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Development progress, new features, and announcements.

ANNOUNCEMENT

ToneOut Is Live on the App Store

It's official — ToneOut is approved and live on the App Store. After months of building, testing, and a stint in Apple's review queue, you can download it right now, for free. What you get today A free, ad-free scanner for iPhone. Stream live police, fire, and EMS dispatch audio from a curated library of Broadcastify feeds across nine states — Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Florida, Illinois, Texas, and California. Save your favorites for one-tap access, and keep your stream controls handy with the persistent Now Playing bar. No account, no subscription. Go further with Pro (one-time purchase, no subscriptions): Dual Listen monitors two feeds at once with independent volume, and Background Audio keeps you listening from the Lock Screen and Control Center while you use other apps. What's next We're just getting started. Android beta opens by the end of this week, we're adding more states to our Broadcastify coverage, and we're bringing more ToneOut Network nodes online. Push to Talk is what we're building next — it lands on iOS first, then Android after testing. See the full plan on our new roadmap, and tell us what you want built. Download ToneOut free on the App Store and see the roadmap at https://toneout.app/roadmap.

Download on the App Store
ANNOUNCEMENT

ToneOut Is Here — Here's Everything You Need to Know

ToneOut has been submitted to the App Store. After months of development, the iOS app is now in Apple's review queue. Here's what's launching and what's on the way. What ToneOut is A free, ad-free scanner app for iPhone. It streams live dispatch audio from police, fire, and EMS feeds. No account, no subscription — you tap a feed and listen. Core features Browse and listen — A curated library of Broadcastify scanner feeds organized by state. We're launching with coverage across nine states — Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Florida, Illinois, Texas, and California — and adding more regularly. Save your favorites — Save any feed for one-tap access. No account needed; everything is stored locally on your device. Now Playing bar — A persistent Now Playing bar keeps your stream controls handy no matter where you are in the app. Pro features (one-time purchase) Dual Listen — Monitor two feeds at once, each with its own independent volume. Follow an incident across multiple agencies without losing either channel. Background Audio — Keep listening while you're in other apps. ToneOut keeps playing from the Lock Screen and Control Center with the screen off. Both are available individually or as a bundle. One-time purchase — you own them for good, no recurring charges. ToneOut Network (beta) ToneOut Network is our own live audio infrastructure. We've got our first Raspberry Pi node deployed in the field, capturing and streaming real radio traffic straight through the app. This is early — coverage is limited to wherever active nodes are running, and more are coming soon. If you'd want to host one in your area, reach out. What's coming next Android — beta testing starts by the end of next week. Sign up at toneout.app if you want early access. More states, more coverage — we're adding new Broadcastify feeds and expanding ToneOut Network coverage as we go. Get ToneOut ToneOut for iOS is in App Store review right now. Once it's approved it'll be a free download at https://toneout.app/.

NEW

First ToneOut Node is live for testing

The first ToneOut Node went live today. ToneOut Nodes are our own self-hosted radio feeds — a Raspberry Pi with an SDR antenna running out of Glastonbury, CT, streaming local fire and EMS dispatch over HTTPS to anyone who wants to listen. Three streams are public right now from the Glastonbury node: • Dispatch (452.445 MHz) • EMS (453.075 MHz) • Combined Fire/EMS Listen at feeds.toneout.app — the dashboard lists each one. Most useful when there's actually a run going. This is beta — one node, one town, one antenna. The bigger plan is a distributed network of these nodes hosted by first responders, radio enthusiasts, and anyone else who wants to put one up for their own town. I'll be putting together pre-configured kits for anyone who wants one — power them on, plug into internet, and the node automatically joins the ToneOut network and starts feeding. If you'd rather configure your own, I'll provide the full instructions for that path too. Either way, all you need on your end is power and internet. The iOS app is in TestFlight and is being wired up to consume these streams next. If you hear something cut out, sound rough, or fail to load — let me know. Beta means feedback matters. If you're interested in hosting a node for your town, get in touch.

