Beacon BabyEverything it does
Twenty-three features. One test each.
Every one of these earns its place by removing a step at 3am. If a feature made the app look better in a comparison table but slower to use in the dark, it isn't here.
The full list
Grouped by what they save you.
Each card says what it does for you, then how it works — because a claim you can't check is just an adjective.
One tap, and it already knows the amount
The bottle button arrives pre-loaded with what you usually give at this hour, so the common case is a single thumb press with no numbers to enter.
How: Plain arithmetic over your own history — the median of what you have logged at this hour before. No model, no advice, no other family's data.
Or say it, without looking
Tap the mic on Today and say “log a four ounce bottle” — or “baby's down”, or “wet diaper”, or “bottle, the usual”. It reads back what it heard, out loud, and waits for you to say confirm.
How: Voice is off until you switch it on in Settings, and the microphone opens only when you tap it, for 30 seconds, with a ring counting down. The grammar runs on-device first, so the usual phrasings are instant and certain; Apple Intelligence, where your iPhone has it, is only a fallback for the unusual ones. Speech is transcribed by Apple's on-device recognizer. Audio is never recorded and never sent anywhere.
Bottle, breast, or both
Tell Beacon Baby how you feed and the Today screen changes to match: ounces to log, or a timer and which side, or both one tap apart.
How: A feed at the breast has no amount to record, so the amount control is replaced by a timer rather than left there asking for a number that doesn't exist.
Works from the lock screen, through Siri
“Hey Siri, log a bottle in Beacon Baby.” Phone face down on the arm of the chair, baby still asleep, done. Diapers, sleep and nursing go through Siri too, and it asks which kind of diaper or which side if you don't say. With Plus, so do pumping, baths and medicines from your cabinet.
How: Native App Intents, so it runs from the lock screen, the Action Button, or a Shortcut without opening the app. This is the route for a locked phone — the in-app voice listens only when you tap its mic, with Beacon Baby open. Ending a sleep or a feed asks for Face ID first.
One tap takes it back
Thumbs slip and voice misfires. The undo strip that confirms a log is also how you take it back: one tap, no edit screen. Later, tap any entry in the day to change or delete it.
How: Undo is built into how every log is saved rather than bolted on as an edit screen, which is why it costs one tap instead of five.
A screen that doesn't wake the room
Night mode switches the whole app to a real dark palette between 7pm and 7am — not a gray filter over a white app, so a 3am log doesn't blind you or the baby you just got down.
How: It is the default Auto appearance: dark from seven to seven, or whenever your iPhone is in dark mode. The log colors are retuned for the dark, and a soft dim sits over the whole app at night — hold anywhere to lift it for as long as you need. It never changes your iPhone's brightness setting.
Diapers in one tap
One card: pick wet, poopy, or both on its strip, then tap Diaper. It logs at the size you used last. Hold the card for dry, a different size, or an earlier time.
How: Wet is selected to start with, so the most common change is a single tap. Dry lives one hold away rather than on the strip, because a fourth segment would shrink the three you use at 3am.
Sleep is two taps for the whole night
Tap Nap when they go down and tap again when they wake. In between, the same button counts the sleep for you; the rest of the time it tells you how long they have been awake.
How: Each sleep is stored as a start and an end, so a nap that crosses midnight is counted once rather than twice.
Two dozen trends, and not one opinion
Volume per day, average gap between feeds, longest stretch of sleep, share that is formula, wake-ups at night — twenty-four measures across feeds, diapers, and sleep. Free shows the last seven days; Plus opens thirty and ninety.
How: Every chart is worked out from your log alone, under seven named correctness rules, each with its own test. It reports what you recorded and nothing else.
It never tells you a number is bad
No red badges. No “low”. No percentile and no verdict at 3am, when you are least equipped to shrug one off.
How: Neutral language in every user-facing string is a rule the codebase enforces, not a style preference. Nothing is labeled good or bad. The only published ranges shown are the faint WHO band on growth and one line of context in the visit report, both without a score. Beacon Baby is a log, not a monitor.
Nothing leaves your phone until you turn on sharing
No analytics, no ad SDK, and no account unless you ask for one. Sharing is off until you switch it on, and until you do there is nothing about you on any server of ours.
How: With sharing off, the app contacts nothing when it opens, because a launch-time ping would leak a timestamped record of when your household is awake at 3am. Voice is transcribed on-device and audio is never recorded or sent, sharing or no sharing.
Everyone who helps, one log
Invite a partner, a grandparent or a nanny from the Family tab, and everyone sees the same feeds, changes and sleeps as they happen. Choose whether each person can manage the family, log care, or only view, and which children they see. Off until you switch it on — and until you do, nothing about you or your baby leaves your phone. Free, for as many people as you invite.
How: Sign in with Apple, or with an emailed link or 8-digit code, then invite someone with a six-character code that works once and ends in 24 hours. Every row is keyed to a household and the database refuses any request for one you are not in, which is enforced underneath the app rather than by it asking nicely. A view-only phone uploads nothing. Photos never sync.
