It's been a busy week for VelvetSpeak, and most of what we worked on is stuff you'll actually notice next time you use it on your glasses and in the app. Here's what's new.
A clearer signal for when your help is ready Ever wonder if VelvetSpeak actually caught what was just said? Now you'll see a small lightbulb icon on your glasses: it lights up as an outline once we've heard the question, then fills in solid the moment your suggested answer is ready. Just tap the card, or swipe down like usual, and it's right there.
And if life gets in the way and you don't get to look in time? That answer is no longer lost. It quietly saves to your Recents list, marked "Missed," so you can still glance at it after the fact.
We also made reconnecting after a shaky connection much more persistent it keeps trying in the background instead of giving up — and short answers that used to get needlessly held back now show up right away.
"Minimal" now truly means minimal If you've ever chosen our Minimal privacy setting, you were told we'd only keep the time, length, and lens used for a session — nothing more. An internal check found that wasn't quite true: the app was still quietly saving things like a contact's name and your stated goal behind the scenes. That's fixed now. Going forward, choosing Minimal really does mean just that: no names, no goals, no extra details saved. (Anything saved before this fix stays as it was the fix only covers sessions from now on.)
A new home for your past conversations In the VelvetSpeak app, the middle tab is now Conversations a clean, day-by-day list of your past sessions with editable titles, search, and a clear label showing how much detail was saved for each one. Open any conversation to see a helpful summary with action items and key moments, plus a full transcript you can search and scroll through. You can even start a brand-new practice Scene straight from a past conversation.
Setting up a Scene is also quicker and always reachable now, with a simple "ready for live help" checklist instead of a confusing percentage score. And a nice bonus: the goal, boundaries, and context you fill in during setup now actually reach the live suggestions you get during your conversation — for most situations, that context wasn't fully making it through before.
Simpler controls on your glasses A few small changes that add up to a much smoother feel:
Every lens now shares the same swipe-up menu Lines, Smart Question, Recap, Coach, and your Recents — instead of a different layout for each one. Tapping a Smart Question card now gives you a real, full answer, every time. A new one-tap Go Dark replaces the old separate pause and hide buttons one tap blanks the display and stops listening, for instant privacy. Tapping a card now collapses it, matching the gestures you're already used to on your glasses. Answer length (short, medium, long) and how many cards show at once are separate settings again, so you can adjust each one on its own. Smoother, more accurate sessions On iPhone, we fixed a bug that could cause a session to go quiet and stop transcribing after a brief connection hiccup, along with a slowdown that could creep in during longer sessions. Transcripts and summaries now honestly label a speaker as "Unknown" rather than guessing wrong when we can't tell who's talking. And in the Social/Everyday lens, the talk-time balance nudge — which lets you know if you're doing too much of the talking or too little — is now accurate for Chinese and Japanese conversations, and won't get thrown off by strings of quick "mhm" style responses anymore.
A fast-moving week Behind all of this, we pushed out six separate updates this week rather than saving everything for one big release — so these improvements reached you as soon as they were ready, instead of waiting around.
Thanks for wearing VelvetSpeak into your conversations, dates, interviews, and meetings. If something feels off, or you've got an idea for what's next, we'd love to hear from you.