diff --git a/CLAUDE.md b/CLAUDE.md
index aea9d10..e761005 100644
--- a/CLAUDE.md
+++ b/CLAUDE.md
@@ -140,7 +140,10 @@ Relative ages: `format_ago` for prose ("now", "5m ago", "never" — never "now a
   characters. `node.unknown` is deliberately not `muted`: muted is chrome and may sit a
   step darker, while an unidentified node is content you can still act on. Our own node
   is the pure-white `you` style; a context colouring (chart quality) may still win.
-  Recency heat colours heard/first-heard ages, never names. A key lane (via
+  Recency heat colours heard/first-heard ages, never names — seven steps on plain human
+  boundaries (`widgets._HEAT_STEPS`), each `heat.*` style named for how old the node it
+  colours is: white under 5 minutes, then yellow, light red, brown, red, light grey, and
+  one cold grey shared by "over a year" and "never heard". A key lane (via
   `highlighted_hash`) lights its hash in the same key-derived hue; the rest of the key,
   and any key standing in as a name, stays muted. UX text says "key" for the lane and
   "hash" only for the short derived id — never "hash" for a truncated key.
diff --git a/meshterm/ui/logo.ansi b/meshterm/ui/logo.ansi
index 61508f5..c146453 100644
--- a/meshterm/ui/logo.ansi
+++ b/meshterm/ui/logo.ansi
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 ███╗   ███╗███████╗███████╗██╗  ██╗████████╗███████╗██████╗ ███╗   ███╗
 ████╗ ████║██╔════╝██╔════╝██║  ██║╚══██╔══╝██╔════╝██╔══██╗████╗ ████║
-██╔████╔██║█████╗  ███████╗███████║   ██║   █████╗  ██████╔╝██╔████╔██║
-██║╚██╔╝██║██╔══╝  ╚════██║██╔══██║   ██║   ██╔══╝  ██╔══██╗██║╚██╔╝██║
-██║ ╚═╝ ██║███████╗███████║██║  ██║   ██║   ███████╗██║  ██║██║ ╚═╝ ██║
+██╔████╔██║█████╗  ███████╗███████║   ██║   █████╗  ██████╔╝██╔████╔██║
+██║╚██╔╝██║██╔══╝  ╚════██║██╔══██║   ██║   ██╔══╝  ██╔══██╗██║╚██╔╝██║
+██║ ╚═╝ ██║███████╗███████║██║  ██║   ██║   ███████╗██║  ██║██║ ╚═╝ ██║
 ╚═╝     ╚═╝╚══════╝╚══════╝╚═╝  ╚═╝   ╚═╝   ╚══════╝╚═╝  ╚═╝╚═╝     ╚═╝
diff --git a/meshterm/ui/specimen.py b/meshterm/ui/specimen.py
index 5b22c2f..6ba3f1a 100644
--- a/meshterm/ui/specimen.py
+++ b/meshterm/ui/specimen.py
@@ -40,11 +40,15 @@ def _palette_row() -> Text:
 
 
 def _ages_row() -> Text:
-    """The heat scale over its own anchors, each age drawn in its heat colour."""
+    """The heat scale over its own anchors — one age just inside each of the seven steps."""
     row = Text()
-    for label, secs in (("now", 0), ("5m", 300), ("3h", 10800), ("2d", 172800), ("never", None)):
+    anchors = (
+        ("now", 0), ("20m", 1200), ("3h", 10800), ("2d", 172800),
+        ("2w", 1209600), ("3mo", 7776000), ("never", None),
+    )
+    for label, secs in anchors:
         if row.plain:
-            row.append("  ")
+            row.append(" ")
         row.append(label, style=_recency_style(secs))
     return row
 
