Install

Candela is currently distributed by sideloading. CI builds debug APKs on every push to main; tagged releases (v0.x.x) attach a signed APK to the corresponding GitHub release.

Quick install

1. Open the Releases page on your Android device.
2. Download the latest storyvox-vX.Y.Z.apk from the assets.
3. On the device, enable Install unknown apps for whichever browser or file manager you used.
4. Open the APK to install.
5. Launch Candela. You'll be asked for notification permission (used for the lock-screen tile during playback).
6. The voice picker appears on first launch — pick a Piper voice for a quick first chapter (~14–30 MB), Kokoro for the multi-speaker model (~330 MB), or KittenTTS for the lightest tier (~24 MB, designed for slow devices).

That's it. There's no account requirement. Anonymous browsing works for all public Royal Road fictions, every GitHub-sourced fiction, and the TechEmpower-default Notion library (Guides, Resources, About, Donate).

First-launch UX

When the app opens you'll see the four-tab dock at the bottom of the screen — Playing · Library · Voices · Settings — and Library is the default landing tab. The brass TechEmpower hero card sits at the top of Library: tap it to open TechEmpower Home (Discord peer support, dial 211, browse the library, About). The currently-listening rail sits below the hero with smart-resume progress per fiction.

The dock layout settled in v0.5.50 after the v0.5.40 nav restructure (which lifted Settings to a primary destination and tucked Browse and Follows under Library). Earlier sideloaded versions show a two-tab Library / Settings dock — upgrading in place preserves your library and switches to the new dock automatically.

System requirements

The TTS engine runs in Candela's own process via the VoxSherpa-TTS :engine-lib AAR, so there's no second APK to install and no engine-binding handshake. Voice models download on demand from the project's voices-v2 GitHub release. Nothing is bundled in the APK.

Optional: sign in to Royal Road

Anonymous browsing works for every public chapter. Sign in unlocks:

• Premium chapters — Patreon-tier early access on supported fictions.
• Your Follows tab — your bookmarked Royal Road fictions sync down into Candela.

Candela uses an in-app WebView for the login flow. Your password never touches our code; only the session cookies are captured, and they're stored encrypted on-device via Android's EncryptedSharedPreferences.

To sign in:

1. Open the Follows tab.
2. Tap Sign in.
3. Complete the Royal Road login form in the WebView.
4. Return to the app — your follow list will sync within a few seconds.

To sign out: Settings → Account → Sign out.

Build from source

Requires JDK 17, Android SDK 36, and a system Gradle ≥ 8.10 for the wrapper bootstrap (the wrapper downloads Gradle 9.4.1).

git clone https://github.com/techempower-org/storyvox.git
cd storyvox

# One-time bootstrap
gradle wrapper --gradle-version 9.4.1 --distribution-type bin
echo "sdk.dir=$ANDROID_HOME" > local.properties

# Build
./gradlew :app:assembleRelease        # phone APK (shipped variant)
./gradlew :wear:assembleDebug         # wear APK (wear stays on debug; no release variant yet)
./gradlew :app:installRelease         # install on connected device
# Local iteration with debugger attach:
./gradlew :app:installDebug           # non-minified, isDebuggable=true

The CI workflow .github/workflows/android.yml is the canonical build path.

What about Wear OS?

There is a :wear module that builds an APK companion. Pairing-and-discovery via play-services-wearable works in principle, but it isn't yet a polished experience and isn't recommended for daily use. If you want to experiment, sideload the wear APK from the same release.

Update path

Candela doesn't auto-update. When a new release ships:

1. Download the new APK from Releases.
2. Open it. Android will prompt to upgrade in place — your library, voices, and progress are preserved.

The app's signing key has been stable since v0.4.15 (a checked-in debug keystore — see #15). Releases before that used the throwaway debug keystore Gradle generates per machine, so an upgrade from those earlier builds may require a clean uninstall first. Installs from v0.4.15 forward upgrade in place.