Beep - MQTT Pager

Beep is a minimal pager and chat app built on MQTT, with end-to-end encryption and no server of ours in the middle. There is no account to create, no phone number to hand over, and no Beep server between you and the people you talk to. Your phone generates its own keys, you swap a QR code with someone, and your two devices exchange encrypted messages through ordinary MQTT brokers. The brokers carry message content only as ciphertext they cannot open. WHAT MAKES IT DIFFERENT • No sign-up. Open the app, pick a name, and you have a Beep code. That is the whole setup. • No message servers of ours. Beep carries messages over public MQTT brokers, or one you host yourself, and nothing we run relays or stores your messages. • End-to-end encryption that is easy to check. Every message is signed with your Ed25519 identity, then sealed with a one-time X25519 key and AES-256-GCM, so even who sent it is inside the ciphertext. Compare safety numbers with a contact to confirm nobody is in the middle. • Send a real page. When something genuinely cannot wait, a page rings and vibrates with a pager cadence on the alarm stream, through a silenced ringer, a muted conversation or an open chat. Only contacts you have accepted can page you, and blocking a contact stops their pages. • Several brokers at once. Beep connects to multiple brokers simultaneously and sends through all of them, so one operator's outage does not cut you off. ALSO INCLUDED • Delivery and read receipts, typing indicators and online status, shared with accepted contacts only; read receipts, typing and online status can each be turned off • Contacts by QR code or shared link, with no directory to look anyone up in • Replies that quote the message they answer • Search your conversation list by name or latest message • Mute, block and delete, per contact • Encrypted identity backup, so a new phone keeps your Beep code (your contact list and messages stay on the old phone) • App lock with your fingerprint or screen lock • 23 colour palettes, including Material You dynamic colour (Android 12 and later) and an amber Pager theme in a monospaced font, each in light or dark HONEST LIMITS Beep encrypts message content, and the messages themselves name nobody. On a public broker, anyone connected can still see when an envelope reaches a topic and which size bucket it falls in, and the online or offline markers on presence topics. The broker's operator also sees your IP address and which topics each connection listens and sends on, which is enough to work out which two devices are talking, and anyone who holds the QR code or link you shared can recognise your inbox topic. None of it shows what is said. If that matters, run your own broker with access control, add it in Settings and switch the public brokers off, and ask your contacts to do the same: two people can only reach each other through a broker they both use. The public brokers that are on by default see your connection as soon as setup finishes, and may keep your last online marker and any messages waiting for you until their operators discard them. The public brokers Beep ships with are free test services run by other organisations, with no uptime guarantee. They can rate-limit, drop connections or shut down without notice, which is why Beep uses several at once; for anything you depend on, add a broker of your own. Your identity lives on your device, protected by its Android Keystore. That is what removes the need for an account, and it means losing a phone you have not backed up costs you your Beep code. Export your identity from Settings.

• Pages now ring and vibrate once, instead of the alarm and the notification sounding over each other. • A page that arrives long after it was sent (for example after your phone was off) shows as a normal message instead of setting off the alarm. • Fixed a crash when restoring a backup from Settings.