profile, the network and its radios, privacy, notifications, storage, maps and help. Your QR code: the QR button on your profile card in Settings, or + → Find people nearby → QR code. Each opens one screen with Scan a code (add someone by pointing the camera at their code) and My code (show yours, copy it to send another way, or paste someone's); switch between them at the top.

Chats → + → Check in, or long-press Yonder's icon. Choose who, add a note and, if you like, where you are. 'I'm safe' goes like a message. An SOS is handed to more carrying phones so it gets through, keeps trying after a restart, and alerts the people you chose even in a muted chat. It does not call emergency services.

The mesh is give and take. With Carry for others on (Settings → Network → Carrying for others), your phone holds other people's sealed messages and file pieces for a while and passes them on; it cannot read them. With it off, nobody's messages are carried by your phone, and the mesh does not carry yours either: they wait and go straight to the person when they are within reach. A low battery never switches it off.

Messages are tiny. Files are what need room: by default up to 10 % of free space, at most 250 MB (a relay spot: 25 %, at most 1 GB). You can choose an amount or type one in (Settings → Network → Carrying for others → Most storage for others, shown while Carry for others is on); Yonder checks it against what the phone really has free and always leaves 1 GB free for the phone itself.

You don't need to see them to message them. Nearby shows only phones your radio can hear, and that stays honest. Under it, 'Reachable through the mesh' lists people a few phones away: each phone tells its neighbours whom it can reach and how far (at most 6 hops). Tap one and Yonder fetches their signed card across the hops, makes them a contact and opens the chat. A message then rides from phone to phone; a chat's header says 'Through Ben · 3 hops' when a path is known, or that it will be carried when none is.

No. Every message has an id and each phone handles an id once, whatever path it arrives by. When two phones link they first swap a list of what they hold, so nothing is sent back to where it came from or to a phone that already has it. When your message is delivered, your phone sends a small signed proof; every phone still carrying a copy drops it and passes the proof on. Hop counts are capped, and a loop can only make a route look longer, so a looped route never replaces a real one.

Yes. Every fresh message that arrives teaches your phone which neighbour it came through and in how many hops, so a reply goes back the short way it came instead of being spread around, and phones swap short lists of who they can reach. While a message came along it in the last 2 minutes the reply takes the shortcut alone (another copy follows if no receipt comes back in time); older, it takes a second copy too; after 10 minutes without traffic it is forgotten. A wrong shortcut can cost time, never the message.

When two roads to someone are known, your message takes both, so one phone walking away does not matter; one clear road alone gets one copy. With no road, it goes only to phones likelier to meet them (from the last 48 hours of meetings); when nobody has heard of them, to up to four, chosen by signal, stability and movement. A phone that keeps taking messages and never delivers any is passed over. Each carrier hands it to new phones that lack it, for up to a day; your own phone keeps trying for 7 days, and if no proof comes back in the time the road should take it adds one more path. Under your bubble you see 'Handed to 2 phones to carry' while it is out there, then the tick. Nothing is promised that the radios have not confirmed.

From your contacts, no: everything arrives by itself and appears when complete, as long as 100 MB stays free besides the file (otherwise the bubble says how much room is needed and offers Try again). From someone you have not accepted yet, files up to 16 MB arrive by themselves, up to 64 MB from all such people together; anything bigger shows Download, so a stranger cannot fill your phone. A photo opens full-screen in Yonder, a video or voice note plays in Yonder's own player; 'Save to phone' and 'Share' are in the viewer's menu if you want them. Files under 101 MB travel through other Yonder phones when the sender is out of reach, encrypted, a piece at a time; files of 101 MB or more come only over a Wi-Fi Direct link between the two of you, never through other phones (over 125 MB they arrive by themselves while 1 GB stays free besides the file).