One tap on your wrist
The Apple Watch app does three things: logs a bottle, logs a wet diaper, and starts or ends a nap — from your wrist, which is the version that matters when your phone is across the room and the baby is not.
How: The bottle is the amount the phone was already predicting, so there is nothing to choose on a screen that size. Each tap is logged when the Beacon Baby app on your iPhone next receives it, at the time it arrives; if the phone is out of range, the tap waits in a queue. Nursing and everything else stay on the phone.
The answer without opening anything
A widget on the Home or Lock Screen shows how long since the last feed and the last change. A nursing or sleep session runs as a Live Activity on the Lock Screen and in the Dynamic Island, counting itself.
How: Both are read-only on purpose: a log you can trigger by brushing a pocket is worse than one you have to mean. The widget reads a small snapshot file rather than the database, so it cannot slow the app down.
Reminders that stay quiet while she sleeps
Feed reminders and Change reminders, each timed from your own recent bottles and changes, and never while the baby is asleep. Off until you turn them on, and free.
How: The scheduler checks for an open sleep session before it fires. An app that wakes a sleeping baby to remind you about feeding has failed at its one job.
Growth and solids, from day one
Weight, length and head size on your own baby's line, and what was offered at mealtimes. Both are free and sit under the quick-log buttons from the start, and the growth screen makes the one-page visit report.
How: Recorded, never interpreted: the growth chart draws your measurements, with a faint, unlabeled WHO band behind them once your baby's sex and birth date are set, and nothing is labeled high or low. Pounds and inches by default; switch to kg and cm in Settings, under Weight and height.
The rest, only if you want it on screen
Pumping, baths, medicines and vaccinations, photos, milestones, and highlights. Every one is hidden until you switch it on in Settings, under More trackers, because a screen full of things you don't use is a screen you have to read past at 3am.
How: Each one you switch on adds a button under Quick log on Today, never a new tab, so the five tabs stay where your thumb learned them.
Your data, in a file, whenever you want it
Export the whole history as JSON from the Trends tab, and restore from the same file. Keep it as a backup, or take it to another app.
How: Plain JSON with no proprietary wrapper. The point of local-first is that leaving has to be as easy as arriving.
Who logged it, without anyone asking
On a shared log, every entry says who made it — “Logged by Sam · edited by Grandma” — and the History tab can show one person's entries or everyone's.
How: Each caregiver picks the name shown on what they log. It is a record of who did what, not a scoreboard: there are no counts per person and no ranking.
A care summary for whoever is on next
Tap Share care summary on Today and pick the last 3, 6 or 12 hours, or since midnight. Feeds, changes and sleep come out as a short note to copy or send, with a line of your own for the next caregiver.
How: It reports what was logged and nothing else — no “due for a feed”, no countdown. Nothing is sent until you copy or share it.
The day in figures, on its own tab
Summary shows each kind of entry for today, the last 24 hours, or everything you have logged: the total, how many, the average gap between them, and the most recent.
How: Beside today it puts the same figures for this time yesterday and your own 7-day average. Nothing is colored, ranked, or called high or low.
Every entry, in the order it happened
History lays out the last 3, 7 or 14 days as one continuous timeline, filtered by feeds, diapers, sleep or the rest. Tap any entry, however old, to fix it.
How: Days are separated but the timeline is continuous, so a feed at 11:50pm and a change at 12:10am read as neighbours, which is how they happened.
Two styles, same buttons
Clean is cool grays, a deep teal and soft pastels in one calm typeface. Playful is butter, pink, mint and lavender with rounder headings. Pick one in Settings; both have their own night palette.
How: Only the paint changes. Every control stays in the same place in both styles, so switching never moves a button you have learned to find in the dark.
Free covers the whole 3am job — logging, voice, Siri, the watch, undo, reminders, partner sharing with roles, care summaries, export, and the last seven days of trends. See what Plus adds.
The whole app, mostly
One screen does nine tenths of the work.
The Today screen holds what happened last, the log buttons, the latest entries and today's totals. There is no plus button to hunt for and no menu to open to log; the other four tabs are for reading back.
What happened last is at the top
When she last fed, was changed, and slept, with how long ago — and a banner while she is asleep. Readable at arm's length.
Then the buttons, in one column
Bottle, Diaper, Nap: full-width cards of the same height, one above the other, so your thumb learns one place instead of three.
Each button remembers the gap
The badge on the feed and diaper cards is how long since the last one — 1h06, 4h20. The Nap button shows how long she has been awake, or asleep. The most-asked question, answered before you ask it.
Everything else sits underneath
Growth, solids and whichever extras you switch on share one row below the buttons. Then the latest entries, with who logged each one, and today's totals, with the Summary tab and a care summary a tap away — so none of it crowds the three you use at 3am.
BEACON BABY
Hello
Last activities
Quick log
One tap to logRecent activity
View allTwenty-three features. Ten seconds to set up.
Your baby's name and birthday. That's the whole onboarding. You are logging before the bottle is warm.
Free to log, forever. No account needed to log. iPhone, iOS 26 or later.
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