Common questions, quick answers.

Try the 30-second restart above. If incoming calls don't connect after a restart, the Ken may have lost its connection mid-call - check the Wi-Fi indicator at the top of the screen.

If it's happening on every call, that's worth a quick email to us - it's not normal and usually points to either a router issue at home or a setting that's drifted on the Ken.

Three things to check, in order:

1. Look at the top of the Ken's screen during the call. If there's a red microphone icon, the mic is muted - tap it to unmute.
2. If the icon looks fine, end the call and start it again. Microphone permissions sometimes drop on the first connection.
3. If a fresh call also has no sound, restart the Ken.

The Ken's microphone is in the lower bezel - nothing physically blocks it, but it's worth making sure nothing's been placed on top of the Ken that could.

Almost always a Wi-Fi quality issue. Voice and video both stream over the home Wi-Fi, and if the signal is weak, the audio is the first thing to suffer.

1. Open Settings on the Ken and look at "Wi-Fi Strength" - if it shows "Fair" or "Poor", that's the cause.
2. Move the Ken closer to the router, or move the router higher up off the floor.
3. If that's not practical, a Wi-Fi extender plug-in in the same room solves it permanently.

A weak signal won't usually stop a call connecting - it just degrades the quality once you're in. So a successful connection doesn't tell you the signal is good.

Same root cause as quiet/echoey voice - Wi-Fi quality. See the question above.

One extra thing for video: if other people in the house are streaming TV or downloading large files during the call, that can pull bandwidth away from the Ken. Worth checking before assuming the Ken is the problem.

If the screen is completely black but the Ken is still on (you can hear it making sound, or the back of it is warm), tap the screen firmly once. It may have entered a sleep state.

If tapping doesn't bring it back, do the 30-second restart at the top of this page.

If it's frozen on a particular screen and won't respond to taps, hold the power button down for five seconds to force it off, then press once to turn it back on. This is a safe last-resort - the Ken is designed for it.

Check the Wi-Fi indicator first. If the Ken is offline, the Call button won't initiate anything - the Ken shows a banner across the top if it's lost connection.

If Wi-Fi is fine and a single tap doesn't work, try once more with a slightly slower tap - the screen is designed to be forgiving about accidental brushes, so a very quick tap can sometimes be filtered out.

If it still does nothing, a 30-second restart will clear it.

Contacts added through the admin portal sync within a minute or two, as long as the Ken is online. If the new contact still isn't showing after that:

1. Check the Wi-Fi indicator on the Ken - if it's offline, no sync can happen.
2. From the Ken, go to Settings → Help, and tap "Refresh contacts". The Ken will pull the latest list straight away.
3. If that fails, the contact may have been saved as a draft in the portal rather than published - go back and confirm the "Save and send to Ken" step was completed.

Photo updates push to the Ken on the same sync cycle as contact additions. If a new photo isn't appearing within a few minutes, the Ken may be holding a cached copy.

Force a refresh: Settings → Help → "Refresh contacts". The Ken will redownload all contact photos.

If the photo still won't update, it's likely that the upload to the portal didn't fully complete. Go back to the portal, re-upload, and confirm you see the new photo on the contact's portal page before checking the Ken again.

The contact order on the Ken follows the order you set in the portal. Drag-to-reorder in the portal and the new order will sync within a minute.

If a contact has disappeared entirely, check the portal - someone with admin access may have removed them. Removals also sync within a minute.

Removals happen from the admin portal, not the Ken. This is deliberate - it stops an accidental tap from deleting someone who should be there.

From the portal, open the contact, choose "Remove", and confirm. The contact will disappear from the Ken on the next sync.

The bottom of the Settings screen has a quick-access strip with three text-size buttons: Compact, Medium, and Large. Tap one and the change takes effect immediately, on every screen.

If even Large isn't big enough, get in touch - we can ship an Extra Large size in a software update if there's a real need.

Open Settings. At the bottom of the screen there's a flag of the current language - tap it to change.

This is deliberately at the bottom of the screen and uses a flag rather than a word, so even someone who can't read the current language can find the way out.

The Ken doesn't have a brightness slider - it runs at a fixed, comfortable level by default, because most users we tested with found a slider to be one more thing to get wrong.

