v1.8.1 Released: Activity Awareness, Companion Improvements, Fixes & More!

Hi everyone,

v1.8.1 has been released!

Activity Awareness:

Added an optional Activity Awareness button beside Tools which when enabled, allows CielChan to use small, temporary samples of non-sensitive typing activity to make Observations and Watch Together interactions feel more personally aware. Nothing is added to long-term memory, and sensitive fields and information are filtered where possible. The feature starts disabled, automatically disables when switching to Cloud AI, and can be re-enabled by the user for that cloud session.

Observations and Watch Together Improvements:

Improved Observations, Watch Together, Watch Together Game, Watch Together Computer, and System Audio Listen behavior. Responses should now remain more focused on what is currently visible or audible, offer more natural companion-style comments, and helps avoid repeatedly describing previous responses or unrelated memories. CielChan should also more consistently ignore its own chat window, avatar, overlays, speech bubbles, settings, and interface while observing the screen, unless the user specifically asks about them.

Tool Activity Improvements:

Tool activity now appears more clearly inside the chatbox while actions are being prepared, performed, checked, paused, completed, cancelled, or unsuccessful.

Personality Card Fix:

Fixed an issue introduced in a recent update where Generate Personality could clear the generated personality on completion. Generated personalities now correctly remain in their respective fields for review and editing instead of being removed by an interface refresh. Returning greetings, personality context, nicknames, and user details are also handled more consistently.

Multilingual and Hover-Tip Improvements:

Further improved localization across all 14 supported app languages. Hindi hover-tip text has been rewritten to sound more natural, while Japanese hover tips and Reset All completion messages now consistently use the correct Japanese localization and fonts. Additional improvements have also been made to further reduce instances in some languages of mixed-language responses, malformed text, untranslated interface elements, and corrupted characters across chat, Goals, tools, Observations, Watch Together, Focus Companion, and mini-games.

Performance and Logging Improvements:

Reduced unnecessary diagnostic logging in release builds to improve performance and prevent conversation, prompt, transcription, memory, tool, browser, or speech content from appearing in ordinary logs. Additional improvements have also been made to help reduce avoidable stalls during lower-memory local-model use, bridge messaging, background observations, and model recovery.

Fixed an issue which could cause stalls when communicating with CielChan using the Telegram Bridge.

Goals and Longer Tasks (Experimental):

CielChan can now attempt longer, multi-step requests using Goals. This experimental feature helps CielChan plan tasks, use available tools, track progress, request clarification or permission, recover from some unsuccessful steps, and resume unfinished work after the app restarts. Results may vary depending on the task, available tools, and selected AI model, and some Goals may still require user guidance or may not be completed successfully. Open the Goals panel by holding the Tools button. It displays the current objective, progress, active AI model, pending questions, permission requests, and available controls in a centered interface designed for different screen sizes.

The included local model supports Goals, but its planning and tool-use capabilities may be limited on complex requests. Larger local and cloud models will generally provide stronger results. CielChan will only use the AI provider currently selected by the user. This feature will be improved in subsequent updates.

Small Bug Fixes:

Various other additional fixes and refinements have been made to Tools, Watch Together, Observations, System Audio, bridges, Focus Companion, personality cards, greetings, memory, mini-games, localization, file dialogs, startup, cancellation, low-memory handling, and interface reliability.

v1.8.1 out now on all platforms. If you encounter any issues, please post them on the discussion board so they can be investigated.

Thanks, everyone! More to come soon.