diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index bd969c5..3937d57 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -1398,6 +1398,20 @@ Things I chose while building, with the reasoning:
     phase-1 suite (43 checks, including the real route mapping against a stub Ollama returning a
     monthly-limit body, a two-device sync round-trip, and the generation guards below).
 
+66. **Aero's glass is thin, and the OS dark preference can't leak into it.** Two fixes from one
+    report ("the white UI should be blurry and transparent; some text is hard to read on first
+    load, until the theme is toggled"). The text bug was at boot: the inline script's dark test
+    was `s && !a ? s === 'dark' : matchMedia(...)`, which for a stored `aero` fell through to the
+    OS preference — so on a dark-preferring machine the page loaded with **both** `dark` and
+    `aero` classes and every `.dark` rule (starting with `body`'s colour and the segment labels)
+    painted the dark palette over the bright wallpaper, until a theme toggle re-applied the
+    classes. The stored value now decides alone and the class is toggled explicitly;
+    `tests/mobile-test.mjs` pins it with a dark-`colorScheme` browser context. And the surfaces
+    drop their thick white veils (a card top measured ~71% white) for a 14% base veil plus the
+    gloss over the pre-blurred wallpaper — the scene is clearly visible through the glass, small
+    chrome (rows, chips, segments, buttons) keeps slightly more veil, and the pixel-contrast scan
+    that re-runs in the deploy e2e gate still passes.
+
 65. **Slide content never flex-shrinks, and the AI note appears once.** A long typed answer in a
     short-answer activity shrank the textarea inside the slide's flex column (58px instead of its
     ~82px), clipping the user's text mid-line on a phone; every direct child of a study/review/guide
@@ -1415,14 +1429,14 @@ Things I chose while building, with the reasoning:
 
 63. **Frutiger Aero is the third theme.** Settings → Theme offers Light, Dark and Frutiger Aero.
     Aero is not a dark/light variant — it replaces the palette and the scene: the wallpaper is a
-    Frutiger Aero scene made with Gemini (re-encoded to WebP in `public/aero/`), with ten drawn
+    Frutiger Aero scene made with Gemini (latest 1280x714 revision re-encoded to WebP in `public/aero/`), with ten drawn
     bubbles rising over it (`.ice-bubble` — `display: none`
     outside aero so they cost nothing elsewhere, still under reduced motion). Buttons and segments
     are **liquid glass** — transparent, glossed, with a bright rim — and every surface shows a
     **pre-blurred copy of the wallpaper** (`public/aero/background-blur.webp`, 3 kB, glued to the
     viewport with `background-attachment: fixed`) instead of blurring the live scene: the bubbles
     move behind every surface, so a real `backdrop-filter` re-runs ~60 times a second (measured
-    66ms/frame at 2x throttle vs 17ms with nothing blurring). The tint and the gloss ride on top of
+    66ms/frame at 2x throttle vs 17ms with nothing blurring). A thin veil and the gloss ride on top of
     that layer, so the look is identical at zero per-frame cost. The helper lines that sit straight
     on the wallpaper (the keyboard tip, the AI note) get a small glass chip — dark text on grass
     measured 2.5:1. The light/dark
diff --git a/app/globals.css b/app/globals.css
index de6e249..3c1f0da 100644
--- a/app/globals.css
+++ b/app/globals.css
@@ -287,17 +287,18 @@
 }
 
 /* The Aero gloss for the floating surfaces (sheets, dropdowns and the sticky
-   chrome keep a real backdrop-filter — they sit over scrolling content). */
+   chrome keep a real backdrop-filter — they sit over scrolling content).
+   Thin like the card glass: the old 75% top read as a white lid. */
 .aero .glass-panel,
 .aero .study-chrome,
 .aero .tabbar,
 .aero .glass {
   background-image: linear-gradient(
     180deg,
-    rgb(255 255 255 / 0.75) 0%,
-    rgb(255 255 255 / 0.3) 46%,
-    rgb(255 255 255 / 0.06) 47%,
-    rgb(255 255 255 / 0.24) 100%
+    rgb(255 255 255 / 0.5) 0%,
+    rgb(255 255 255 / 0.18) 46%,
+    rgb(255 255 255 / 0.05) 47%,
+    rgb(255 255 255 / 0.14) 100%
   );
 }
 