Listen now

Best on iPhone — open in the ToneOut TestFlight beta

ANNOUNCEMENT

ToneOut Beta Is Open

We pushed an update yesterday, and the timing felt right, so we're opening the beta up wider. The first round of TestFlight invitations already went out to people who'd been on the waitlist longest. That group has been running the app, listening to real feeds, and sending feedback. It's been solid. Today we're opening it up wider. The first 100 people on iPhone can join the beta right now. What ToneOut is An ad free scanner app for iPhone. No subscriptions, no banners, no upsells stacked on top of upsells. You open it, you pick a feed, you listen. Police, fire, EMS, wherever you are. It was built out of frustration with every other scanner app on the market. Most of them are either riddled with ads, locked behind expensive monthly plans, or both. ToneOut is a one time thing: the app is free, and if you want Dual Listen (two feeds simultaneously, independent volume), that's a $4.99 one time purchase. That's it. Audio comes from Broadcastify: nationwide coverage. Coming soon: our very own ToneOut network, built for ToneOut listeners. What's in the beta • Browse feeds by state or by your location • Sequential scanner style playback: calls play one after another the way a real scanner works • Dual Listen for two feeds at once (Pro, $4.99 one time) • Save systems you listen to regularly • Background audio with lock screen controls • Dark UI, no light mode, no clutter How to join iPhone only. You'll need Apple's TestFlight app installed. It's free from the App Store if you don't have it already. Once you have TestFlight, tap the link below and ToneOut installs like any other app: Join the ToneOut Beta on TestFlight https://testflight.apple.com/join/KMJQ1YVE Spots are capped at 100 for this round. When that fills up, the link will stop accepting new testers. A couple of notes This is beta software. It's stable. We've been running it daily, but beta means bugs happen. If something sounds wrong, crashes, or doesn't behave the way you'd expect, use TestFlight's Send Beta Feedback: you can attach a screenshot and a note, and it goes straight to us. That feedback directly shapes what gets fixed before the full App Store release. Also: ToneOut is not an emergency service. Scanner audio is delayed. Always call 911. Full App Store release is coming. This is the step before that. Don't forget to sign up for the waitlist for when it comes out: https://toneout.app/

ANNOUNCEMENT

Android is coming, after iOS

Since opening the waitlist, a ton of you have asked about Android in texts, emails, and DMs. Thank you for the feedback, and for signing up. It's what keeps this moving. Here's the plan: iOS ships first. After that, work starts on a native Android version of ToneOut, built in Kotlin. Not a port, not a wrapper. A real Android app. Real talk: I'm a Swift and web developer, not a Kotlin developer. That's where Claude Code comes in. I'll be leaning on it heavily to bridge the gap and help me build a proper Kotlin app from the ground up. It means Android takes longer than iOS did, but it'll be done right. The bigger goal is a shared ToneOut network across both platforms. When push to talk arrives, iPhone and Android users will be on the same channels and will be able to talk to each other. A few features will stay platform specific based on what each phone supports, but the core scanner and PTT experience works on both. One of the biggest things I've been focused on is latency. It's come up in almost every conversation with people who know radio systems well, and it's something I've been researching hard. A scanner is only as good as how fast audio reaches you. The goal is to push latency as low as physically possible, on both iOS and Android, for both live dispatch audio and push to talk between users. iOS first. Android follows.

ANNOUNCEMENT

New Audio Infrastructure: Broadcastify & Future Plans

After a lot of research into audio sourcing, we've gone with Broadcastify to power ToneOut's feeds. Broadcastify gives us reliable, nationwide coverage of public safety radio, which means ToneOut can launch with feeds just about anywhere you are. It's a solid foundation to build on while we work toward audio infrastructure of our own. RadioReference has paused new commercial API licenses due to an unprecedented surge in demand driven by AI products. We respect their decision and wish them well, but honestly, this pushed us toward something even better. Looking ahead, we're also researching what it would take to run our own dedicated feed infrastructure. The early plan is to start small, testing in our own town first, and learn from there. Down the road, we'd love to make it possible for others to set up their own nodes, whether through a kit list or a simple guide. Nothing is set in stone yet, but the long term vision is to give ToneOut its own independent coverage that doesn't rely entirely on third party providers. That kind of independence is what will set ToneOut apart from every other scanner app out there. We're taking it one step at a time, but we're building toward something bigger. Stay tuned.

ANNOUNCEMENT

Welcome to ToneOut Updates

This is where we'll post development progress, new features, and announcements. Stay tuned as we build ToneOut, the scanner and push to talk app designed for first responders.