Traffic lights for the road to a person, as reported hop by hop. Clear: every link on the way is strong and settled. Slow: somewhere a link is weak or dropped recently. Blocked: only a failing road is known. Yonder prefers a clear road even if it is a hop longer, because a slow link retries and stalls. Settings → Network → Mesh details (or Find people nearby → Mesh details) shows all of it live.

Settings → Network → Bluetooth → Keep radio warm, on by default. The radio listens and advertises at full rate with the screen off too and pings links faster, so phones are found and messages move within a second or two. It also keeps the processor awake on a charger, while your own messages wait, and on the move with messages to hand over, so nothing waits for the phone to wake; on battery, lying still with only other people's messages to carry, the processor sleeps between radio events while the radio stays at full rate. It costs battery with the screen off (Find people nearby → Mesh details → Health shows what your phone measured); switch it off if you would rather the phone lasted longer, and Smart radio paces the radio instead. It is not tied to carrying for others or to the relay spot.

No. Every link confirms each message it receives; a link that stops confirming, or a phone that stops answering, is closed and redialled by itself, and every few seconds Yonder offers waiting messages again on every link it has. If you ever find a toggle fixes something, that is a bug: Find people nearby → Mesh details → Share log on both phones, and send the logs to the developer.

Roughly 30–60 m between two phones at hand height, and 100–250 m with long range in the open. Four miles is 6 km, which a chain of still phones will not cover; what covers it is movement: people walking, cycling and driving carry messages along, and relay spots fill the gaps. Expect minutes to a couple of hours across a neighbourhood, and treat the delivery tick as the only truth.

Chats → + → New group. A group is invite-only: a signed document owned by its admin. Only the admin's phone adds or removes people, so nobody can forge an invite or add themselves. The admin decides whether members may invite others; either way every join is verified by the admin's phone. The admin can also dissolve the group. Messages go to each member separately, encrypted for that member; two grey ticks mean every member's phone has it. Photos and voice notes work in groups of up to 32 people (no videos or documents): each member fetches their own copy from the sender, so a photo goes as a lighter copy and a voice note is at most a minute. Members on a much older Yonder don't get them; the message waits for them. The header says 'Everyone's within reach' when everyone is near. When you create a group you choose whether people who join see earlier messages (on by default; the group's info changes it later).

Yes, unless the admin turns it off in the group's info (on by default). When someone joins, the first member's phone they're near (the admin's or anyone's) hands them what was written before, over Bluetooth, a page at a time, photos and voice notes too; another member met later fills in anything older. They show above the 'joined' line with 'came from Ben's phone', and each says 'via Ben's phone' beside the writer's name: messages in groups are sealed for each member, not signed by their writer, so Yonder can't prove who wrote an earlier one, only who handed it over. Everyone in the group is told the admin's choice in the chat, and again when it changes. A much older Yonder neither shares nor receives earlier messages.

Yes, when they're within reach (typing goes only over Bluetooth to phones near yours, never through the mesh) and both of you have typing on in Privacy. The chat's header says who: 'Ana is typing…', 'Ana and Ben are typing…', and when more type at once, 'Ana and 2 others are typing…'. The chat list says the same. Members on older Yonder don't send or see it.

Members keep chatting: group messages go member to member and never pass through the admin. Only joins, leaves and the admin's changes wait for the admin, and they travel like messages, through carriers if needed; you see 'Joining…' until then.

Up to 250 members; only the admin removes people. When creating a group you can make it short-lived (24 hours, 7 or 30 days): it ends for everyone at that time, no admin needed. Honest note on size: every message is encrypted separately per member, so a message to 250 people is 250 small envelopes; fine on Bluetooth for text, slow for a crowd posting all at once.

Long-press → Delete. 'Delete for me' removes it from your phone and leaves 'You deleted this message'. 'Delete for everyone' is offered for your own messages within 12 hours: the other phones replace the bubble when your withdrawal reaches them (directly or through a carrier); a phone that never meets yours keeps the original.

