Radar App Release Notes – Version History & Latest Updates

v0.9.8 🧪 Closed Alpha ✔ Latest 29 June 2026

versionCode 11 · Minimum Android 9 (API 28)

New Features

Server-independent peer discovery (distributed hash table) New Radar can now resolve a contact's current address (UUID → ip:port) without relying on the central server, using a Kademlia distributed hash table built on top of the existing peer network. Each device publishes a small, cryptographically signed location record that other peers hold and serve, so direct connections can still be established even when the web service is unreachable. Lookups race the DHT against the server and take whichever answers first.
Offline "nearby peers" via a geographic overlay (GeoDHT) New The "who's near me?" feature now keeps working when the server is down. Each device publishes a signed presence record (location, address) across a ladder of quadtree map cells covering ~100 m up to a 500 km ceiling. When the authoritative server can't be reached, Radar walks this geographic overlay, gathers nearby candidates, ranks them by true great-circle distance, and returns the closest peers. The server stays authoritative when it's available — the GeoDHT is a fallback that's kept warm in the background.
Winks — a one-tap "😉" nudge New You can now send a lightweight wink to a Radar peer straight from their contact card, without going through the chat-request handshake. When a wink arrives from someone you don't yet have a chat with, a dialog shows their profile (photo, age, gender) with four choices: Start chat, Wink back, Block, or Dismiss. Winks are delivered only over the Radar network (never SMS) and are end-to-end encrypted whenever a peer key is available.

Privacy & Security

Signed records with trust-on-first-use verification Every record stored in either DHT is signed with the publisher's Ed25519 key and verified (signature, freshness, and pinned-key/TOFU checks) before it's accepted, so forged or replayed location claims are rejected. The overlays only ever share data you already consent to share as part of using Radar.
All discovery data stored in the encrypted database DHT records, geographic presence, and the routing table are persisted in Radar's encrypted (SQLCipher) database, so the network resumes warm after a restart instead of starting cold — while remaining protected at rest.

Improvements

Built-in self-tests in the connectivity check The "Test Service Connectivity" diagnostic now runs end-to-end self-tests for both discovery overlays (store + lookup round-trips, including a real loopback test), reporting a clear pass/fail summary alongside the existing connectivity results.
Shared overlay, not a second network The geographic discovery layer reuses the same peer network, routing table, and transport as the address-resolution DHT rather than standing up a separate one — maximising reach and keeping background overhead low.

v0.9.7 🧪 Closed Alpha 26 June 2026

versionCode 10 · Minimum Android 9 (API 28)

New Features

Heatwave & extreme-heat alerts New Added a heatwave warning feed sourced from national meteorological alert data. Active heat-health warnings now appear on the radar map and in the emergency feeds list so you're notified before conditions become dangerous.

Improvements

Expanded emergency alert feed coverage Additional regional alert data sources wired into the unified feeds list, with more consistent severity labelling across feed types.
Map alert marker refresh Alert markers now refresh more reliably when new warnings are published, reducing the chance of stale entries lingering on the map.

Privacy & Permissions

Two permissions removed at Google's request We removed the full-screen intent and activity recognition (activity monitoring) permissions following a request from Google. The app no longer requests either permission.

v0.9.6 🧪 Closed Alpha 17 June 2026

versionCode 8 · Minimum Android 9 (API 28)

New Features

UK power-outage alerts New Live power-cut and outage information from UK network operators is now available in the alerts feed and on the radar map, helping you spot disruptions in your area during emergencies.

Bug Fixes

Invisible scrollbar fixed Fix On certain screens the custom scrollbar could collapse to zero height, making it invisible and impossible to drag. It now sizes correctly so long lists and chats can be scrolled as expected.

v0.9.5 🧪 Closed Alpha 10 June 2026

versionCode 7 · Minimum Android 9 (API 28)

Improvements

Web service usage caps Added configurable daily and monthly usage caps for outbound web-service calls, protecting against unexpected data usage and helping stay within third-party quota limits.
Refined BLE beacon format The Bluetooth LE location beacon now uses a tightened 24-byte bit-packed structure, improving the reliability of peer decoding while staying within the BLE advertising size limit.
Consistent in-app dialogs Unified the styling of confirmation and input dialogs across the app for a more consistent look and feel.

Bug Fixes

Wi-Fi Aware start-up reliability Fix Resolved a start-up ordering issue where a Wi-Fi Aware session could fail to bootstrap because a required dependency was not yet ready, occasionally preventing peer connections on launch.

v0.9.4 🧪 Closed Alpha 27 May 2026

versionCode 6 · Minimum Android 9 (API 28)

Improvements

Lower battery use while broadcasting BLE advertising now uses a balanced broadcast interval, meaningfully reducing radio duty cycle (and battery drain) during long background sessions while keeping peer discovery fast.
More reliable message delivery Improved channel selection and retry handling so messages fall back between transports more smoothly when a peer becomes unreachable.

