What's New at LUMA1 - October 2026

Our monthly note on the people, customers, product, and ideas moving LUMA1 forward. 

October brings a major release for LUMA1, taking the training record further into the places where training actually happens and gets checked: a classroom session run by an outside provider, a worker's phone at the site gate, a supervisor confirming who is cleared before a shift starts. These upgrades are rolling out now. 

What we shipped 

All your training, in one record 

Not every training session or orientation happens inside LUMA1. Training Events lets administrators record training that took place elsewhere, including past sessions, with a roster of attendees and a credential for everyone who passed. Organizations can also track what each session cost and report on spend, hours and outcomes. And when an important course changes, administrators can ask people to retrain, with each learner's certificate renewed once they complete the update. 

Proof that lives on the worker's phone 

Workers can now add a LUMA1 certificate to Apple Wallet or Google Wallet, or share a public page that confirms it's valid, with a button to add it straight to LinkedIn. It's all part of a redesigned phone experience for workers and supervisors, with their dashboard one tap away from every menu and more screens to come. 

A clearer view of who's ready 

A new Contractors report shows readiness for each contractor company, and every report now measures readiness the same way, leading with “Cleared to work” and a simple green, amber and red guide. Supervisors now have their own access to reports for their sites, and any report can be printed or saved as a PDF. 

For people who hold more than one role, “view as” now shows LUMA1 exactly as a supervisor or another role sees it. It's useful for checking a setup or running a demo, with a clear banner showing whose view you're in and a plain-language history of every action. 

Reminders you can check 

A new Autopilot Notifications report shows every reminder email and text with its status, so when someone says they never got one, you can check in seconds. New hires can also join recurring training from the next cycle instead of catching up on earlier ones. 

Built for conditions on site 

Video pages now use about a quarter of the data they used to, and if a connection drops partway through training, progress is saved and recorded the moment it returns. Videos can also show details specific to your site, such as your assembly point. 

Easier to build and manage training 

Authors can now build question sets in bulk from a document, table or spreadsheet, preview a playlist exactly as a learner would, and print a clean assessment sheet for any quiz. A new Documents page brings every PDF or other documents into one searchable place, and AI voice narration now stays in step with slides and captions. 

Training That Travels 

For a long time, a training record lived wherever the training system lived. Readiness doesn't, though. It happens at the site gate first thing in the morning, in a classroom run by an outside provider, on a phone with one bar of signal. This month's work brings the record to those moments: training from anywhere counted in one place, and proof a worker can pull out of their pocket. 

Meet John (that's me): LUMA1 Co-founder and CEO 

This month we’re turning the questions on the person who usually signs off this note: John, LUMA1’s co-founder and CEO. 

What’s your role at LUMA1, and what did you work on this month?  

I’m a co-founder and CEO.   October was a big travel month heading out to see our customers and our team, and the highlight was UK Highways 2026 in Birmingham, UK.  It was excellent to meet with customers and senior leaders responsible for building infrastructure in the UK. 

What’s a readiness or safety problem you think the industry still gets wrong?  

We confuse completion with comprehension. Across the US, UK and Canada workforces include people of many nationalities, and for many of them English isn’t their first language. Appearance at a live training session or a signed orientation or induction in English doesn’t prove someone understood the hazards or the work. People often nod and sign rather than admit they didn’t follow. 

Real readiness means delivering work and safety-critical content in the language a worker thinks in, checking that they understood it, and keeping a record that shows it. Until we measure understanding instead of attendance, we’ll keep mistaking paperwork and checkboxes for safety. 

Something outside work worth knowing about you?  

As a kid, I spent a couple of years as a deckhand on the tall ship Bluenose II, which taught me a lot about teamwork and about doing things properly when conditions aren’t always on your side. 

What's next 

Next up, solving some deeper challenges with sub-contractors, temporary and contingent workers, and a new phone experience. 

See you next month. 

John