Two looks: Map (OpenTopoMap: OpenStreetMap streets, paths and names with terrain) and Satellite (US Geological Survey aerial photos with road names, sharp in the United States, coarse elsewhere). A phone can only draw map it has, so save maps before you go: Settings → Maps saves the area around you or any town or park you search for (about 100 MB at most each) and lists what is saved, with delete. Yonder also keeps some by itself while online: about 25 km around you the first time, a few km around every location shared with you, and the tiles around a pin travel with a shared location. A shared location shows as a small map in the chat; tap it for the full map. Without a connection, saved areas draw normally; elsewhere you still see every pin with distance and direction.

A row of quick reactions, then Reply (quotes it), Edit (your own text, within 15 minutes), Copy, Star, Forward to another chat or group, Info (radio, hops, times; per-member delivery in groups) and Delete: for me, or for everyone on your own messages within 12 hours.

Yes. What you type is saved on this phone as you type (never sent anywhere) and restored when you come back, even after the app is killed or the phone restarts. The chat list shows 'Draft:' in amber.

Hold the microphone, speak and let go to send; slide left to cancel, or slide up (or tap) to record hands-free and listen before sending. A note is at most 2 minutes (1 minute in a group, where every member gets their own copy): at the limit it stops and waits for you to listen and send. Notes show their sound as a waveform you can tap or drag through, at 1x, 1.5x or 2x. They are small (about 12 KB per 10 seconds), so they cross Bluetooth in seconds, and travel exactly like photos.

The × asks first: Pause, Cancel file, or keep going. If you paused it, what already arrived is kept: the bubble says 'Paused at 40% · resume within 18 min', and Resume carries on from there, for 20 minutes, whether you were sending or receiving. After 20 minutes it is cancelled and the other phone is told; Cancel file does that at once. Through the mesh, pieces of a file you send that are still on your phone wait for Resume, but a pause can't call back what other phones already carry: pieces may keep arriving, and the download can even finish; Cancel file stops it all. A transfer that stops because someone walked away is not stopped at all: it goes on from where it was when you're near again, on both phones.

Every video in a chat is a square the width of a photo, so tall and wide ones take the same space and the chat stays tidy. Tap it to play it in place, or tap the full-screen button in its corner. If you mute a video, Yonder remembers it: the next videos start muted too, also after a restart, until you turn the sound back on.

Up to a minute, a video goes by itself (a big one as a smaller copy made on your phone). Longer, it goes as it is, like any file, with nothing asked first: under 101 MB any way there is (Wi-Fi Direct, Bluetooth, or through other phones), from 101 MB in a contact's chat over Wi-Fi Direct, up to 64 GB. In the preview, the menu under it offers a smaller copy of all of it instead (sharp on a phone screen, about 7.5 MB a minute, up to 12 minutes) or a part you choose; one that can't go as it is (too big there) waits in the preview for one of them. Add a caption in the preview if you like: it goes as a message right after.

Settings → Privacy and locks → Lock Yonder asks for your screen lock (fingerprint, face or PIN) when you open the app after a chosen time away. It is a screen lock: it stops someone holding your unlocked phone from reading chats. Separately, Yonder encrypts its message database (SQLCipher, AES-256) with a key the phone's secure hardware keeps sealed; Settings → Storage says so if this phone cannot do that. Radios keep running while locked.

Yonder keeps no backups, on purpose: your keys never leave this phone, so nobody can copy you from a file or a cloud. On a new phone you start a new Yonder identity; your contacts add you again (scan your code) and compare safety codes. Chats on the old phone stay there.

A reinstall, or Yonder on a new phone, makes a new identity, and it arrives as someone new (a message request), never as your old contact: nobody can speak as an identity without its key. Compare safety codes in person before trusting it. A new encryption key signed by the same identity (Settings → Privacy and locks → Encryption key) is the same person and changes nothing you see; their phone keeps the old key for 180 days so older messages still open.