If the brightness genuinely doesn't suit the room, let us know and we'll consider adding a control. For now, repositioning the Ken away from direct sunlight or a strong lamp usually solves it.

If the Ken has tried your home network three times and failed, the help banner at the bottom of the Ken's screen offers two routes: "Use my phone to connect Ken" or this troubleshooting guide. The phone route is the quickest fix when the password was just typed wrong - it puts the Ken into a temporary helper mode, your phone joins it, and a setup page on your phone hands the real Wi-Fi credentials across.

If that's not the right answer for you, here are the usual culprits in order of likelihood:

• The password was mistyped. Wi-Fi passwords are case-sensitive. Capital O and zero, capital I and lower-case L are the usual traps. The Ken's on-screen keyboard has a "Show password" eye icon so you can read it back before tapping Connect.
• The home network is 5 GHz only. Some modern routers (BT Smart Hub 2, Sky Hub, EE Smart Hub) split 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz into separate network names, and some installers turn the 2.4 GHz one off entirely. The Ken needs the 2.4 GHz band - it's the universal one. If your router has both, pick the 2.4 GHz network. If it only has 5 GHz, you'll need to switch the 2.4 GHz band back on in the router admin page (or email us and we'll help).
• The network has a captive portal. Offices, gyms, hotels, and most public Wi-Fi have a "click here to accept terms" page before the internet works. The Ken has no browser at all, so it can't click through. Use a home network or a phone hotspot instead. If you're in a care home or similar managed network, the IT team can whitelist The Ken by its MAC address - call or email us and we'll send them the details.
• The signal is too weak. Concrete walls and metal cabinets eat 2.4 GHz. Move the Ken closer to the router for the setup, then it'll find the network from its eventual spot once it knows the password.
• The network name is hidden. Some routers don't broadcast their SSID. On the Ken's Wi-Fi list, scroll to the bottom and tap "Enter manually" - then type the name and password.
• The router was just rebooted. Some routers take a couple of minutes to fully come back up after a power cut. Tap "Scan again" on the Ken and wait 30 seconds.

If none of those is it and the phone-helper route also fails, email hello@theken.uk.

Open Settings on the Ken, find the Wi-Fi section, and tap to re-enter the new password. The Ken will reconnect within a few seconds.

If the network name has also changed, you'll need to remove the old network first, then add the new one - the Ken will pop up a list of nearby networks for you to choose from.

The most common cause is the router was restarted (deliberately or by a power cut) and the Ken hasn't yet noticed. A 30-second restart of the Ken usually clears it.

If the Ken still says "No connection" after a restart, and other devices in the house are online, check whether the router's 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi band is on - the Ken uses 2.4 GHz for range. Some routers have a setting that disables 2.4 GHz to push devices onto 5 GHz, and the Ken can't follow.

If you're not sure how to check that, email us.

Open Settings → Wi-Fi, choose the new network, and enter the password. The Ken keeps a memory of previous networks, so when the original Wi-Fi comes back into range it'll reconnect automatically.

Care home and managed networks often require devices to be whitelisted by MAC address before they can connect. Call or email us and we'll send the IT team everything they need.

Almost never on your own.

A factory reset clears every contact, every photo, every Wi-Fi network, every setting. It also un-pairs the Ken from the admin portal, which means the person who set it up has to go through the activation flow again with a new code.

If you think you need a factory reset, please email us first. Most of the time the problem is something simpler, and a reset would lose a lot of setup work that didn't need losing.

Power the Ken off first (a single short press of the power button, then wait for the cream screen to clear). A microfibre cloth, slightly damp with water, is enough for almost everything.

Avoid anything alcohol-based or solvent-based on the screen - it can damage the oleophobic coating. A drop of mild washing-up liquid on the cloth is fine for stickier marks.

Yes. The Ken runs warm, especially during a call. The processor inside is small and the case acts as the heatsink. As long as it's not so hot you can't comfortably hold the back, it's working correctly.

If it's noticeably hotter than usual, give it a 30-second restart and make sure nothing's been placed on top of the vents on the back.

Don't worry about it. Get in touch - the Ken has been designed so that we can see what's happening from our end, and most problems can be fixed remotely without you doing anything.

Email us and we'll get back to you quickly. The Call Ken HQ button on the Ken is the easiest if the Ken itself is still working.