ITOY · I Thought Of You
ITOY is a colour e‑paper frame for the people you love. Choose a photo on your phone and it appears on their wall, and on every other frame in the family. No likes, no scrolling, no glowing screen, and nothing to print.
Not on sale yet. Coming singly, in pairs and in family sets.
Every picture on this page is drawn in ITOY's six real inks, dot for dot.
Why it's called ITOY
Four letters for the nicest thing you can tell someone: I thought of you.
It's the photo you'd have mentioned on the phone and then forgotten to send. The garden in flower. The grandchildren in their new school uniforms. The dog, again. You send it once, and the next time your dad walks down the hall, there it is. Nobody had to open an app, remember a password or scroll past it.
How it works
There's nothing on the other end for anyone to open, answer or keep up with.
Choose one from your camera roll, or take one there and then. You send from a page in your phone's browser, with no app to install.
Drag and pinch until it sits just right. The preview shows exactly how it will look in ink, so what you see is what they get.
Every ITOY in your group picks it up within fifteen minutes: yours, your parents', your sister's across the country. Nobody at the other end has to do a thing.
Not social media
Social media was meant to keep families close. Instead your photos compete with adverts, headlines and everyone else's holidays, and they're gone in a scroll. ITOY does one thing: it puts a picture you chose on a wall you chose.
Not another screen
Most digital photo frames are tablets in disguise. They glow, they turn the hallway blue at night, and everyone can tell. ITOY uses colour e‑paper: tiny particles of real pigment, moved into place and then left alone.
There's no backlight, so it reads like a print in daylight and simply fades into the room at night. And the picture stays put even when the battery is flat, because keeping it there needs no power at all.
Black, white, red, yellow, blue and green, laid down as fine dots the way a printed poster is. Photos come out looking painted rather than lit: softer and warmer than on your phone, and much closer to a print than a screen. The preview shows you every dot before you send.
No cables
E‑paper only uses power to change the picture. Keeping one on show costs nothing. So ITOY spends almost its whole life asleep, waking every fifteen minutes to see if you've sent something new.
That's what lets it go on the wall by the stairs, above the piano, or next to the front door: wherever it looks best, not wherever the socket is. It doesn't have to hang, either: it stands just as happily on a shelf, a desk or the bedside table. When the charge runs low it puts a battery on the screen while it still can, and a USB‑C cable does the rest.
No printing
No print orders, no ink cartridges, no drawer full of photos you meant to frame. Change the picture every morning or once a season. It costs nothing, and the old one doesn't end up in a box.
Last week the beach, this week the sunset from the drive home. The frame stays on the wall and the picture keeps up with your life.
Pairs and family sets
You send pictures through the ITOY on your own wall, so they come in twos: one for you, and one for someone you think of. Add more and every frame in the family shows the same photo at once.
Join a family that already has ITOY, or add a second wall in your own home.
One to send from, one for someone you love. Everything you need to put your photos on their wall.
Three frames in one group: yours, the grandparents', and one more home. The same photo on every wall at once.
Prices and first delivery dates go to people on the list before anyone else.
Set it up at your place, then wrap it. When they open it, they press one button on the back, choose their Wi‑Fi on their phone, and hang it up. That's everything they'll ever need to do. From then on, pictures just arrive.
Better still, hang it for them next time you visit, and they won't even have to do that.
The details
Questions
Only once, when they first unwrap it: press one button and choose their Wi‑Fi. After that, pictures arrive by themselves. There's no app, no account and no password for them to deal with.
No. Hang it like any picture, or stand it on a shelf, a desk or the bedside table. That's handy if you rent and can't put holes in the walls. With no cable to reach a socket, it can go wherever it looks best.
Today you send from a phone or computer on the same Wi‑Fi as one of your own ITOYs. That's why they come in pairs. The picture then reaches every frame in your group, wherever in the world it hangs.
No, and that's rather the point. With six inks and no backlight, pictures look like a print or a painting rather than a screen. Bold, bright photos look wonderful. Pale skies and soft skin tones come out more painterly. The preview shows you exactly what you'll get before you send.
Within fifteen minutes, and usually sooner: for ten minutes after you send something, every frame in the group checks once a minute. Drawing the new picture takes about a minute. E‑paper is unhurried.
Yes. Send to every frame in the group, or to just the one in front of you. It keeps that picture until you send it something else or put it back with the others.
The picture stays exactly where it is. ITOY keeps trying quietly in the background and catches up by itself when the connection comes back.
Only the frames in your group. Every picture needs a one‑off permission issued by one of your own ITOYs, so knowing a frame exists isn't enough to post to it.
Coming soon
ITOY isn't on sale yet. Tell us what you'd like, and we'll email you once when it is, with prices and dates before anyone else.