What's New - Porchlight Relay

September 11, 2026

Clearer family access and private account setup

Support requests and confirmations identify the selected care circle, helping Family Leaders who manage more than one family.
Family Leader setup links are delivered by email. After setup, the Family Leader can pair a My Day device from Settings.
Access checks consistently respect account suspension when a caregiver belongs to multiple care circles.

September 9, 2026

Temporary reminder pauses for individual recipients

Family Leaders can pause reminders for one selected recipient through a required end date. Reminders resume automatically in the recipient's timezone.
Medication prompts and missed-medication follow-ups require a separate, clearly warned choice. Medication information and check-in buttons remain available during a pause.
Reminder sounds, pop-ups, caregiver schedule alerts, and that recipient's daily digest are suppressed as selected. Held reminders are not sent later in a backlog.
Both the caregiver dashboard and My Day clearly show an active pause. Messages, notes, tasks, acknowledgements, and weekly system-update emails continue normally.

August 31, 2026

Optional weekly system updates and recognizable caregiver photos

Each caregiver can opt in once to a weekly email about Porchlight Relay product improvements and important system notices. It is email-only and contains no care-recipient activity.
Caregivers can add an optional profile photo from Settings. The image is cropped to a small square, reduced in size, and stripped of embedded metadata before it is stored.
Saved photos appear with caregiver names near the bottom of My Day so care recipients can more easily recognize the people in their care circle. Initials remain the fallback.

August 28, 2026

A quick introduction to Porchlight Relay

A new two-minute Help video introduces My Day, the caregiver dashboard, Family Leader access controls, optional notifications, and the most important safety boundaries.
The welcome video now has its own compact preview near the top of Help, separate from the task-by-task video guides farther down the page.
The video uses only fictional care information and includes English captions and a complete written transcript. Captions are available from the video controls and start off.
A fictional AI-generated live-action presenter now appears at key points alongside the AI-generated narration. The detailed interface demonstrations remain unobstructed, and the guide stays a compact link until selected.

August 26, 2026

Clearer notifications for caregivers supporting more than one person

Recipient-related emails and texts now include the caregiver's own short label for the affected recipient, with the family-wide label used when no personal label is saved.
Notification links now preserve the affected recipient through sign-in and open that recipient's secured dashboard, even if another recipient was viewed most recently.
Porchlight Relay does not automatically fall back to a recipient's full display name. Medication labels, message text, and task details remain out of notification copy and links.
The Medications section now shows each scheduled time and the time a Taken report was recorded.
When no Taken report exists, the digest shows the time as of which it was still not reported taken.
Medication times use the care recipient's timezone, while medication labels and instructions remain inside the secured dashboard.

August 25, 2026

Optional alerts when recipients confirm an item

Caregivers can choose email, text, both, or neither when a medication is reported taken from My Day.
Message acknowledgement alerts now support text as well as email and continue to go only to the caregiver who sent the message.
The new choices are off by default. Notification messages keep medication names and message contents inside the secured dashboard.

August 21, 2026

Easier medication check-ins on My Day

Medication confirmation buttons are larger and more comfortable to press with a finger or stylus.
After the first press, the button says Saving and ignores additional presses until the update finishes.
A completed check-in now has a non-clickable Taken status. The quieter Made a mistake? correction appears away from that status after a short delay and opens clear Keep or Remove choices.
Medication confirmation is available as soon as a refreshed My Day page finishes loading current information, without waiting for the next reminder check.

August 19, 2026

Short video guides for families

The Help guide now includes eight short tutorials for Family Leaders, caregivers, and care recipients, including setup, daily coordination, medication reminders, appointments, messages, and My Day.
Every tutorial uses fictional information and includes large on-screen instructions, AI-generated narration, English captions, and a complete written transcript.
The compact video list appears after the written Help topics and expands only the guide a person chooses to watch.
Family Leader setup emails and caregiver invitation emails now link directly to the most useful starting video, with the rest of the guide list nearby.
Video remains optional. The existing step-by-step Help instructions are still available for reading, printing, or saving as a PDF.

August 4, 2026

Safer My Day connection recovery

The recipient day page now shows a persistent, plain-language warning when it cannot securely load or update instead of substituting sample care information.
Care actions and reminders stay unavailable while day-page information may be out of date, with a large Try again action and clearer caregiver backup guidance.
Temporary connection problems no longer discard saved tablet access. A genuinely invalid or expired device link now uses simpler My Day recovery wording.