@@ -364,15 +365,6 @@
    sharp wallpaper with a bright rim — no pre-blurred layer, so it reads as
    glass rather than as a white chip. Rail rows, the active nav item and the
    active segment all match it. */
-.aero .nav-action,
-.aero .nav-row[aria-current="page"],
-.aero .nav-row[data-active="true"],
-.aero .segmented > button[aria-pressed="true"],
-.aero .segmented > a[aria-current="page"] {
-  background-image: none;
-  background-color: rgb(255 255 255 / 0.34);
-  border: 1px solid rgb(255 255 255 / 0.9);
-}
 .aero .segmented > button,
 .aero .segmented > a {
   border-color: rgb(255 255 255 / 0.5);
@@ -387,20 +379,21 @@
   border: 1px solid rgb(255 255 255 / 0.6);
   color: #04223c;
   box-shadow: 0 12px 26px -16px rgb(2 62 110 / 0.55), inset 0 1px 0 rgb(255 255 255 / 0.9);
-  /* The glass itself comes from the pre-blurred wallpaper rule above. */
+  /* The glass itself comes from the frosted recipes below. */
 }
 
-/* Liquid glass: far more transparent than the other themes, with a strong
-   backdrop blur doing the legibility work — the wallpaper stays visible
-   through every surface. Contrast is pixel-scanned in all three themes, so
-   the tint cannot drop below what the text needs. */
+/* Liquid glass: the surfaces themselves are the frosted wallpaper recipes
+   below. These tokens are the fills for the layers that keep a real backdrop
+   blur (sheets, dropdowns, the sticky chrome) and for nested chips, so they
+   stay thin too. Contrast is pixel-scanned in all three themes, so the tints
+   cannot drop below what the text needs. */
 .aero {
-  --glass-bg: rgb(228 246 255 / 0.34);
-  --glass-solid-bg: rgb(232 248 255 / 0.46);
-  --glass-sheet-bg: rgb(232 248 255 / 0.8);
-  --surface-strong: rgb(255 255 255 / 0.34);
-  --surface-sunken: rgb(255 255 255 / 0.26);
-  --nav-active-bg: rgb(255 255 255 / 0.4);
+  --glass-bg: rgb(228 246 255 / 0.3);
+  --glass-solid-bg: rgb(232 248 255 / 0.42);
+  --glass-sheet-bg: rgb(232 248 255 / 0.74);
+  --surface-strong: rgb(255 255 255 / 0.32);
+  --surface-sunken: rgb(255 255 255 / 0.24);
+  --nav-active-bg: rgb(255 255 255 / 0.38);
 }
 
 /* Liquid glass without the per-frame cost: every surface shows a pre-blurred
@@ -413,18 +406,16 @@
 .aero .glass-solid,
 .aero .sidebar-surface,
 .aero .gate-card,
-.aero .btn-primary,
-.aero .grad-ice,
-.aero .hint-line {
+.aero .list-group {
   background-image:
     linear-gradient(
       180deg,
-      rgb(255 255 255 / 0.5) 0%,
-      rgb(255 255 255 / 0.2) 47%,
-      rgb(255 255 255 / 0.07) 53%,
-      rgb(255 255 255 / 0.24) 100%
+      rgb(255 255 255 / 0.3) 0%,
+      rgb(255 255 255 / 0.1) 46%,
+      rgb(255 255 255 / 0.04) 53%,
+      rgb(255 255 255 / 0.14) 100%
     ),
-    linear-gradient(rgb(230 247 255 / 0.42), rgb(230 247 255 / 0.42)),
+    linear-gradient(rgb(255 255 255 / 0.14), rgb(255 255 255 / 0.14)),
     url("/aero/background-blur.webp");
   background-size: 100% 100%, 100% 100%, cover;
   background-position: 0 0, 0 0, center 42%;
@@ -432,6 +423,65 @@
   background-repeat: no-repeat, no-repeat, no-repeat;
 }
 