diff --git a/meshterm/ui/theme.py b/meshterm/ui/theme.py
index c06da47..741174f 100644
--- a/meshterm/ui/theme.py
+++ b/meshterm/ui/theme.py
@@ -103,14 +103,21 @@ MESH_THEME = Theme(
         "type.repeater": "#a78bfa",
         "type.room": "#ffffff",
         "type.sensor": "#fb923c",
-        # The heard-age heat scale's quantized steps (hot → cold). The regular platform
-        # interpolates a continuous gradient instead (ui.widgets._recency_style); these
-        # exist in both themes so the quantized impl's names resolve everywhere.
-        "heat.hot": "#ffffff",
-        "heat.warm": "#facc15",
-        "heat.cool": "#fb923c",
-        "heat.cold": "#94a3b8",
-        "heat.never": "#64748b",
+        # The heard-age heat scale's steps, named for how old the node they colour is:
+        # a node heard eight minutes ago is ``heat.minutes``, one heard eight days ago is
+        # ``heat.days``. Seven steps from white-hot to cold ash (JP's spec) — a cooling
+        # ember, then what's left of it. ``heat.never`` is both "over a year" and "never
+        # heard": past a year the distinction stops being worth a colour.
+        # The regular platform interpolates a continuous gradient over the same anchors
+        # rather than stepping (see ui.widgets._recency_style), so these are its ladder
+        # spelled out — every style name resolves on both platforms either way.
+        "heat.now": "#ffffff",      # under 5 minutes
+        "heat.minutes": "#facc15",  # 5 minutes
+        "heat.hours": "#f87171",    # 1 hour
+        "heat.days": "#b45309",     # 1 day
+        "heat.weeks": "#dc2626",    # 1 week
+        "heat.months": "#94a3b8",   # 1 month
+        "heat.never": "#64748b",    # 1 year, and never heard
         # The PicoCalc F-key lane's chip fills (see ui.tui.fkeys): gray for the plain
         # F1-F5 bank, green while the Shift watcher reports F6-F10. White text on both —
         # defined here too so the style names resolve on every platform, even though
@@ -252,10 +259,16 @@ MESH_THEME_16 = Theme(
         "type.repeater": "not bold color(5)",
         "type.room": "color(15)",
         "type.sensor": "not bold color(3)",
-        "heat.hot": "bold color(15)",
-        "heat.warm": "color(11)",
-        "heat.cool": "not bold color(3)",
-        "heat.cold": "not bold color(7)",
+        # JP's ladder, slot by slot: white-hot, yellow, the ember's light red, brown as it
+        # chars, dark red as it dies, then ash — light grey, and cold grey for what may as
+        # well never have been heard. Six of the sixteen slots do the whole scale; the
+        # three in the dim bank say ``not bold`` or a selected row would jump them a rung.
+        "heat.now": "bold color(15)",
+        "heat.minutes": "color(11)",
+        "heat.hours": "color(9)",
+        "heat.days": "not bold color(3)",
+        "heat.weeks": "not bold color(1)",
+        "heat.months": "not bold color(7)",
         "heat.never": "color(8)",
         # The F-key lane's chip fills: light-grey background (the palette's only "gray"
         # addressable as a background — see _VT_SLOTS) for the plain bank, green for the
diff --git a/meshterm/ui/tui/frame.py b/meshterm/ui/tui/frame.py
index a3dbaff..aa19074 100644
--- a/meshterm/ui/tui/frame.py
+++ b/meshterm/ui/tui/frame.py
@@ -16,7 +16,7 @@ from rich.panel import Panel
 from rich.text import Text
 
 from ...platforms import Platform, get_platform, on_platform
-from ..theme import hint_style, title_style
+from ..theme import fold_text, hint_style, title_style
 from .glow import apply_corner_glow
 from .render import render_lines
 from .screen import Screen
@@ -321,12 +321,17 @@ def _banner_lines(banner: Sequence[str], cols: int) -> list[str]:
 
     Each row is padded to the block's widest display width first, so the shared left margin
     keeps the art internally aligned rather than centering every row on its own axis.
+
+    The rows are art, not renderables, so they never pass through
+    :func:`~meshterm.ui.tui.render.render_to_ansi` — the fold is applied here instead, and
+    the wordmark's truecolour lands on the palette slots the art was drawn against rather
+    than on whatever the console's own downsample picks.
     """
     if not banner:
         return []
     widths = [cell_len(Text.from_ansi(row).plain) for row in banner]
     width = max(widths)
-    padded = [row + " " * (width - w) for row, w in zip(banner, widths)]
+    padded = [fold_text(row) + " " * (width - w) for row, w in zip(banner, widths)]
     return _center(padded, cols)
 
 
diff --git a/meshterm/ui/widgets.py b/meshterm/ui/widgets.py
index cc6a8ea..afd8a8c 100644
--- a/meshterm/ui/widgets.py
+++ b/meshterm/ui/widgets.py
@@ -887,24 +887,32 @@ def _recency_gradient(secs: Optional[float]) -> str:
     return f"#{r:02x}{g:02x}{b:02x}"
 
