Redlight

Why we built this

It started with a Zoom call that went sideways. Someone close to us was presenting to her CEO. Rehearsed, prepared, second laptop propped above her screen so she could read her script while maintaining eye contact. She'd done everything right.

Halfway through, the scroll slipped. She lost her place. A presentation she'd been nailing suddenly felt derailed. She found her spot and finished, but the moment stuck with her longer than the rest of the performance did.

The mistake wasn't the problem. The fact that it could happen at all, after that much preparation, was the problem.

That's when the question hit: why are teleprompters still reserved for politicians and TV anchors? Executives with production teams and event budgets have them. The person presenting a quarterly review to 30 people on Zoom does not. They get a Google Doc and a prayer.

The name comes from the moment. In a recording studio, when the red light turns on, it means we're live. Go time. Everybody performing in front of that red light deserves the same tools the professionals have always had.

How it works

You write your script in the app. Redlight doubles as a focused writing environment for talk tracks, presentations, pitches. Anything you need to deliver.

When you're ready, you hit Go Live. The screen shifts into teleprompter mode. Think of the lyrics view in Apple Music: the current line highlighted, the next line visible, everything you've already said fading into the background. Except instead of following a song, it's following you.

Redlight uses on-device speech recognition to listen as you speak and match your voice to your script in real time. It doesn't transcribe openly and try to figure out where you are. It already knows the script, so it does constrained alignment: matching what it hears against known text. That's a simpler problem than open-ended transcription, and it's why the tracking stays reliable.

When someone asks you a question or you go off-script for an aside, Redlight doesn't break. It detects that you've departed from the text, holds your position, and keeps the next line visible so you know exactly where to pick back up. No fumbling. No scrolling. No searching for your place.

When you start reading again, it picks up and resumes at your pace.

What makes it different

The teleprompter app market is not empty. PromptSmart, Speakflow, VODIUM, and others already exist. Some of them offer voice-activated scrolling. The problem is that most of them don't work well enough to trust when it matters.

The reason is architectural. Most voice-tracking teleprompters transcribe your speech openly, then try to match the transcription against the script. Open-ended transcription is a hard problem. Background noise, accents, fast speech, technical jargon — any of it throws the match off. The result is freezing, skipped lines, and lost position exactly when you can least afford it.

Redlight's constrained alignment avoids this entirely. Since the script is already loaded, there's no open transcription step to get wrong.

But reliable scrolling is table stakes for what we actually want to build. The real feature is adaptive intelligence. Redlight doesn't just follow your script. It understands when you've left it. Someone asks a question during your presentation. You answer it. Redlight detects the departure, holds your position, and waits. When you're ready to resume, your next line is right where you left it.

The next layer is context-aware recovery. While you're off-script, Redlight is still listening. It understands what you're talking about, and it can suggest a natural transition back to your prepared material. An actual segue that connects what you just said to where you need to go. No one in the audience knows you left the script. You just look smooth.

Where it's headed

Launch is the core experience: write, go live, follow along. A teleprompter that actually keeps up with you, built for professionals who present on calls, in boardrooms, and on stages.

From there, the product grows into the adaptive layer. Off-script detection, context tracking, and suggested transitions turn a static teleprompter into something closer to a co-pilot for live speaking. You handle the room while Redlight handles the script. When the two diverge, it helps you bring them back together.

The longer play is making the preparation smarter. Practice mode that tracks which sections trip you up and where you rush or drag. Confidence metrics over time, so you can watch yourself getting better at something most people dread.

Everything runs on-device. Your presentations never touch a server, there's no usage meter, and you don't need an internet connection.