July 14, 2026

Future schedule planning

Added date selection to Schedule so caregivers can create day-page schedule items for today or up to one year in advance.
Updated the caregiver Schedule list to show upcoming schedule items with clear date and time labels, while the recipient day page continues to show only the selected date's plan.
Updated Help and manual QA guidance for future schedule items and one-year date limits.
Added a recipient setting that can repeat tablet alert sounds for 10, 15, or 30 seconds so important reminders are easier to notice.
Improved repeated tablet alert sounds so test buttons use the same repeat behavior as real alerts, and scheduled repeat tones are more reliable on tablet browsers.
Added schedule reminder lead times so caregivers can remind the recipient and care team minutes, hours, or days before an appointment without showing future items in today's plan.

July 7, 2026

Clearer access wording

Clarified Settings wording for one-time pairing links, paired devices, caregiver invitations, member removal, and session revocation.
Polished caregiver invitation emails so new users get clearer single-use setup guidance, existing users know to review invitations from Settings, and both flows keep care details out of email.
Added user-support readiness links from sign-in, password reset, and invitation pages, plus clearer troubleshooting guidance for missing emails, security-token errors, tablet pairing, and what details are safe to share with support.
Polished the first-session Getting started card so invited caregivers see clearer Needs attention, task ownership, preferences, and Help steps, with a short privacy-minded helper note.
Fixed nested Owner tools collapse labels so sub-sections show Show or Hide based on their own state instead of inheriting the parent section's label.
Updated tablet access buttons so unused setup links say Cancel pairing link and already paired tablets or laptops say Revoke device access.
Updated Help and QA wording to use the same terms caregivers see in the app.
Made Settings sections collapsible by default, while still opening sections automatically when an invitation, pairing link, support request, system issue, or unsaved change needs attention.
Polished Settings on smaller screens with larger collapse tap targets, cleaner mobile spacing, and stacked access/action rows that are easier to use on phones and tablets.
Refined task ownership labels so unassigned tasks show Needs owner status, ownership captions say Assigned to or Needs owner, and long caregiver names wrap cleanly instead of crowding nearby actions.

July 6, 2026

Privacy-minded wording

Added guidance across forms and Help to use the least detail needed, including short recipient labels such as Dad or D. Smith and generic medication labels such as Morning meds when exact medication names are not required for safe follow-up.
Updated internal QA and documentation checklists so future caregiver-visible changes continue to avoid unnecessary sensitive details in examples, emails, notes, and release notes.
Made caregiver notification emails more privacy-minded by keeping task details, day-page note text, message text, and medication labels inside the secured dashboard whenever possible.
Added last signed-in date and time to caregiver member listings while preserving the active/recent activity indicator.
Reduced sensitive detail in transient dashboard and tablet toasts. Confirmation prompts and opened detail cards still show enough context to avoid mistakes, but quick popups no longer repeat task titles, medication labels, recipient labels, or schedule titles when a generic confirmation is enough.
Updated tablet pairing email drafts to include both the one-time pairing link and the normal day-page address, so helpers have a fallback if the device does not automatically navigate after pairing.

June 30, 2026

Clearer caregiver labels

Made personal recipient labels behave as true overrides: if a caregiver's personal label matches the family-wide label, Settings now treats it as blank and uses the shared label instead.
Moved People & device access higher in Settings so member invitations and session controls are easier to find near recipient and day-page setup.
Made Owner tools collapsed by default in Settings, keeping administrative controls available without crowding the everyday caregiver setup flow.
Polished task ownership wording across buttons, toasts, history, and emails so unassigned tasks, released tasks, and takeovers are easier to understand.
Added caregiver presence indicators so member badges and task owner chips can show when someone is active now or was recently active.
Polished caregiver invitations with clearer role descriptions, pending-invite expiration dates, and more specific sent-invitation confirmations.
Added optional sender-address settings so medication alerts, digests, invitations, security emails, task emails, and notes can use clearer From addresses.
Cleaned up email wording so invitations, message acknowledgements, daily digests, and task details avoid punctuation that can display incorrectly in some email clients.
Added a consistent Porchlight Relay Admin signature block to automated emails.
Made caregiver requests recover automatically if the browser has an outdated security token, preventing false CSRF errors on task ownership actions.
Polished task ownership controls so the owner area is labeled, Edit makes assignment changes easier to discover, and Unassigned can be tapped to take ownership.
Refined the Getting started card so owners, caregivers, and read-only family each see a calmer first-session orientation matched to their access.
Added an owner-only delete flow for extra care recipients, with typed confirmation, last-recipient protection, and audit history.