 
-def _recency_quantized(secs: Optional[float]) -> str:
-    """PicoCalc's heat: the gradient collapsed onto the theme's four ``heat.*`` steps.
+#: The heat ladder as ``(younger than, style)``, hottest first — JP's spec. Every boundary
+#: is a plain human unit, so a colour change always lands on a number you can say out loud
+#: ("under five minutes", "over a week"). Past a year nothing is worth distinguishing from
+#: never heard, so the two share the coldest step.
+_HEAT_STEPS: tuple[tuple[float, str], ...] = (
+    (300, "heat.now"),           # under 5 minutes — white
+    (3600, "heat.minutes"),      # 5 minutes       — yellow
+    (86400, "heat.hours"),       # 1 hour          — light red
+    (604800, "heat.days"),       # 1 day           — brown
+    (2592000, "heat.weeks"),     # 1 week          — red
+    (31536000, "heat.months"),   # 1 month         — light grey
+)                                # 1 year / never  — dark grey (heat.never)
 
-    The boundaries are the plain human units (JP's spec: useful, easily understood):
-    white within the **quarter hour** (fresh — inside a typical advert interval),
-    yellow within the **hour**, orange within the **day**, default-grey beyond. No red
-    step — on the console red is reserved for errors. ``heat.never`` keeps never-heard
-    a shade below ever-heard.
+
+def _recency_quantized(secs: Optional[float]) -> str:
+    """PicoCalc's heat: the gradient stepped onto the theme's ``heat.*`` rungs.
+
+    Same scale as the regular platform's gradient and the same anchors — a console that
+    can't spend a hue per second spends one per unit instead (see :data:`_HEAT_STEPS`).
     """
     if secs is None:
         return "heat.never"
-    if secs <= 900:
-        return "heat.hot"
-    if secs <= 3600:
-        return "heat.warm"
-    if secs <= 86400:
-        return "heat.cool"
-    return "heat.cold"
+    for limit, style in _HEAT_STEPS:
+        if secs < limit:
+            return style
+    return "heat.never"
 
 
 _recency_impl: Callable[[Optional[float]], str] = _recency_gradient
diff --git a/tests/test_theme16.py b/tests/test_theme16.py
index e379279..b0ef24e 100644
--- a/tests/test_theme16.py
+++ b/tests/test_theme16.py
@@ -270,6 +270,34 @@ def test_node_type_marks_stay_distinct_on_the_console() -> None:
     assert theme.mark_rgb("type.repeater") != theme.mark_rgb("muted")
 
 
+def test_heat_ladder_walks_jps_seven_slots_in_order() -> None:
+    """The heard-age scale, pinned to its spec: seven steps on plain human boundaries.
+
+    White under 5 minutes, then yellow, light red, brown, red, light grey, and one cold
+    grey shared by "over a year" and "never heard".
+    """
+    from meshterm.ui.widgets import _recency_style
+
+    set_platform(PICOCALC)
+    slots = {hex_: slot for slot, _, hex_ in theme._VT_SLOTS}
+    expected = [
+        (60, 15), (299, 15),          # under 5 minutes  — white
+        (300, 11), (3599, 11),        # 5 minutes        — yellow
+        (3600, 9), (86399, 9),        # 1 hour           — light red
+        (86400, 3), (604799, 3),      # 1 day            — brown
+        (604800, 1), (2591999, 1),    # 1 week           — red
+        (2592000, 7), (31535999, 7),  # 1 month          — light grey
+        (31536000, 8), (None, 8),     # 1 year, and never — dark grey
+    ]
+    for secs, slot in expected:
+        style = MESH_THEME_16.styles[_recency_style(secs)]
+        assert style.color is not None and style.color.number == slot, (secs, style)
+        assert not style.bold or slot >= 8, f"bold on dim slot {slot} would jump a rung"
+    # The regular platform answers the same question with a continuous hue instead.
+    set_platform(REGULAR)
+    assert _recency_style(1200).startswith("#")
+
+
 def test_canvas_drops_emphasis_where_bold_means_brightness() -> None:
     """A braille canvas may not embolden on the console: the VT would recolour the run.