Bug Fixes

General stability fixes A round of crash and stability fixes across background services and the map view.

v0.9.3 🧪 Closed Alpha 17 May 2026

versionCode 4 · Minimum Android 9 (API 28)

Improvements

Peer discovery responsiveness Nearby peers and BLE devices now appear on the radar map a little faster after the app comes to the foreground.
Map rendering performance Smoother panning and zooming with large numbers of markers on screen.

Bug Fixes

Notification reliability fixes Fix Addressed cases where new-message notifications could be delayed or missed while the app ran in the background.

v0.9.2 🧪 Closed Alpha 7 May 2026

versionCode 3 · Minimum Android 9 (API 28)

Improvements

Chat list and contact handling Minor refinements to how chats and contacts are sorted and displayed.

Bug Fixes

Early post-launch stability fixes Fix A first batch of fixes following the closed-alpha launch, covering crashes reported during onboarding and initial sync.

v0.9.1 🧪 Closed Alpha 27 April 2026

versionCode 2 · Minimum Android 9 (API 28)

Bug Fixes

Message delivery stuck at PENDING (hourglass) fixed Critical SSL hostname verification was failing for the prekey bundle server — outbound messages could not be encrypted for new contacts and remained pending indefinitely. All delivery channels now apply the correct hostname verifier.
POI map data returning 404 errors fixed Critical Points of interest (radar map overlays) were returning HTTP 404 because the HTTP Host header was not being set correctly for the Oracle ORDS backend. Radar, WiFi device, and prekey server clients now all send the correct header.
Oracle ORDS hostname discovered dynamically at runtime The server's canonical hostname is now resolved via live DNS CNAME lookup on startup rather than being hardcoded, so the app automatically adapts if Oracle migrates the endpoint.
Periodic "FAILED to save chats!" warnings eliminated Newly-created in-memory chats (not yet written to the database) were blocking the 5-minute auto-save. The save logic now correctly identifies brand-new chats and includes them in the save pass.
SQLCipher memory-lock error flood silenced The encrypted database was logging hundreds of memory-lock errors per session. The cipher memory security setting is now applied before key derivation (the correct phase), eliminating the errors entirely. The database remains fully encrypted.

New Features

Delete for Everyone New You can now delete a message you sent from both your device and the recipient's device simultaneously. A confirmation dialog offers "Delete for me only" or "Delete for everyone". For Matrix chats, a standard redaction event is used.
Premium upgrade entry in Settings New Premium A new "Upgrade (Go Premium!)" row appears in Settings between Support and About for non-premium users, launching the Google Play subscription purchase flow directly.
Premium gating on new chat creation New Premium Starting a chat with a brand-new contact now requires a premium subscription. The Start Chat button is visible but greyed with a crown badge for Basic users — tapping it shows the upgrade prompt. Existing chats and incoming messages are unaffected.
Mesh relay delivers via BLE as well as Wi-Fi Aware New The store-and-forward mesh engine now uses Bluetooth LE GATT as a relay transport when Wi-Fi Aware is not available. Stored relay messages are also automatically forwarded to the web relay server when internet connectivity is restored.

Improvements

LAN channel now detects Ethernet as well as Wi-Fi Devices connected via a wired Ethernet adapter are now correctly recognised as LAN-capable, enabling direct LAN message delivery without requiring a Wi-Fi connection.
Matrix: pin/unpin messages now persist and sync correctly Pinning or unpinning a message in a Matrix room now sends the pinned events state event to the server and correctly handles incoming pin events from other room members.
Matrix: read receipts and typing indicators wired up Read receipts and typing notifications are now sent to and received from Matrix rooms via the sync filter.
Reaction delivery sent to all chat participants Previously, emoji reactions were only addressed to the original message sender. They are now delivered to every member of the chat.
Play Store compatibility: feature-delivery library updated Resolved a Google Play upload rejection caused by an outdated transitive dependency that lacked required Android 14 broadcast receiver declarations. Updated to the latest version.

v0.9 🔧 Internal Testing 24 April 2026

versionCode 1 · Minimum Android 9 (API 28) · First public build

Initial Release

Peer-to-peer encrypted direct and group messaging Double-ratchet sealed-sender encryption over BLE, Wi-Fi Aware, LAN, and internet relay. Messages auto-deleted from the relay server after 7 days or on confirmed receipt.
Offline mesh networking with store-and-forward relay Messages hop up to 5 devices to reach their destination without internet access, using TTL and loop-prevention to avoid cycles.
Live radar map with nearby peer discovery Shows contacts, BLE devices, Wi-Fi Aware peers, aircraft (OpenSky), earthquakes, and points of interest on an interactive map.
Matrix federated chat integration Connect to any Matrix homeserver. Send and receive messages, reactions, and read receipts in Matrix rooms alongside Radar peers.
SMS & MMS integration Send and receive standard SMS and MMS alongside Radar-encrypted messages from a unified inbox. SMS content never leaves the device.
Emergency SOS broadcast Sends an SOS alert with GPS coordinates to all reachable peers simultaneously across all available channels.
Premium subscription tier Premium Monthly subscription unlocking premium features including new-contact chat initiation and future advanced capabilities.

Release Notes

🔭 On the Roadmap