Questions people ask about Lumi
Short, direct, and true. If something here is out of date, Support inside the app reaches a person.
The basics
- What is Lumi?
- Lumi is a free, anonymous way to meet someone new by video, audio, or text. You are paired with a random person one to one, or you open a room and bring your friends. It runs in the browser on a phone or a desktop; there is nothing to install.
- Is Lumi really free?
- Yes. Matching, chatting, group rooms, and every safety feature are free, and there are no ads. Optional adult-only extras (Lumi Plus, Room Pro, cosmetics, donations) fund the service. Nothing about safety is ever paywalled.
- Do I need an account?
- No. You can chat without creating an account. An optional account (adults only) lets you buy Lumi Plus or Room Pro and keep cosmetics across devices. It shows the devices signed in to it, and can sign any of them out.
- Which devices and browsers work?
- Any modern browser on a phone, tablet, or computer with a camera and microphone. There is no app to install.
- Can I chat with someone who speaks another language?
- Yes. Pick the language you read in from the Translate to menu at the top of the chat, and a message written in another language arrives in yours, with Show original underneath. Translation runs on Lumi's own servers, so nothing you type leaves them, and it covers English, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Russian, Ukrainian, Persian, Turkish, Bulgarian, and Swahili. It works one to one and in rooms.
- Is Lumi an Omegle alternative?
- Lumi offers the part people liked about Omegle, a random one-to-one video, audio, or text chat with a stranger, without the part that closed it: everyone passes a selfie age check that reads several photos and tests the year they typed, teens and adults are in two lanes that never meet, and a person reviews every flag and every report. There are no ads, no bots, and no paywalled filters, and a ban is never lifted for money. Lumi is not affiliated with Omegle or its owners; the comparison page at /how-lumi-compares has the details.
Age and safety
- Who can use Lumi?
- Anyone aged 13 or over. Users aged 13 to 17 are matched only with other teens, are never monetized, and get shared video only when Lumi switches it on for teens, YouTube only. Adults (18 and over) are matched only with adults.
- How does the age check work?
- Before your first chat you enter your birth year and look at your camera for a moment. Software on Lumi's own servers reads your age group from several photos, not one; no outside company is involved, and no face template is ever stored. The year you type is tested against what the photos show: a year that does not fit is sent back to you to correct, and a year that keeps not fitting is refused for the day. The software decides on its own, and a person looks over its decisions afterwards. If the check cannot read your face you get five retakes, and then it is refused for the day.
- What happens to my selfie?
- It is used to decide your age group and to let a person look over that decision. It is kept for 90 days at the latest, on Lumi's own servers only; a photo from a check a person has ruled on may be kept longer, to train Lumi's own age model. No face template, faceprint, or embedding is ever stored, and the photo is never shared with anyone.
- What is not allowed?
- Nudity, sexual content, harassment, and any content involving minors are forbidden. Violations are reported and lead to bans that stick to the device and connection, not just the name.
- How do I report someone?
- Use the Report button in any chat or room. A moderator reviews the report; you can also skip or leave at any time, and you can mute a person in a room so you see and hear nothing from them.
Privacy
- Can the person I am talking to see my IP address?
- No. Audio and video are relayed through Lumi's own servers rather than sent directly between browsers, so the other person never sees your IP address.
- Does Lumi record my conversations?
- No. Lumi does not record video, audio, or text conversations. Automated screening (run on Lumi's own servers) may sample camera frames and check text to catch abuse; what gets flagged is kept as evidence and reviewed by a person, the rest is discarded. Remember that the other person could record their own screen, so never show anything you would not want seen.
In a chat
- What can I do with a message?
- You can reply to a line, react to it, change your own line within 2 minutes of sending it, and send a sticker; in a room you can open a poll.
- What happens if I break the rules?
- Every line passes through Lumi's own chat rules before it is delivered: a clear violation is refused and the sender is told, and a line that is delivered but noted for a moderator shows its sender a caution. A self-hosted toxicity model catches what the rules miss and warns the sender. Three strikes in one chat end it.
- Does Lumi write down what I say?
- Spoken lines are off unless you switch them on in the sound and video settings. On, Lumi's own speech-to-text writes what you say into the chat as spoken lines, for both sides; the words are screened like typed ones and never leave Lumi's servers. Off, nothing you say is heard or written.
- What happens while I wait on my phone?
- While you wait for someone, a phone keeps its screen awake; locking it pauses the wait and keeps your place for 10 minutes.
Rooms and watching together
- What is a wave, and what is a regular?
- When a one-to-one chat ends, a Wave button appears for a few seconds. Wave if you would like to see that person again. Nothing happens unless they wave back within 7 days, and nobody is told about a one-sided wave. When you both have waved, you are regulars: each of you sees the other's nickname in a short list, a light when they are in a room you can join, and you can send message requests. You stay anonymous to each other, with no profile and no search by name.
- How do group rooms work?
- A room is public (listed) or private (joined with a 6-character invite code). A room holds up to 20 people, with 4 on camera at a time; everyone else is in by voice and text and is put on camera automatically when a camera slot opens. Rooms are age-separated exactly like one-to-one chat.
- Can we watch a video together?
- Yes, in an adult chat. Anyone in a room somebody opened, or in a one-to-one, can pin a link from YouTube, Vimeo, Dailymotion, Twitch, TED, the Internet Archive, Bilibili, VK, RuTube, OK, Niconico, Spotify, SoundCloud or Mixcloud, and everyone watches or listens in sync. Shared video is off in the rooms Lumi keeps open, which have no host to hold the remote; people who join late land at the point the room has reached, and the host controls the timeline. Nothing loads until you agree. In teen rooms it is available only when Lumi has switched it on for them, with YouTube links only, every link recorded, and anyone in the room able to report the video, which stops it at once.
Paying for extras
- What is Lumi Plus?
- An optional membership for adults: priority in the matching queue, a higher video-quality ceiling, and cosmetic flair. It costs $4.99 a month or $49.99 a year, and it never changes who you meet or lets anyone skip a safety step.
- What is Room Pro?
- A per-room upgrade for adults, $9.99 a month: the room persists when empty, holds up to 50 people with 6 on camera at once, and gets a vanity invite code, theming, and a banner.
- Can I put my room on the front page?
- Yes, if you host an adult room. A promotion puts it on the front page, marked Promoted, for a day ($3), a weekend ($6), a week ($15), or a month ($45), or any number of days up to 90 at $3 a day, and keeps the room open the whole time even when it is empty. Six slots at a time.
- How do I get help?
- Use Support inside the app. A person reads and answers it.
More about promoting a room: what you get, the prices, and the rules.
Light up a conversation