foen is a video phone in a web page. No account, no app to install, no charge. You get a number, you share it with the people you want to hear from, and you call each other.
Nobody can find your number unless you give it to them. Press Share my number with a friend. On a phone this opens your usual sharing options; on a computer it copies the link. A friend who opens the link gets their own number if they have none, and a button that calls you.
You can also read the number out, or write it on a card. A friend types it into or type a number and presses Call.
If you have someone's number but not their link, type it under your foenbook and press Connect instead of Call. They see asks to connect with your name and number the next time their page is open, within thirty days, and can add you with one press. When they do, you both appear in each other's foenbook and can call and message. Someone who has chosen to accept only their foenbook never sees a request from a number they do not hold.
Keep the page open. When someone calls, the whole screen shows Incoming call from their name, with a big Answer button. Not now declines, and a Call back button stays on the page so you can return the call later. If the page is not open, the call is missed, and a Missed calls list with a Call back button is waiting the next time the page opens, for thirty days. There is no voicemail yet.
Messages, linked at the bottom of the page, is a text conversation with anyone in your foenbook whose link you opened, who called you, or who messaged you first. Write, press Send, and the message waits on our server, sealed so that only the two of you can read it, until the other person's page picks it up. When a message arrives, the foen page says who it is from and the Messages link shows a count. Messages stay on your device; the server forgets them after thirty days.
My Channel, linked at the bottom of the page, is where you write your public page: a name, a few lines about you, a picture, a schedule and a link. Copy my channel link gives you the address of the public page, which anyone can open, with or without a foen number, and which search engines can read. It shows what you wrote, signed by your number, and a button to call or message you. A name in your foenbook or the public book opens that person's channel, and All Channels opens the public channel site, where every listed channel, tag page and search lives.
Your channel is not your number. A channel has its own key, made from the same twelve words, and nothing on a channel, a post or a live stream carries your number: a channel is public, a number is private. Calls and messages stay inside foen, between numbers. Tick List my channel to be found by name, in search and on the live page; unlisted, your channel is still open to anyone holding its link.
Posts. Under your channel you can write posts: a title, some text, and a picture if you like. A post's picture keeps its shape and is scaled to fit within 640 pixels; only your channel picture is cropped square. They appear on your public channel page, newest first. A title is at most 80 characters and a post 500, on purpose: short reads well. A post can be edited or removed; that adds a correction to your channel's record rather than erasing the original, the way a printed correction does, and the page shows the corrected version. Text in a post is shown as text; it never becomes a link. The one exception is a #hashtag: it links to a page on our channel site showing every post with that tag from channels listed in the public book, so people can find posts by subject. There is a search box there too.
Going live. Go Live in the menu broadcasts from this device, your camera or your desktop, and tells your followers at the same time. Give it a title, a note if you like, and your link: a shop, tickets, a sign-up page, anything of yours. Your audience watches on our public live site, which shows your link beside the stream; the address is copied for you to hand out. Keep the page open while you are live; Pause keeps the audience waiting, End finishes. Under My Channel you can instead announce a stream that runs elsewhere, with Announce, or announce a time in advance.
Being told. Under Following, Tell me when they go live asks the browser for permission to show notifications, and from then on a channel you follow announcing it is live reaches this device even with the page closed, on Chrome, Edge and Firefox, and on Safari once foen is added to the home screen. Our server keeps the address the browser gave us for that and the list of channels you follow, nothing else; turn it off with the same button. Brave refuses to subscribe until "Use Google services for push messaging" is turned on under its privacy settings, since its push service is Google's.
Following. On anyone's channel, Follow keeps that channel in your foenbook record, and their posts appear under Following, newest first, with the ones new since your last look marked. The channel's owner is not asked and is not told, and following does not let them call you. Unfollow on the channel or under Settings.
Your channel is yours. Under your channel, Download my channel saves a file with every signed entry of your channel and your posts, and your pictures. With that file and your twelve words the channel can be brought back here, or taken to another service that speaks the same format. Import a channel file takes such a file in: it must be your own number's.
Choose a picture from your device and it is cropped square and made small before it leaves the device, then kept as a file on our server; or give a link to a picture you host elsewhere. Either way it is always shown inside your key's frame, a coloured ring and a small pattern drawn from your number, so nobody can pass off your picture as theirs: on their number the frame is different.
Advertise, linked at the bottom of the page, is where a banner is placed: a title, a link, a picture cropped to a banner, and where it may show: the phone's idle screen, live stream pages, channel pages, or tag and search pages, narrowed to tags or channels if you like. Your number is the account. A pack serves once it is paid for and approved, and the page shows how many times it was shown and clicked, both as our count and as a signed record you can check against the counter's own key.
Under Settings you choose who may call: anyone can call, or only accept calls from my foenbook. The foenbook is your own list of numbers. People you call, answer, or whose share link you open are added by themselves, and you can add or remove a number by hand. With the second choice, a number that is not in your foenbook never rings your page. The caller is not told.
Blocking a number. Press Block this number on an incoming call, Block on a missed call or a request to connect, or block at the top of a message thread, or type the number under Blocked numbers in Settings. A blocked number never rings you, and its requests, missed calls and messages are not shown, whichever choice you made above. The blocked person is not told. Unblock under Settings.
Your foenbook is backed up to the server unless you turn that off, sealed so that only your number can read it. With the backup on, restoring your number from its twelve words on another device brings the foenbook with it. You can also download it as a file to keep anywhere, and import that file later.
The same page shows your recovery words again, lets you set or remove a PIN for showing them, restores a number from its words, and holds the look and the ads switch.
This is the one page to follow if you are setting foen up for a relative or a resident who will not do it themselves.
homefoen.com. That address is foen with no advertising at all, in the light look: black on white, large, nothing moving.After that, the person only ever presses Answer, or the big button with their family member's name on it.
Open Settings, type the twelve words in order under Restore from words, and press the button. The same number comes back. The old device keeps working too until you clear it.
There is no account, so there is nothing to log into and nothing to reset. There is no company that can look up your number for you: the words are the only way back. There is no charge and no subscription. The service is paid for by advertising on the idle screen, never during a call; it is an image we host and a link we chose, and it can be turned off under Settings.