Inkbreaker Radio

What the radio is

Inkbreaker Radio is a small radio that lives in the nav bar. Tune a station, layer an ambient sound under it, set your volumes, and write. It keeps playing as you move between the editor, the notebook, tools, and every other screen, on web, the desktop app, and mobile.

The radio is a Pro feature. Trial accounts get full access. On the free tier the radio icon shows a lock and opens a short note about going Pro.

Nothing ever plays on its own. The radio starts when you press play or tap a station, and it stays quiet until you do.

Stations

There are fifteen stations across five vibes: silence, gentle, focused, tense, and cinematic. The vibe dial at the top of the panel filters the station grid; the station that is playing always stays visible. A few examples:

• Late Night Fiction: slow, dark instrumentals with light rain behind them.
• Deep Focus: brown noise, a warm low rumble with no melody at all.
• Cafe Murmur: lounge jazz over the murmur of a busy cafe.
• Epic Fantasy: sweeping orchestral themes with birdsong underneath.
• Classical Study: piano classics recorded for the public domain.

Music stations shuffle their tracks and move to the next one when a track ends. The noise stations (Deep Focus, White Noise, Pink Noise) produce their sound on your device; nothing is streamed for them.

The ambient layer

The ambient layer is separate from the music and has its own volume: light or heavy rain, ocean waves, forest birds, a crackling fireplace, two cafe options (a quiet cafe murmur and a busier coffeehouse), city at night, a flowing stream, and night crickets. Some stations suggest a layer when you tune in (Storm Writer brings heavy rain); you can change or turn it off at any point.

What is playing, and who made it

The radio always tells you what you are hearing. The now-playing panel shows the track title with the artist, the source site, and the license, each as a link. Ambient sounds show their recordist the same way. The music is Creative Commons: instrumentals by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com, CC BY 4.0) and public-domain classical recordings. The noise stations have no artist and no license: they are plain brown, pink, or white noise produced on your device.

The “Credits for this session” section at the bottom of the panel lists everything that has played while the panel was open.

Sharing the radio in a sprint

In a Chapter sprint room, a Pro participant can share their radio with the room for the session. Everyone else sees an offer with the station name and two choices: listen along or dismiss it. Nothing plays for anyone who has not joined, and you can leave the shared radio at any point. While the share is live, listeners follow the sharer’s station, with their own local volume. When the sprint ends, the shared radio ends with it.

You do not need Pro to listen to a shared sprint radio, only to share one.

Your setup follows you

Your station, ambient layer, volumes, and vibe filter are saved to your account. Set up Late Night Fiction with light rain on the web, open the desktop or mobile app, and the same station is selected and ready to play. Playback position is not synced; a station starts fresh on each device.

Offline

The noise stations (Deep Focus, White Noise, Pink Noise) work offline anywhere, since they are produced on your device. On mobile, any music track or ambient sound you have already played is saved on the device and keeps working offline too. When you are offline, the panel shows a short notice, and a music station that has not been downloaded yet will say it needs a connection rather than failing silently.

Troubleshooting

• “Station temporarily unavailable” or “needs a connection”: the audio file could not be loaded, usually because you are offline and it has not been played before. Reconnect and press play again; the noise stations always work offline.
• No sound on mobile with the switch on silent: the radio plays in silent mode by design; check the volume rocker and the in-panel volume sliders.
• The radio stopped after signing out: expected. The radio is tied to your session and stops when it ends.