No. Nothing in Yonder slows down or switches off for a low battery: the radio stays ready and carrying for others goes on, so your messages get out the moment someone is in reach. If you want the phone to last longer, that is your choice to make: Settings → Network → Bluetooth → Keep radio warm off, or Android's own battery saver.

No. Each message is encrypted for exactly one phone (AES-256-GCM, with a key from both phones' encryption keys and, a fresh one-time key for every message) and signed by your identity key. Phones that carry it see only whom it is for, when it was written and its size. The radio link itself is also encrypted, so someone listening to Bluetooth gets nothing readable, not even names.

A 60-digit number computed from both phones' identity keys, shown identically on both. If you read it to each other and it matches, no one is sitting between you. Mark the contact verified to remember that.

It works both ways, as on Messenger: no messages between you, and you are not listed nearby to each other. Their phone is told, so it stops trying to message you; anything they still send is dropped on arrival with no receipt. Unblocking tells their phone too. Blocking is not deleting: your chat stays, marked Blocked, until you delete it.

No. Your phones still pass other people's sealed messages along, so if Sam blocks John and Matthew can only reach Sam through John's phone, Matthew's message still arrives. That is the default; Settings → Privacy and locks → Blocked can stop your phone from carrying a blocked person's messages to others.

They can make noise, but Yonder keeps it to them. Every linked phone gets its own queue and its turn, so one noisy phone cannot crowd out the others; a phone sending faster than this one can take in is slowed by held-back receipts, and one that ignores them and keeps pushing has its link closed and is kept off for half a minute, and closed again if it carries on. An honest phone that finds yours busy is never blamed: at worst its link starts again. Devices that advertise but never greet as Yonder get fewer and fewer connection attempts, while phones that greeted recently are always dialled. Messages from people you have not accepted are opened at a steady pace (the rest wait their turn), and each phone carries only a fair share for any one neighbour. No app can stop someone drowning the 2.4 GHz band itself; moving away from the noise, or a relay spot up high, helps.

When the person isn't within reach, the chat's header says when you last had a sign of them: when their phone was last near yours (when you parted), or when their last message was written, whichever is later. 'Last seen 10 min ago', '5 hours ago', 'yesterday at 9:40 PM', 'July 5 at 9:40 PM', with the year when it was another year. If you hide your own presence in Privacy, you don't see theirs either.

Letters of any language (José, Zoë, Müller, 李明, محمد, राम, ג׳ורג׳ and so on), 2 to 10 characters, with single spaces, hyphens, apostrophes or periods between letters (Mary-Jane, O'Brien, J. Smith). No numbers, symbols, emoji or look-alike 'fonts'. It also has to fit in the short greeting phones send each other, so a few long names in Indian scripts are refused even under 10 letters; a shorter form works. This applies when you choose your name or change it; a name you already have stays until you change it.

Your name is never broadcast, strangers' messages are ignored, and you see other people only as anonymous phones. Wi-Fi Direct pauses. Your existing chats keep working and your phone still carries messages for others.

Yes. A radio link is a physical fact. Hidden removes your name from it; nothing can remove the link itself. Yonder says this plainly instead of pretending.

Your keys and messages are only on that phone. Whoever holds it has what is on it, as with any phone; use your phone's lock screen. There is no account to recover; create a new identity on a new phone and ask friends to add you again.

Nothing reaches the developer: no account, no analytics, no crash reports sent, no identifiers. The only internet use is downloading map pictures and place search while you are online. A diagnostic log stays on your phone and leaves it only if you share it. Read the privacy policy under Settings.

