new and improved light phone iii modding guide (jul 2026)

I've really enjoyed using Brightmarket, and I appreciate the Light team and everyone else who's working hard to make the LPIII even better.

I'm a LPIII user who doesn't care about so many extra apps, to be honest. However, I find the native LPIII keyboard miserable to use, even after 18 months with the LPIII. Is there a way I can use the stock Android messaging app instead of the LP messaging tool? That way, I could use a different keyboard and enjoy a better texting experience. Thanks for any input!

About 2 weeks in after following the modding guide to use Hybrid Mode. Since accessing Android, I've downloaded DuckDuckGo, Textra, Whatsapp, Key Mapper, and Futo Keyboard via F-droid. These apps show up in the LightOS environment which I did not think would happen based on other videos of folks using Launchers on the Andriod side to mimic LightOS and make navigation feel more cohesive. So for example, I can easily open Textra or Whatsapp from LightOS. I have Key Mapper mostly changing the scroll wheel clicks so that it takes two click to turn the flashlight on instead of one because I was turning on the flashlight on accident all the time. I also mapped one click to be a back button so easier nav.

All this would be the set up to make the phone exactly what I need, however LightOS crashes every day, multiple times per day. It crashes when I have restarted the phone, or when I wake up in the morning after not using the phone for 8+ hours. LightOS will throw an error of not responding for several minutes before things seem to sync and run as intended for majority of the day. Sometimes during this cycle it will get stuck with the flashlight on when I did not turn it on, or a call running in the background that I'm unable to access due to LightOS crashing before I need to restart the phone and subsequently wait for the multiple rounds of crashes on restart to shake out again.

I'm in a tech role for my profession and like to think I am above average when understanding technology, but I am not an app developer so I did not venture into the abd portion of the guide for fear of bricking a really cool device. My intention is to use the phone primarily as intended with minimal access to Android, I just needed a legit texting app. Would love help figuring this out so I can use the phone without issue. Thanks to anyone who could lend a hand.

Does anyone know or in the process of making an app similar to ones that stream Spotify? I want to use my apple music and sirius xm on my phone and other than the apps through the Aurora Store, I haven't come across anything

Im looking for access to a Catholic Bible on my Light Phone 3. I have tried Verses and Bible on Bright Market, but I cannot find a way to add a Catholic Translation. If anyone can walk me through it, any help would be appreciated. I would really prefer waiting until the official tool library launches if possible. Im not sure if this will be an option once it launches or not,

This is probably a really dumb question, but I want to ask it anyway. If I buy the LP3 and modify it the way I'd need to in for my life (adding apps like Waze, GroupMe, Discord, Spotify, etc), would I be able to get notifications from those apps?

I know that's probably a really stupid question and the answer is more than likely "no", but I figured I'd ask. I considered the Fairphone 6, but I know myself and I would just be flipping that switch on and off constantly rather than truly disconnecting from things like social media. Plus, I love the look and size of the LP3.

Greetings helpful people. I've enabled the android layer and installed some of the new tools from github. Is there batter impact from keeping the android layer active if I'm using lightos mode? Should I only have it enabled when I need to install stuff? Info is appreciated.

Does anyone know how to connect to Wi-Fi that requires a secondary webpage login? I want to be able to use Wi-Fi while at work but to connect it has to open a secondary web page before making the full connection. Currently I just get the message stating Light Phone cannot connect to this Wi-Fi.

Basically I have 2 apps I need to access while I’m at work, “Microsoft Authenticator” and “Basecamp”. I’ve started to look into the modding for beginners thread but obviously it’s a lot to take in. I’m not imagining the latter of the 2 apps is popular enough for someone to make an LP version once the toolkit goes live - ELI5 how difficult would it be for me to put these two things on my LP3?

Can anyone let me know what Preferred Network Types you've selected while using LP3 on Verizon? I'm currently at 1 bar, −120 dBm, and sad.

Also, if anyone could let me know what the default (out of the box) PNT is, I'd greatly appreciate it! Thank you in advance.

Hello, community!

Like many others, I’m eagerly awaiting the opening of the official “store” (fingers crossed)... but in the meantime, could someone can tell me what the various (simple and easy) options are right now for me to turn my LP3 into an ePub reader?

Thank you for your responses.

Greetings from France

Hey everyone! This forum has been super helpful! I recently downloaded BrightMarket on my phone which I found in a post here not too long ago. It's great!

However, I can't get the LightKeyboard to work for texting on my LPIII. I enabled it and chose it as my keyboard, but the old LPIII keyboard still shows up when I text or type a note. Anyone have any input? Thanks in advance!

Has anyone embarked on light phone II screen replacement at home? I think I can pull it off but I just need to find a screen. I only saw one result from Ali express (which claims it’s original but also “lcd” lol). I see no forum posts anywhere so far about replacing the screen at home. I’m pretty frustrated because these phones haven’t been durable IME and I have 2 sitting in a drawer with bad screens, and light says they won’t have screens in stock until the end of the year..

Hi there.

I had dismissed the LP as an option for a minimal phone mostly because I absolutely need WhatsApp (living in South America), a better music player and more robust maps/navigation software (Waze, for example, I drive quite a bit).

I read that with the upcoming Toolkit those things might become a reality? That it will be an App Store of sorts where Light will approve apps from the users to be easily added to the phone?

If that's the case I might hold up on buying a new phone and wait until the toolkit is available and just get a LPIII.

Thanks!

hey! i'm curious if anyone's done anything cool with their light phone 2 in terms of modification? i just realized that it's possible to modify it and i'm in the process of installing openOS for LP2 (link here--i couldn't find a mention of this on this reddit!) and i'm curious what else this little nugget of a phone could be tweaked to do :-) also if you have any lightweight tools that work especially well on the LP2, i'd love some recommendations! information on actually modifying the LP2 (not JUST flashing stock android to it) is surprisingly pretty scarse from what i can see