From a single conversation to care that knows the person
Simple for residents. Powerful for everyone else.
We built the resident app around one idea: it should be impossible to get wrong. Behind that one button, the work happens quietly — turning what a resident says into a briefing so your whole team knows them, and a recording their family can keep.
One button, one voice.
The app reads a life-story question aloud and shows it in large text. The resident taps one big Next button, speaks their answer for as long as they like, and taps Next when they're done. The question stays on screen until they tap Next: no clock, no countdown, no menus to get lost in. Any question can be skipped with one tap. Prefer to read instead of listen? There's an audio on/off toggle. People speak naturally — the way they'd talk to a grandchild on the couch.
The work happens quietly.
The questions come from a bank of more than 800 life-story questions written by people, asked in a gentle, set order that starts roughly at childhood. The resident or a staff member can pick a topic to start from instead. Staff fill in a short profile for each resident (whether there was a spouse, children, a working life, military service) and can mark topics to leave out entirely, so chapters that don't fit are simply skipped. No AI decides what to ask.
AI does its work after the recording: each answer is captured as audio and transcribed automatically (using Groq's Whisper speech-to-text), the transcript is tidied for reading, and a short summary, highlights and theme tags are drafted for your team.
And because the question track never repeats, you can launch a session for a resident every single time the moment is right — today, tomorrow, and next spring — and there is always a fresh question waiting. No rerun fatigue, no “we already did this one.”
Every staff member knows the resident.
Porchlight turns those stories into a warm one-screen Know Your Resident briefing for your team — who this person is, the people who matter to them, what lights them up, and ready-made conversation starters. A new aide walks in already knowing them, so every aide knows every resident on their first shift. Your coordinator also gets a weekly digest and story highlights — raw material for speeches and bulletin boards. Staff read the transcripts too, and bring anything worrying to the director.
The circle closes.
Families listen on a private page and record their own voice messages back, voicemail-style. Notifications fire on both sides when something new lands; the resident hears replies in the same one-button app. The resident, who started by tapping one button, ends up at the center of a living, two-way connection.
Getting started
From sign-up to first story.
The community signs up
Create your account and your full-access demo starts immediately — every feature, no card. A real person reaches out, walks your team through everything, and builds a plan around your community. No hardware, nothing to install.
You get QR cards
Receive a batch of QR codes — one per resident. Onboarding is a scan; each resident gets an account tied to their code. No app store, no resident passwords.
Stories start flowing
Residents tap and talk, your coordinator sees highlights, and families listen and reply. The profile your staff fill in keeps the questions fitting each person.
See it work with your own residents.
Create your community account and onboard your first resident today.