Use case · Bonfire Events
For the conversations around the fire that you wish you could remember.
Family reunions, beach trips, late-night conversations with friends. The stories worth keeping happen at the fire and disappear by morning. Bonfiyah is built for that.
Features bonfire stories lean on
The Bonfiyah features built for stories around the fire.
Each one has a deep-dive page — click through if you want the full mechanics.
- Story Mode →
Narrative recap with the standout quotes — the family-archive version of the night. - People Memory →
A profile per person — the stories they tell, the ones they return to. - Voice ID →
Persistent speaker fingerprints — same people across every gathering. - Speaker Themes →
Patterns over years — what your grandfather always brings up, what your friend's bedtime stories return to. - Compatibility →
Optional consent-gated friend-group dynamics — for the conversations that get philosophical. - Email Intelligence →
Send the night's recap to the group — deep-linked to the moments worth re-listening to. - Advanced Search →
"Find the night Grandma told the story about how she met Grandpa." - Consent management →
Six-state consent — every person around the fire affirms before recording.
The conversations you regret losing
Your grandmother told a story at last Thanksgiving you swore you'd remember and now can't. The conversation that night around the fire on the trip with your old college friends — you remember it was great, you can't reconstruct a single specific thing. The bedtime story your child made up that you laughed about for an hour.
These are the conversations Bonfiyah is named for. Around the fire is where stories begin; Bonfiyah is where they live.
How it works for groups
Drop your iPhone in the middle of the table or on a chair near the group. Hit record. Bonfiyah's lock-screen Live Activity shows the recording is on. Speaker separation happens automatically — different voices get their own track in the transcript.
For groups of more than ~6 people, audio quality benefits from a small Bluetooth lavalier or a stereo Bluetooth speaker placed centrally. Bonfiyah works with any input source iOS supports — AirPods, lavaliers, USB microphones, stereo Bluetooth pairs. The recording app doesn't care.
For multi-day trips, you can have multiple recording sessions over days. Speaker profiles persist across recordings (Pro), so "Aunt Mary" tagged in one conversation is automatically tagged in the next.
Story Mode recaps
The morning after, Pro AI's Story Mode generates a narrative recap — the setting, who was there, the moments that mattered, the funny lines as direct quoted audio you can re-listen to. The result reads like someone was paying attention, because someone was: your phone.
Use the recap as the intro to your group chat the next day. Or send it to the person who fell asleep at midnight. Or save it for the family memory archive.
Consent at gatherings
When you record a group, the polite thing is to tell them. Bonfiyah's consent prompt plays a short voice line — your own voice or a generated one — that says the group is being recorded and asks for verbal consent. People who don't want to be recorded say no, and you stop. People who say yes are logged in the consent record.
You aren't covertly recording your relatives. You're saying "I want to remember this conversation later" — and the people who matter to you will almost always say yes.
FAQ
Do I need special equipment, or does my iPhone work?
Bonfire-quality audio is forgiving — outdoors with a circle of speakers, the built-in iPhone mic works surprisingly well placed on the table or a chair in the middle. For groups over about six people, a small Bluetooth lavalier or a stereo Bluetooth speaker placed centrally helps. Bonfiyah works with any input source iOS supports — AirPods, lavaliers, USB mics, stereo Bluetooth pairs.
How is this different from a plain voice recorder app?
A voice recorder gives you one long file you'll never replay. Bonfiyah separates each voice into its own track, identifies people by voice so the same person is recognised across every gathering, and on Pro AI turns the night into a Story Mode narrative recap — setting, who was there, the moments that mattered, funny lines as quoted audio. Advanced Search then finds "the night Grandma told the story about how she met Grandpa."
Can I record for hours, even a whole multi-day trip?
The Pro tier covers unlimited recording duration, and background recording continues with the screen locked while the Lock Screen Live Activity shows elapsed time. For multi-day trips you can run multiple sessions over days, and because speaker profiles persist across recordings on Pro, someone tagged "Aunt Mary" in one conversation is tagged automatically in the next. The free tier records 120 min/month on a single device.
Do I need Pro AI for the Story Mode recap?
Yes — Story Mode, Story Episodes, People Memory, and Compatibility are the Pro AI suite ($24.99/mo intro, then $34.99), 7-day free trial. Story Episodes groups recurring topics across years, like the running joke about Uncle Frank's chainsaw. Recording, speaker separation, and the consent tools are on the free tier; unlimited duration and persistent cross-recording speaker profiles come with Pro ($14.99/mo intro, then $24.99).
Is it okay to record my family and friends?
The polite thing is to tell them. The consent prompt plays a short voice line saying the group is being recorded and asks for verbal consent — each yes is captured per-speaker. People who don't want to be recorded say no, and you stop. You aren't covertly recording your relatives; you're saying "I want to remember this conversation later." You're responsible for knowing the recording law in your jurisdiction.
Get the workflow guide
How to set up Bonfiyah for groups, how to ask for consent without making it weird, how Story Mode turns a 4-hour bonfire into a recap you'll re-read in 5 years.
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