⬇ Download the latest APK · free, open source.
Walking and subway directions for the Light Phone III. Text-first: one big instruction, the wheel scrolls the rest of the trip. No map tiles, no Play Services, no account — you bring your own Google Maps Platform key.
- GO — search anywhere (Places), get one walking route and up to three subway/bus
itineraries (Routes API). Pick one; the nav screen shows the current turn huge, the live
GPS distance to it, and auto-advances as you walk. Transit steps show the bullet, the
headsign, stop count and exit stop. The trip survives the screen turning off — pocket the
phone between turns and the step keeps advancing — and while navigating, the current turn
is published at
content://com.gios.brightway.nav/currentfor BrightControl's lock face to draw. - PLACE MAP — search results open pinned on a map first: wheel to zoom, GO to route.
- COMPASS — bearing + distance to your destination, as the crow flies (true-north corrected). During nav, toggle it between the next turn and the destination. Works with no key and no signal.
- SETTINGS — scan your API key in by QR, save places (Home, Work) from where you're standing, toggle colour.
- In Google Cloud Console, create an API key with Routes API, Places API (New) and Maps Static API enabled. One phone stays inside the monthly free tier.
- Open https://gi-os.github.io/BrightWay/ on your computer, paste the key, scan the QR from Settings → SCAN. The page is client-side only; the key lives in the app's private prefs and never in this repository or the APK.
LightOS's greyscale is a colour matrix, not the panel. One adb grant lets BrightWay lift it during navigation so subway bullets render in their real MTA colours, restoring greyscale when you're done:
adb shell pm grant com.gios.brightway android.permission.WRITE_SECURE_SETTINGS
Skip the grant and everything works in greyscale.
Grab the APK from the latest release (or point Obtainium at this repo). Every push to
main cuts a signed release; the certificate is pinned in signing-fingerprint.txt.
Location permission is asked on first launch — GPS only, plain LocationManager.
Nothing runs in the background after you leave the app, with one scoped exception:
while a trip is running, a foreground service keeps navigation alive so the screen can
turn off, and it stops itself on arrival, on END, or after four hours flat. Its
notification is a single silent "Navigating · tap to return" line.
It's not Light, it's Bright.
26 open-source apps for the Light Phone III — camera, music, maps, messages, reading, transit, games. The phone has no app store, so they install by sideload: scan one code from brightmarket.gzl.dev and BrightMarket keeps them updated.
Roll · BrightNotebook · BrightControl · BrightWay (you are here) · BrightChat · browse all 26 →
The Light Phone does not sponsor or endorse any of these. Built by Giovanni Lupo — if this one is useful to you, a ⭐ helps the next person find it.
These apps are free, open, and built on my own time. Sponsorship pays the bills that don't go away: build servers, test hardware, and the crash reporter that keeps them shipping. Donation or not my code is always free for the world to use.