Sidekick update: AI help, support for small screens and more

by Shaun Ryan 26, June 2025

We have released a new version of Cacophony Sidekick app (3.15). The main new features are:

Improved communications about the state of the modem
Integration with a chatbot to provide help if needed
Better support for small screens
Improved handling if you aren't a member of the group
Added the ability to set the audio seed.
Various bug fixes

Improved modem communications

We have had a number of modem problems reported with the DOC AI Cam over recent weeks. There are a number of potential causes of these and we have released a software update that may improve the performance. Part of this issue is that the Sidekick app will occasionally misreport that there is no modem connection when it may be that there is no SIM or no mobile data on the SIM. We've improved the messages so it more accurately reflects what is going on. This should help troubleshoot any modem issues.

Chatbot integration

There is a chatbot on the 2040 website that is trained on the contents of the site, including the manuals. We've found it is generally very good at answering common questions. You can now access this chatbot in the app and ask any questions about the products. This is available on the help screen. Click the Ask for Help button.

Small screen support

We've added better support for small screens. In the previous version some of the app would not fit onto a small screen and you couldn't scroll, or the keyboard would cover text fields.

Request to join group if you don't have access

If you use Sidekick to connect to a camera and the account you are logged in with doesn't have access to the group the camera belongs to, the app will now ask if you'd like to request to be part of the group. It will send an email to the group owners who can then approve the request. This situation has come up a handful of times and the app used to give an obscure error message.

Audio seed

You can now set the Audio Seed on the Audio tab in Sidekick.

If you have multiple DOC AI Cams you can synchronise the recordings so each camera will record at the same random time during the day. To synchronise the bird monitors put the same number (it can be any number) into the audio seed box on each camera.

Bug fixes

There was a bug on iOS where it would ask you to give the app network permissions, even when they were already granted. This should stop now.

We have also fixed a bug where recordings were not being uploaded automatically when you're connected to a Wi-Fi network.

There was also a bug where non-admin users couldn't modify the location of a camera. This has been fixed.

There was a bug where Android phones would periodically disconnect from the camera. This has been fixed now.