Find your way. Know what you’re seeing.Find your way. Know what you’re seeing.

The glow has ingredients.

Placelight combines recorded lighting, activity, open venues, and community observations of visibility and conditions. The 0–100 reading describes the evidence for those conditions. It is not a probability that a walk will be safe.

1. No data yet
2. Very dim
3. Dim
4. Mixed
5. Lit
6. Bright

Read confidence beside the score.

OpenStreetMap and Overture provide the starting layer. An imported listing is not confirmation that a venue is open or a light is working. Where opening hours are missing, Aloka does not count that venue as confirmed open.

Community evidence needs at least three distinct, verified contributors before a cohort can appear. Recent, agreeing observations increase confidence. Thin or conflicting evidence stays visibly uncertain; a dark patch is not a judgement about a neighbourhood.

Reports near the selected hour carry more weight. Structural observations, such as lighting and sightlines, decay with a 45-day half-life. Activity decays with a six-hour half-life. The “Fresh only” filter keeps community observations from the last 30 days; it does not make an older source import new.

Open a place’s Now and About tabs for the available ingredients and source dates. Import time tells you when Aloka received a dataset, not when every record was last observed.

Same street. A different hour.

Drag the Time Dial, tap an hour, or use the bracket keys. “Now” returns to the current hour in the launch city. The map, place readings, and route comparison follow the selected time.

The Rhythm tab lays out 24 hours across seven days, combining published schedules and eligible observations. It is an evidence-based pattern, not a live crowd counter or a forecast. Empty cells mean there is not enough information.

A listed schedule can change without notice. Check directly with a venue or transit operator when its opening time matters to your walk.

Bring your context to the map.

Lenses change the emphasis of the reading and the weight given to relevant Lanterns. They do not infer your identity.

Walking alone

Emphasizes activity, sightlines, and community comfort walking alone.

At night

Gives more weight to lighting and open venues.

New here

Emphasizes activity, open venues, and clear sightlines.

With kids

Gives more weight to lighting and sightlines.

Accessibility

Emphasizes lighting and visibility. It does not certify step-free access, kerb ramps, or pavement condition.

You can combine Lenses, share them in a map link, or set your defaults in Settings. If no matching community evidence exists, a Lens cannot create it.

See what the extra minutes buy.

Choose a destination and select Route here. Set a starting point by search or, if you choose, a one-time location check.

Fastest prioritizes walking time. Lit gives preference to recorded lighting and activity. Compare the minutes, recorded lighting coverage, open venues, and unverified stretches. When both choices use the same streets, Aloka says so.

Routes are walking-only and limited to the published routing area. A route can include outdated access information or an unverified stretch. Check the street in front of you, and use your judgement if conditions differ.

Payment never changes route order. That is one of our five public promises.

Notice the conditions. Leave a light.

Open a place and choose Check in. Sign in to contribute, confirm the place and observation time, then record lighting, activity, sightlines, nearby open venues, and how you felt walking alone. Your selected Lenses provide context.

A proximity check is optional. A sufficiently accurate position within roughly 150 metres can verify “on-site”; a less precise check may show “nearby.” The device coordinates are discarded after verification. You can contribute without sharing them.

Keep an optional note under 140 characters and describe conditions, never people. Notes wait for review. New contributions need corroboration before they affect the public glow, so submitting a Lantern does not immediately change the score.

You can submit up to five Lanterns per day and one at the same place every 12 hours. A public report shows a broad time window and no public profile trail. Use Report on a Lantern if it includes identifying, discriminatory, or misleading content.

Keep the useful places close.

Save places, routes, and a radius around an area into collections. Anonymous saves stay on this device. Signing in lets you merge them into your account and sync them across devices.

A Watch Area is a saved boundary you can return to. It does not follow your location or send condition alerts.

If a Lantern submission is interrupted, its draft can remain queued on this device. Reconnect using the same account to send it. Signing into another account does not submit someone else’s queue. Clearing browser storage can remove local saves and unsent drafts.

A cached reading may be older than the street in front of you. Look at its timestamp and reconnect for a fresh reading when you can.

Location is a choice.

Aloka explains a location request before the browser asks. Denying it leaves search, manual map navigation, and place browsing available. We do not request background location or retain a trail of device positions.

A contribution does retain the public place you selected, the observation time, your structured answers, and the verification result. Saved routes and places are private to your account. Those deliberate records are different from passive location tracking.

Open Settings → Privacy Center to review stored data, export your account, or delete it. The privacy policy explains the service providers and local storage involved.

A map at your fingertips.

Shortcuts work outside text fields. Tab moves through controls; the place list gives a keyboard and screen-reader route to the places on the map.

/ or ⌘K / Ctrl+K

Focus search

Arrow keys

Pan the focused map

+ / −

Zoom the map

[ / ]

Move the Time Dial by one hour

N

Return to the current hour

L

Choose Lenses

Shift + L

Open layers

C

Check in at the selected place

S

Save the selected place

Tab

Move through controls and the place list

Esc

Close the top open layer

?

Show keyboard shortcuts

Aloka follows your device’s reduced-motion preference. Map moves become immediate and animated reveals settle into readable static content.