Yes, free. Tap + in a chat: Gallery, Camera, Files or Location. Files under 101 MB go the best way there is: over Wi-Fi Direct when it is up, over Bluetooth when only that reaches them, and through the Yonder phones in between when you are apart, encrypted, a piece at a time (the bubble says what other phones hold for them, apart from what arrived). To a contact nearby, Yonder also asks for Wi-Fi Direct and moves the file onto it once it is up, from where it got to. A file of 101 MB or more goes only to a contact over Wi-Fi Direct, up to 64 GB: its bubble appears at once and says Waiting for Wi-Fi Direct; Yonder asks for the link by itself and the file starts as soon as you are linked, with nothing more to tap. If something only you can change holds it (you disconnected Wi-Fi Direct with them, or Wi-Fi is off), the bubble says so with one button for it; Cancel is always there. With people you have not added (or who have not accepted you yet), and when Wi-Fi Direct can't link your two phones (one has none, or both are on Android 9 or older), files under 101 MB go over Bluetooth and the mesh; a bigger one can't go there, and Yonder says so when you pick it. Groups take photos and voice notes up to 4 MB. While the chat is linked over Wi-Fi Direct photos go at full quality, with the place they were taken removed. Between contacts everything arrives by itself, as long as the other phone has room (it keeps 100 MB free besides the file; otherwise the bubble says how much space is needed); someone who has not accepted you yet taps Download for a file over 16 MB. A transfer survives walking apart: it goes on from what the other phone confirmed, never from the start. The file is only shown once its checksum matches.

Speed, and reach without Bluetooth. Bluetooth stays the mesh: it finds everyone and carries every message; when a phone nearby has Bluetooth off, Wi-Fi Direct carries the mesh to it by itself (see My Bluetooth is off). Wi-Fi Direct adds a fast link, many times faster than Bluetooth, used by itself whenever it is up, and it reaches further than Bluetooth. To link with a contact within Bluetooth reach, tap the Wi-Fi icon at the top of their chat (no prompt on either phone); while linked, the same icon asks before it disconnects you. Without Bluetooth (out of its range, or switched off): Connect on their device in Settings → Network → Wi-Fi → Devices in reach, as in Android's own Wi-Fi Direct settings; Android asks its owner to accept on their phone, and once they do the two Yonders link and chat, send files and carry the mesh as over Bluetooth. Someone who is not your contact is linked like a Bluetooth neighbour: you can add each other, and big files and full-quality photos stay between contacts. Disconnect ends it on both phones; nothing links it again by itself (except, from 0.0.84, to deliver what you send while no other radio links you), and either of you can tap the Wi-Fi icon to connect again. Outside mesh groups (see My Bluetooth is off), the first link with someone is always a person's doing, and a link a mesh group made does not count; after that, Connect automatically (on by default) links by itself when a photo, video or file of 256 KB or more goes between you, or when your messages wait for them and their phone is in Wi-Fi Direct reach but out of Bluetooth's, and Keep Wi-Fi Direct warm (off) links you by itself while you are near each other. Every Wi-Fi Direct link, made by Connect or by itself, lets go once nothing has gone between you for 7 minutes (messages, typing, a file moving; an open chat or being near does not count), on both phones together and never while a file moves; it comes back when something new goes between you or either of you taps the Wi-Fi icon, and messages go over Bluetooth meanwhile. Links that exist only through a mesh group (a phone nearby with Bluetooth off) follow the mesh group's own rules instead. A link that breaks by accident (not by Disconnect, the 7 minutes or Wi-Fi switched off) reconnects at once while something wants it; one that keeps breaking waits 15 s, 30 s, then a minute between tries, less as soon as their phone shows up again. While you are linked it carries everything between the two of you: messages, typing, receipts and files, and Bluetooth carries nothing twice. A file of 101 MB or more to a contact waits for the link and sets it up itself. Within Bluetooth reach there is no pairing and no Android dialog: the phones agree over Bluetooth which one makes a private Wi-Fi Direct network, and its name and password (fresh each time on Android 10 and later) go encrypted to the other phone, which joins with them. Files go at the link's own speed. Settings → Network → Wi-Fi has its switches and, folded under one row, the devices in reach now. It needs Wi-Fi switched on (not connected to anything), and on Android 12 and older Location on too; Yonder never switches Wi-Fi on. Phones on Android 9 and older can make a network but not join one by its password, so two of them link only with Connect on the device (Android's own invitation). A phone already connected to a Wi-Fi network may use a slower channel, or refuse, depending on the phone. It costs some battery while linked. With several contacts nearby, the phone with more of them around hosts, so others can join it (up to four at once). Linked with one contact, tap the Wi-Fi icon in another's chat: if they can join the group you are in, they join and nobody is dropped. If they can't (your phone is someone's guest, or they lack the 5 GHz your group uses), the chat says Switching Wi-Fi Direct here in 5 s, with Cancel; tapping again does not make it longer, tapping a third contact switches to them instead on the same 5 s, and Connect for the contact you are linked with cancels it. Then that link ends (their phone is told), Android closes the group (the chat says so while it does), 5 s to settle, and the new link. A file going to a third phone in the group holds the switch until it is done (the chat says so); a file with the contact you leave pauses, kept, and goes on later. Opening a chat never does any of this.

