Handrail: Senior Launcher

Handrail replaces the home screen on an Android phone with something a person can use. Instead of pages of small icons, the screen shows a few large tiles: round photographs of the people they call, and squares for the handful of apps they actually use. Tapping a face starts the call. Tapping a square opens the app. There is nothing else on the screen, and nothing to swipe away by accident. WHO IT IS FOR Someone who finds a modern phone hard to use — because the icons are too small to see, because the screen keeps changing under their hand, or because leaving an app means an invisible gesture nobody explained. Handrail is set up by somebody else: a son, a daughter, a carer, a friend. Setup takes about five minutes, and every part of it can be changed later. WHAT IS ON THE SCREEN Faces. Round photographs of the people they call, with the name underneath in large type. One tap starts the call. Apps. Large square tiles for the apps they really use, chosen during setup. Everything else on the phone stays installed and stays out of the way. A list of everyone else. One screen with every name in the phone and a box to search it. Pressing a name rings that person. Nothing on that screen can add, change or delete a contact — the family keeps doing that in the phone's own contacts app, and this list follows. A camera with one button. Handrail's own camera has no modes, no zoom, no video and no settings — one large shutter that never moves, and a Finished button. Photographs are saved to the phone's normal gallery, where the family can find them, print them or send them. A Home button that is always there. An optional round button that floats over every app, so getting back to the home screen is one tap instead of a gesture. Android asks for permission to draw it during setup, and it can be turned off again. MORE THAN A HOME SCREEN A ringer that stays loud. The volume buttons on the side of a phone get pressed by accident, and a ringer left turned down looks exactly like a phone nobody has called. With this on, Handrail puts the ringer back up whenever it finds it turned down or silenced — every quarter of an hour, and again whenever the home screen appears. You choose the level, and can hear it before you decide. A spoken reminder to charge. When the battery gets low, the phone can say so out loud. You choose the level, how often it repeats, and the hours it may speak, so it never wakes anybody at night. Off until you have heard it and turned it on. A clock and a battery tile. Two large tiles that show the time and the charge left, rather than opening anything. SIZE AND COLOUR Everything is drawn large, and Handrail follows the phone's own text size — turning the system text up makes Handrail bigger with it. The background colour is chosen during setup, and the text colour follows it automatically so the contrast is always right. THE SETTINGS STAY OUT OF THE WAY Settings are opened by holding a small grey line at the bottom of the home screen until a bar fills, about three seconds. That is deliberate. A stray tap cannot reach them, so the person using the phone cannot land in a settings screen they are unable to leave — and the person who set the phone up can always get back in. WHAT HANDRAIL DOES NOT DO No account, no sign-in, no ads, no subscription, no tracking. Handrail has no internet permission at all. Names, numbers, photographs and settings stay on the phone, because there is no way for the app to send them anywhere. PLEASE NOTE Handrail is not a medical, care, safety or emergency product. It does not monitor anyone, it cannot guarantee that a call connects, and it does not contact emergency services. It is a home screen with large buttons on it. Handrail has to be set as the phone's home app in order to replace the old home screen. Android asks for that during setup, and it can be undone at any time from the phone's own settings.