Hi forum, I was browsing reddit earlier and stumbled on this really cool community project over on r/LightPhone called Chats (made by user fenleon).
Basically, the dev built an open-source tool for the LP3 that connects to a Beeper/Matrix account and funnels WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, etc. into a single, clean text inbox. Instead of having to sideload normal Android apps that look terrible, eat battery, and ruin the minimal vibe, it keeps the exact same simple UI as the rest of the OS.
It got me thinking - could someone in our community build something like this for the Kompakt? Or something similar?
Completely cutting off WhatsApp or Signal makes it hard for me to sometimes use as a daily driver especially if your family or work rely on them. However having one clean, high-contrast inbox just for text would solve one of my biggest headache without turning the phone back into a distraction machine.
Any devs here who know their way around Matrix clients or building lightweight Android apps who think this would be doable for MuditaOSK?
Here’s the repo if anyone wants to see how the LP dev approached it: [github.com/fenleon/chats](https://github.com/fenleon/chats)
Curious to hear what you guys think about this too
I like Beeper OK, but some types of accounts (like Signal) will only let you use it as a “connected device”. So you need to have a “real” Signal (or Molly) app installed somewhere. It doesn’t necessarily have to be your Kompakt, but it has to be a device that can connect to Signal at least every once in a while. If Beeper could be a true primary application, I would be way more excited about it. I have it on my Kompakt right now because it’s the only way to send an outgoing message from a voice command in the Pebble app (Pebble watch & Index 01 ring).
I have been working on getting Signal woven into my Messaging app all weekend and it’s come together really nicely so far. I started the easy route, hosting signal-cli on my home server like @lisa is describing below, but I’m tinkering on getting it set up to host on the phone itself…stay tuned. I’ve got it integrated into a Desktop Sync webapp as well–it’s fun
Admittedly I don’t use beeper or whatsapp so I don’t see myself implementing those.
Wow! A smooth integration of signal without a second device hosting it would be amazing! Can’t wait to see what you’re coming up with next! Thanks for making the Kompakt-experience better and better for all of us with those apps!!
Wow! This is amazing! Thank you so much for creating this! Is there a way of buying you a coffee?
Is there a way to import my messages from signal, so I can delete signal completely from my phone and use this beautiful e-ink version? Also, I did not find out, how to write a signal message to someone who did not send me one earlier, when I write a new message, my contacts only show up as SMS contact.
Thank you — that’s kind. If you’d like to send something, there are some llamas who eat a great deal of hay: Donate – Llamas of Hot Springs
Thank you also for your feedback! Writing to someone new was a real blind spot, and it’s fixed now. The new-message list now includes the people Signal knows, not only your address book, marked “Signal” under the name — so someone you have on both rails shows as two rows and you pick which one you meant. Choosing one opens their Signal conversation, empty and ready. If someone shows as a long string of characters instead of a name, that’s a linked device with nothing to name them by yet; it fills in once their client sends a profile.
Importing your old messages works now too, on the phone. Export from Signal Desktop — Settings → Chats → Export chat history — copy that folder onto the Kompakt, then Settings → Signal → Bring history in and choose it. It only adds: anything already there is left alone, and running it twice brings nothing in twice.
Worth knowing the other half: Write a copy out, beside it, writes everything back into a folder that reads back the same way, locked with a key of thirty digits the app makes and shows you once. Signal gives a linked device no history at all, so once these messages are on the phone, the phone is the only place they exist — that copy is the way out of it. Write the digits down; nothing else keeps them.
Deleting Signal entirely is the one thing that still doesn’t follow. Your number has to stay registered somewhere, and this phone is linked to that registration — unregister the other phone and every linked device goes with it, including this one. So Signal stays installed, even if you stop opening it. There is one other way, if you want the Kompakt to be your only Signal: Settings → Signal → Register this number instead, which registers the number here rather than linking. Signal on your other phone then stops working, its linked devices are dropped, and the old messages stay behind on it — though you can bring them across first with the import above. It’s the newest and least-travelled path in the app, so go in expecting rough edges.
the import function works great! But the new message through signal thing doesnt seem to work for me yet. I still only get a list of sms contacts in my list though. I attached a screenshot, I hope its still helpful, though I blurred all personal info
That screenshot is exactly what I needed — thank you for blurring it and sending it anyway.
The list is there — it is just underneath. On Signal sits below your whole address book, so on a phone with a few hundred contacts it is a long way down. Scroll to the bottom of Verfassen and it should be there, each row marked “Signal”.
If it is empty when you reach it, that is the other half of it, and that part is now fixed. Newer Signal keeps its contact list on its own servers rather than sending it to a linked device, so the phone had nothing to show. Settings → Signal → Fetch contacts from Signal asks for it, and the app now offers that once by itself, when it can see it is linked and knows nobody’s name. Names come from your own address book as well, once the phone has seen someone’s number, instead of a string of characters.