June 29, 2026

Tablet reminders, pairing polish, and caregiver settings

Moved tablet medication and schedule reminders into an inline Needs attention card near the top of the day page, with clearer actions for I took it, Snooze 10 min, and Dismiss today.
Added device names to one-time tablet pairing links so caregivers can tell which tablet, laptop, or simple device belongs to a recipient.
Added Copy link and Email link options for tablet pairing. The email option opens a new email draft with a short Porchlight Relay Admin signature.
Reorganized Settings with clearer group labels and moved tablet pairing controls next to the care-recipient and day-page settings.
Cleaned up the Settings recipient list so a recipient's name is not repeated when their family-wide label is the same as their name.
Improved the recipient day page on smaller tablets so reminder cards stay usable without horizontal page scrolling.
Made Notification preferences remember whether each caregiver leaves that settings section open or collapsed in their browser.
Made Alert history collapsed by default on the caregiver dashboard, with the open or closed state remembered in that browser.
Made Recent history collapsible while still starting open by default, and pinned Alert history at the bottom of the dashboard layout.
Polished tablet and phone dashboard spacing so pinned Alert history and dashboard links behave better on narrower screens.
Refined weather display options so caregivers can choose Today and tomorrow or Five days for the recipient's day page.

June 27, 2026

Caregiver documentation and cleaner task ownership

Added a fuller caregiver Help guide with step-by-step instructions for daily use, medications, tasks, messages, tablet pairing, settings, security, and troubleshooting.
Added this What's New page so caregivers can quickly review recent product changes.
Updated the Tasks page to group tasks by ownership: Needs an owner, Assigned to you, and Assigned to others.
Clarified task action labels so caregivers use Take ownership for unassigned tasks, Take over for tasks assigned to another caregiver, and Release when returning a task to the shared pool.
Aligned task notification emails, dashboard toasts, settings text, and Recent history labels with the clearer task ownership wording.
Improved invitation handling for users who were removed from all care circles and later invited again.
Added a per-caregiver recipient label, so one caregiver can call someone Dad while another sees Jim, Grandma, or another familiar name.
Tightened the notification-preference checkbox layout so the boxes stay compact and aligned.
Refined task ownership labels so unassigned tasks show a clear Needs owner control and task sections explain when to take ownership, take over, or release ownership.
Added a caregiver-specific Getting started checklist so invited caregivers can quickly find caregiver focus, task ownership, personal settings, and the Help guide.
Clarified invitation wording in Settings and on the new-user invitation page before owners invite real caregivers.
Added support for multiple owners in a family care circle. Owners can promote or demote existing members, and Porchlight Relay prevents changes that would leave a circle with no owner.
Polished task ownership controls so each task shows a clearer ownership label and the relevant Take ownership, Take over, or Release action together.

June 26, 2026

Multi-circle access and caregiver coordination

Added support for one caregiver account belonging to more than one family care circle.
Added care-circle switching so caregivers can move between separate family circles from one login.
Added accept and decline flows for pending care-circle invitations.
Tightened invitation state so removing someone from one care circle does not incorrectly change their status in another circle.
Improved task assignment notifications and invitation email wording.

June 22, 2026

Provider foundation and account management

Added provider organization foundations for future business/provider workflows.
Added provider team invitations and read-only provider dashboards.
Added platform administration tools for creating and managing organizations and family leaders without using Render directly.
Added account status controls for active, suspended, pending deletion, commercial, and courtesy/permanent accounts.

Earlier foundation

Core caregiver and day-page features

Added the caregiver dashboard with Today, Timeline, Tasks, Settings, and recipient switching.
Added the recipient day page for tablet-style use without links back to caregiver pages.
Added medication reporting, missed-medication alerts, caregiver email notifications, and scheduled alert checks.
Added caregiver messages, optional acknowledgements, message recall, and message status.
Added shopping and notes from the day page, weather forecast options, notification sounds, customizable layout, tablet pairing, and recipient-specific settings.
Added security hardening such as session controls, support access, system status, passkeys, production custom domain support, database backups, and uptime monitoring.

How to use this page

Caregivers can skim this page after updates to understand what changed.
For step-by-step instructions, use the Help guide.
For account-specific setup, sign in and open Settings.

What's new in Porchlight Relay