WherezitGuide
An e-paper photo frame with voice reminders: how Wherezit works.
Why an e-paper photo frame has no glow
Phone and tablet screens make their own light. E-paper works more like paper: it has no backlight and reflects the light already in the room, the way a printed photograph does.
With no backlight, the screen has no glow — in daylight the colors settle like print instead of shining like a monitor.
The screen is there for photos. It shows one at a time, sent from the iPhone app, and changes when you send a new one, or once each morning if you switch that on.
That gives photos that usually stay on a phone a place in the house, such as a picture of the grandparents or last weekend’s game.
How a six-color e-paper screen shows a photo
Wherezit uses a 4-inch E Ink Spectra 6 panel, 400 × 600. Each pixel can show one of six colors: black, white, yellow, red, blue or green.
Six colors cannot reproduce a photograph directly, so the picture is dithered. Every pixel is set to one of the six, scattered in a fine grain your eye blends back into skin tones, skies and shadows.
It is the same idea as printing. Up close you can see the grain of colored dots; from across the room they settle into a picture with the quiet look of a print.
Because dithering changes how a photo looks, the iPhone app shows a preview before you send. The preview is exactly how the photo will look on e-paper, so you can pick a different picture if you prefer.
Changing the picture takes about 16 seconds. E-paper refreshes slowly, then holds the image with no flicker.
Voice memory: press, hold, say it
Wherezit has one press-and-hold button, a speaker and a microphone. It listens only while the button is held down. Let go and it stops.
To save a detail, press and hold, say it, and let go: “The spare keys are in the green bowl by the door.” Wherezit writes it down, and the note appears in the iPhone app.
Later, anyone at home can press and ask, “Where are the spare keys?” Wherezit replies out loud from what the household told it.
Wherezit keeps one memory for the home, tied to the device, not to whoever is speaking. It does not use voiceprints or face recognition to tell people apart.
It is meant for the small details that usually live in one person’s head: where the holiday lights went, which shelf holds the school gear, where the spare leash is.
Wherezit works in Chinese and English only — replies follow the language you speak. Voice notes are processed and stored on our servers so the device can answer later.
Voice reminders for a household
Reminders use the same button. Press and hold, say what you need and when, then let go.
Say how long from now, in plain words: “Remind me in 12 minutes to take the laundry out.”
Reminders work the same way in Chinese. When the time comes, Wherezit says the reminder out loud through its speaker.
The screen stays out of it: it keeps showing the photo you sent, and nothing is written onto it.
Because it is spoken in the room, whoever is nearby hears it too, which helps when the laundry or the school pickup is a shared job.
Use reminders for everyday things like these. Wherezit is not a medical device, emergency system, or substitute for critical reminders.
How it differs from a smart display or an LCD photo frame
A smart display such as Amazon Echo Show is built around a voice assistant you start by saying its wake word, and it handles calls, music, video and much more.
An LCD photo frame such as Skylight shows photos you send from an app or by email, on a touchscreen that can also play video.
Wherezit is narrower than either. It has one press-and-hold button, a speaker and a microphone, and a 4-inch e-paper screen that shows one photo at a time with no backlight.
- Screen. Those are LCD touchscreens. Wherezit uses reflective six-color e-paper with no backlight, and each photo change takes about 16 seconds.
- Talking to it. A smart display listens for a wake word. On Wherezit you press and hold the button, and it listens only while you hold it.
- What it is for. Those devices do more with their screens. Wherezit keeps its screen for photos and adds a voice memory and spoken reminders for the home.
If you want video calls and streaming, a smart display is the better fit; for a large touchscreen frame, an LCD frame is. Wherezit is for a quiet photo and the small things you say out loud.
Setup, the app, and what comes next
Setup runs over Bluetooth LE from the iPhone app. You create an account in the app with a name and a password.
Wherezit works on 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi networks only, and Wi-Fi is required to use all features.
The app requires iOS 17.0 or later and is iPhone only; there is no Android version. The iPhone app is built, and App Store listing is in progress.
Production is complete, and the next step is a Kickstarter campaign. The production units we have photographed are white, orange, green and blue.
Which colors are offered, along with weight, materials, pricing and shipping regions, will be published on the Kickstarter page.
More detail is on the home page, and the short version is on the about page. Wherezit is a product of ZhiLog, LLC.