Every switch on the Network pages is part of how messages get through. Before one goes off, Yonder says what it needs it for and what will happen without it, so nothing stops working by surprise. Turning things on never asks.

Yes. Every Yonder phone is a node of the mesh, and others depend on it, so it never stops advertising and never stops listening, also with the screen off. With Keep radio warm on (on by default) it listens and advertises at full rate with the screen off too; with it off, Android's low-power mode (a short look every few seconds, all the time) still hears a phone walking past within seconds, and Smart radio runs it at full rate while you move with messages to hand over. It heals itself, and nothing that would leave a phone in range waiting takes more than half a minute: a link that fails is redialled within seconds (at most 30 s later), a scanner that hears nothing for half a minute is renewed, advertising that fails is retried within 30 s, and a radio that should run but does not is retried every 15 s. What changes on the mesh goes out within 15 s and every 30 s anyway. Advertising is renewed every 10 minutes, and after 3 minutes of hearing nothing, on purpose no more often: each renewal gives the phone a new address on other phones, so doing it often would slow linking. When a phone that keeps advertising cannot be linked again and again while nothing else links, the whole Bluetooth session restarts by itself. Nothing in Yonder switches it off or slows it for a low battery.

What the other phone has: "45% received · 1.2 MB/s · 2 min left" is what their phone confirmed it took in, and how fast that has been lately. "Delivered · their phone is checking it" means it all arrived and their phone is checking it is whole; the file is done only once that check passes. A phone on an older Yonder confirms only the whole file, so its bubble says "sent, not yet confirmed" (what went out from here). Through other phones it says what they hold for them apart from what arrived ("35% received · 4.0 MB with carriers"): a phone carrying it is not their phone having it. Files you receive show the share that is here. A file waiting says what for ("Waiting to reach them", "Waiting for Wi-Fi Direct", "Connecting over Wi-Fi Direct…") and, when only you can change it, offers the one button that helps. A file that could not be sent offers Send again.

Between two modern phones close together roughly 20–60 KB/s, so a resized photo (200–600 KB) takes 5–30 seconds, a 10 MB file several minutes and 100 MB about 50 minutes; far apart on long range it is several times slower, and the bubble shows the time left. Yonder asks the radio for its fast mode while a transfer runs and sends in 8 KB pieces, so a text message sent meanwhile goes out between two pieces instead of waiting. Phones differ: older chips and crowded 2.4 GHz air are slower. That is why Yonder moves a file onto Wi-Fi Direct whenever it can, many times faster, and why files of 101 MB or more go only that way. A small file moves to Wi-Fi Direct when it comes up while it runs, without starting over. The receiving phone shows the speed of the last few seconds; after a file, Mesh details → Share log says where its time went (how fast it arrived, writing, saving, anything sent twice, the check).

Your photo goes only to accepted contacts, and only to a phone that does not already have the current one: when a link opens, each side sends an 8-byte hash of its photo; if it matches what the other has, nothing more is sent. Change the photo and linked contacts get the new one; others get it when you next meet. It is never broadcast and never relayed through strangers.