+/* The small chrome — rail rows, the active nav item, chips, segments and the
+   buttons — gets the same frosted glass with a touch more veil, so its small
+   text pops over the busy wallpaper. */
+.aero .nav-action,
+.aero .nav-row[aria-current="page"],
+.aero .nav-row[data-active="true"],
+.aero .glass-chip,
+.aero .btn-secondary,
+.aero .btn-primary,
+.aero .grad-ice,
+.aero .segmented,
+.aero .segmented > button[aria-pressed="true"],
+.aero .segmented > a[aria-current="page"] {
+  background-image:
+    linear-gradient(
+      180deg,
+      rgb(255 255 255 / 0.42) 0%,
+      rgb(255 255 255 / 0.16) 46%,
+      rgb(255 255 255 / 0.08) 53%,
+      rgb(255 255 255 / 0.2) 100%
+    ),
+    linear-gradient(rgb(255 255 255 / 0.12), rgb(255 255 255 / 0.12)),
+    url("/aero/background-blur.webp");
+  background-size: 100% 100%, 100% 100%, cover;
+  background-position: 0 0, 0 0, center 42%;
+  background-attachment: scroll, scroll, fixed;
+  background-repeat: no-repeat, no-repeat, no-repeat;
+}
+
+/* The phone tab bar carries its labels right at the bottom of the water, so
+   it keeps a little more veil than the cards. */
+.aero .tabbar {
+  background-image:
+    linear-gradient(rgb(255 255 255 / 0.48), rgb(255 255 255 / 0.48)),
+    url("/aero/background-blur.webp");
+  background-size: 100% 100%, cover;
+  background-position: 0 0, center 42%;
+  background-attachment: scroll, fixed;
+  background-repeat: no-repeat, no-repeat;
+}
+
+/* Inside a sheet or dialog the backdrop is not the raw scene — a scrim and a
+   more opaque sheet glass sit in between — so the viewport-aligned frosted
+   layer would not match what is actually behind the element (it showed the
+   dark water under the settings theme labels: 1.5:1). Nested chrome falls
+   back to the flat fills there; the sheet itself is genuinely blurred. */
+.aero .glass-sheet .card,
+.aero .glass-sheet .glass-solid,
+.aero .glass-sheet .list-group,
+.aero .glass-sheet .glass-chip,
+.aero .glass-sheet .segmented,
+.aero .glass-sheet .segmented > button[aria-pressed="true"],
+.aero .glass-sheet .segmented > a[aria-current="page"],
+.aero .glass-sheet .btn-secondary,
+.aero .glass-sheet .btn-primary,
+.aero .glass-sheet .grad-ice {
+  background-image: none;
+}
+
 html,
 body {
   height: 100%;
diff --git a/app/layout.tsx b/app/layout.tsx
index cfaba70..a25f8ef 100644
--- a/app/layout.tsx
+++ b/app/layout.tsx
@@ -81,8 +81,12 @@ export const viewport: Viewport = {
  * Applies the saved theme before paint to avoid a flash, and keeps the
  * `theme-color` meta in step with the *app* theme (the SSR metas follow the
  * OS preference, which is wrong once the user has picked a theme here).
+ * The stored theme decides alone: aero is not dark, and the old ternary added
+ * `dark` alongside `aero` whenever the OS preferred dark — the dark palette
+ * on the bright wallpaper is what made the first load look washed out until
+ * a theme toggle re-applied the classes.
  */
-const themeScript = `(function(){try{var DEV=${devInstanceJs};var s=localStorage.getItem('freezmo.theme');var a=s==='aero';var d=s&&!a?s==='dark':window.matchMedia('(prefers-color-scheme: dark)').matches;if(d)document.documentElement.classList.add('dark');if(a)document.documentElement.classList.add('aero');var l=localStorage.getItem('freezmo.locale.v1');if(l==='cs'||l==='en')document.documentElement.lang=l;var m=document.querySelector('meta[name="theme-color"][data-app]');if(!m){m=document.createElement('meta');m.setAttribute('name','theme-color');m.setAttribute('data-app','1');document.head.insertBefore(m,document.head.firstChild);}m.setAttribute('content',DEV?'#b45309':(a?'#2fa7e6':(d?'#0e1424':'#f4f7fd')));}catch(e){}})();`;
+const themeScript = `(function(){try{var DEV=${devInstanceJs};var s=localStorage.getItem('freezmo.theme');var a=s==='aero';var d=a?false:(s?s==='dark':window.matchMedia('(prefers-color-scheme: dark)').matches);document.documentElement.classList.toggle('dark',!!d);if(a)document.documentElement.classList.add('aero');var l=localStorage.getItem('freezmo.locale.v1');if(l==='cs'||l==='en')document.documentElement.lang=l;var m=document.querySelector('meta[name="theme-color"][data-app]');if(!m){m=document.createElement('meta');m.setAttribute('name','theme-color');m.setAttribute('data-app','1');document.head.insertBefore(m,document.head.firstChild);}m.setAttribute('content',DEV?'#b45309':(a?'#2fa7e6':(d?'#0e1424':'#f4f7fd')));}catch(e){}})();`;
 