Yes: Settings → Appearance and sound → Text size (Default, Large, Larger, Largest). It makes text in Yonder larger on top of your phone's own text size, which Android's display settings set for every app. The theme (Auto, Light, Dark) and Yonder's own sounds are on the same page.

No. It is under active development and this version says so under About. Features that are not ready are shown as 'soon' rather than as buttons that do nothing.

Yes, with Wi-Fi Direct on (Settings → Network → Wi-Fi; Wi-Fi switched on, not connected to anything). Yonder also starts by itself after a restart with only Wi-Fi Direct on. With Mesh without Bluetooth on (it is, unless you turned it off), Yonder phones nearby link with yours over Wi-Fi Direct by themselves, with no tap and no Android prompt: a phone with Bluetooth off hosts a small Wi-Fi Direct group (up to four join), and the phones link inside it as over Bluetooth and carry messages for each other. A phone in the group that also has Bluetooth on joins the two: your messages reach people who only have Bluetooth through it, and theirs reach you. Phones with Bluetooth on never make such a group among themselves: they join one only for a phone nearby that has Bluetooth off, and leave it once Bluetooth reaches everyone in it. You can still tap Connect on any device in Settings → Network → Wi-Fi → Devices in reach. Honest limits: Android 9 and older can host a group but not join one; phones with no radio in common, and nobody between them with both, reach each other only through messages carried later; a group costs some battery while it is up.

Yes, though not instantly. Android lets a phone be in one Wi-Fi Direct group at a time, so phones in different groups out of each other's reach used to meet only through a phone with Bluetooth on. Now a phone in a group steps out now and then to meet a group nearby, hands over what it carries, takes what they hold, and goes back to its own group within a few minutes. Two guests of different groups that are in reach of each other step out and meet too. A message therefore crosses each group boundary at the next visit: expect minutes per floor, not seconds. It never steps out while something is being sent, and two friends alone never part for this. With Bluetooth on, the mesh carries messages continuously and faster.

Over Wi-Fi Direct. The first time, connect to their device in Settings → Network → Wi-Fi → Devices in reach (they accept on their phone); after that Yonder remembers their phone and your phones link by themselves when something waits for them. While Wi-Fi Direct sees their phone, Find people nearby lists them ("In Wi-Fi Direct reach · not linked") with Connect. A message to them waits and goes as soon as any link reaches them.

On some phones Android seems to stop searching for Wi-Fi Direct devices without saying so (seen on one so far, with its Wi-Fi on). Android's own Wi-Fi Direct page stops the search when you leave it, so Yonder's next search started fresh and found everyone. Yonder does that itself: a search that lists nothing for 30 seconds is started afresh (less often while nothing is ever found), any search after a minute, and opening Nearby, Devices in reach on the Wi-Fi Direct page or its Look again, start one at once. You shouldn't need Android's page any more; if you do, tell us which phone.

Sometimes Android's Wi-Fi Direct gets stuck: it keeps refusing Yonder, finds nothing although a phone near you has Wi-Fi Direct on, or a connection another app or Android's settings made stays in Yonder's way. Settings → Network → Wi-Fi says so, why, and offers Reset. Reset starts Wi-Fi Direct afresh on this phone: Yonder stops what it asked of Android, leaves its own groups, makes a new connection to Android's Wi-Fi Direct service, and looks and announces again; links over Wi-Fi Direct end for a moment. If another app's connection is in the way, Reset says it ends that too before you tap it. Settings → Network → Wi-Fi → Fix Wi-Fi Direct when it's stuck (off unless you turn it on) lets Yonder do this by itself, at most every 10 minutes; it may then end another app's Wi-Fi Direct connection without asking. What Reset can't do: forget the groups Android remembers ("forget group" in Android's own Wi-Fi Direct page); Android lets only that page do it, and Devices in reach on Yonder's Wi-Fi Direct page has a row that opens it.