 /**
  * Captures Chrome's `beforeinstallprompt` (it can fire before React hydrates)
diff --git a/package.json b/package.json
index ccbf510..3493a3b 100644
--- a/package.json
+++ b/package.json
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 {
   "name": "freezmo",
-  "version": "0.2.9",
+  "version": "0.3.1",
   "private": true,
   "license": "GPL-3.0-only",
   "scripts": {
diff --git a/public/aero/background-blur.webp b/public/aero/background-blur.webp
index 1dd3124..5d004fa 100644
Binary files a/public/aero/background-blur.webp and b/public/aero/background-blur.webp differ
diff --git a/public/aero/background.webp b/public/aero/background.webp
index 5cb4282..69ec728 100644
Binary files a/public/aero/background.webp and b/public/aero/background.webp differ
diff --git a/public/sw.js b/public/sw.js
index 99a7789..d7867f6 100644
--- a/public/sw.js
+++ b/public/sw.js
@@ -9,7 +9,7 @@
  *
  * Bumping CACHE_VERSION is how a new deploy invalidates old assets.
  */
-const CACHE_VERSION = "freezmo-v61";
+const CACHE_VERSION = "freezmo-v62";
 const SHELL_CACHE = `${CACHE_VERSION}-shell`;
 const ASSET_CACHE = `${CACHE_VERSION}-assets`;
 
diff --git a/tests/lib.mjs b/tests/lib.mjs
index dfc73bd..d09ab95 100644
--- a/tests/lib.mjs
+++ b/tests/lib.mjs
@@ -121,8 +121,8 @@ export async function seed(
   );
 }
 
-export async function makePage(browser, { width = 390, height = 844, deviceScaleFactor = 2, reducedMotion } = {}) {
-  const context = await browser.newContext({ viewport: { width, height }, deviceScaleFactor, reducedMotion });
+export async function makePage(browser, { width = 390, height = 844, deviceScaleFactor = 2, reducedMotion, colorScheme } = {}) {
+  const context = await browser.newContext({ viewport: { width, height }, deviceScaleFactor, reducedMotion, colorScheme });
   const page = await context.newPage();
   return { context, page };
 }
diff --git a/tests/mobile-test.mjs b/tests/mobile-test.mjs
index 8e2d45b..df1eb3b 100644
--- a/tests/mobile-test.mjs
+++ b/tests/mobile-test.mjs
@@ -287,6 +287,22 @@ const AXE = axeSource();
   await context.close();
 }
 
+/* 6c. a dark OS preference must not leak the dark palette into Aero ------ */
+{
+  const { context, page } = await makePage(browser, { width: 390, height: 844, colorScheme: "dark" });
+  await seed(page, { decks: [DECK], theme: "aero" });
+  await page.goto(BASE, { waitUntil: "networkidle" });
+  await page.waitForTimeout(1000);
+  const state = await page.evaluate(() => ({
+    aero: document.documentElement.classList.contains("aero"),
+    dark: document.documentElement.classList.contains("dark"),
+    bodyColor: getComputedStyle(document.body).color,
+  }));
+  check("theme: aero on a dark OS keeps the dark class off", state.aero && !state.dark);
+  check("theme: boot paints the aero body text", state.bodyColor === "rgb(5, 32, 58)", state.bodyColor);
+  await context.close();
+}
+
 async function audit(label, { width = 390, locale, theme, openSettingsNow }) {
   const { context, page } = await makePage(browser, { width, height: width >= 1280 ? 900 : 800, deviceScaleFactor: width >= 1280 ? 1 : 2 });
   await seed(page, { locale, theme, decks: [DECK] });