Yonder ends a Wi-Fi Direct connection between Yonder phones once nothing uses it: when the Yonder link in it has been gone for 45 seconds, when none came up within 90 seconds, or, for one left over from before Yonder restarted, when nothing has waited for anyone in it for 2 minutes; Disconnect ends it too. Either phone does it, also the one that only accepted. A connection with any other device in it (a TV, a printer, another app's) is left alone: end that one in Android's Wi-Fi Direct settings. Two exceptions you choose: Reset, after it tells you it ends that connection, and Fix Wi-Fi Direct when it's stuck, which may end it by itself when it has kept Yonder from linking with a contact in reach for 2 minutes. Android's list of remembered groups is Android's own: Yonder's own groups are never added to it, and a group Android remembers is what lets it connect two phones again without asking.

It shouldn't, once you have linked with them over Wi-Fi Direct once (both radios on, Connect, a file, or the Wi-Fi button in the chat) and Connect automatically is on (Settings → Network → Wi-Fi). That first time, Yonder remembers which phone is theirs (its Wi-Fi Direct name and address, on your phone only). From then on, when a message waits for them and their phone shows up in Wi-Fi Direct's list, your phones link by themselves and the message goes; their phone does the same for yours. Yonder does this without Android's prompt: the phone with something to send hosts a private group whose name and password both phones work out from the secret they already share (nothing is sent or announced for it), and the other phone, seeing it, joins. Where Android has connected the two phones before, so it asks nobody, Yonder uses Android's own connection, which is quicker. Both phones need Android 10 or later for the private group; it usually takes seconds (Yonder acts the moment Android lists their phone's group), up to half a minute or so when both phones wrote at once or just linked, and a few minutes if their phone missed the first group. One exception: on an Android 9 phone, where the private group cannot work, Yonder asks Android once for a phone an older Yonder remembered, to learn whether it connects you without asking; if Android shows their owner a prompt, Yonder stops within 15 seconds and does not ask Android by itself for that phone again. If their phone never joins (Android 9, an older Yonder, Yonder not running there), the chat says so after three tries and tries again when it comes back in reach. Your lists name their phone after them ("Sam's phone"). A new message you send ends a wait after a try that did not work, at most once every 5 minutes (never after you tapped Cancel), and tapping the Wi-Fi icon in your chat with them asks at once. It never happens with someone who disconnected you (until one of you taps Connect; a Disconnect lasts across restarts), nor with anyone blocked either way. A Disconnect you tapped yourself stays, but it never strands what you send: while no other radio links you, your phones link over Wi-Fi Direct for it by themselves (Connect automatically on, their phone remembered) and let go once it has gone; a file of 101 MB or more still waits for Connect. A waiting message says why it waits, with Connect when your Disconnect is what holds it. Someone you have never linked with over Wi-Fi Direct is not connected to by itself: link once (Bluetooth on both phones, or Connect on their device in Settings → Network → Wi-Fi → Devices in reach, where Android asks its owner that first time), and from then on it works by itself. Settings → Network → Wi-Fi lists remembered phones, with Forget.

Yes. In your gallery, files or browser, tap Share and pick Yonder, then choose whom to send it to. The chat opens with the photos, videos or files ready to send, or the text in the message box, and nothing goes until you tap Send. If you have no one to send to yet, Yonder says so and helps you add someone nearby or scan their code; what you shared waits while Yonder stays open (switching to another app is fine; if you close Yonder, share photos and files again), and the chat list offers it again. Yonder takes only what you share yourself, never shows your contacts' names in Android's share sheet, and sends nothing back to the other app.

On older Android versions the system labels Bluetooth scanning, and on Android 12 and older Wi-Fi Direct too, as a Location permission. Yonder never reads your location for that. It reads it when you tap Share location (for that one message), to show where you are on a map you open, and, once you have used it, to save the map around you while online.