Using Your Frame

Everything you can do day-to-day, from the button on the frame and from the app.

The button

There’s just one. It does everything. Watch the lights — they tell you exactly what stage you’re in.

What you’ll see	What it means	Release here to…
Green flash (after a quick press)	Wallie is awake	Skip to the next photo
Solid red (while holding)	Shutdown zone	Power off
All lights flashing (keep holding)	Factory-reset warning	Cancel — nothing happens
All lights go dark (keep holding still)	Factory reset triggered	Release — Wallie wipes itself and restarts

A quick press is also how you “wake” Wallie if it’s been sleeping for a while — useful if you want it to check for new photos right now.

Want to factory-reset? Keep holding through every light stage above until the flashing suddenly goes dark — that’s your cue to release. The whole thing takes around ten seconds. See Factory reset for what to expect afterwards.

From the app

Pick what’s on the wall

By default, Wallie plays through your album on its schedule. From the app you can also:

Frame a specific photo — tap Frame on any photo to lock it on the wall. Useful for special occasions or showing off a favorite.
Resume Album — stop framing and go back to playing your album.
Next Photo — rotate immediately to the next image in the album.
Refresh — pull the latest changes from your library.

Schedule

Both connected and offline (Direct Transfer) Wallies have a Photo Rotation Schedule. From the frame’s detail screen in the app:

Active hours — the times of day Wallie is awake and rotating photos (default 7am–11pm). Wallie sleeps deeply outside these hours to save battery.
Rotate every — how often the photo changes during active hours (every 2 hours, 4 hours, etc.).

What’s different between connected and offline

Connected (Wi-Fi) has more advanced scheduling: slot albums (show a different album at different times of day — morning kids’ photos, evening travel shots), weekend split (separate schedule for weekdays vs. weekends), and the most precise timing because Wallie keeps its clock in sync with the internet.
Offline (Direct Transfer) keeps the basic active-hours + rotate-every schedule, but timing drifts a little over time without an internet clock to sync against. Photos still rotate on a regular cadence — it just isn’t accurate to the minute.

Power Saver vs Responsive Mode

Both modes follow the schedule above. The mode controls what happens between scheduled rotations:

Responsive Mode (default) — frame stays active during active hours, so changes from the app appear within minutes. About 2–3 months per charge.
Power Saver — frame sleeps between scheduled rotations. Changes from the app appear at the next rotation, or right away if you press the button on the back. 6 months to a year per charge, depending on your settings.

You can switch between modes any time from the app.

Households

You can share a Wallie with the people you live with. Anyone you invite can add photos to your frames and frame favorites alongside you.

→ See Households for the full guide: invitations, full vs limited access, and removing members.

Multiple frames in your home

Have more than one Wallie? You can run them however you like:

Same photos, different rooms — point all your frames at one album for matching displays.
Different albums per room — kitchen shows family favorites, office shows kids’ artwork, bedroom shows your travel photos.
Name each frame by where it lives (“Kitchen Wallie,” “Living Room”) to keep them straight in the app.
Match wake hours to each room — your bedroom frame can sleep when you do.

If you set up another Wallie at someone else’s house — say, your parents’ — link it to a shared household album. Every photo you add appears on their frame too. They never have to do anything.

What looks great on Wallie

Wallie isn’t a screen — it’s closer to a print on the wall. Photos with rich contrast, texture, and real subjects come alive on it. Empty white spaces are the only thing that doesn’t translate well.

→ See Image Tips for a short guide to picking photos that sing on the wall.

The frame takes about 30 seconds to fully render a new photo. You’ll see brief flashing during the refresh — that’s the e-ink panel cycling colors. It’s working as intended.

Offline use

If your Wi-Fi goes down (or you never connected one), Wallie keeps showing your saved photos and rotating through them on schedule. When Wi-Fi returns, it auto-syncs anything new.

Direct Transfer — sending photos without Wi-Fi

If your Wallie was set up with Skip Wi-Fi setup, this is how you send photos to it:

Wake the frame with a quick press of the power button.
In the app, open the frame and start a transfer. Your phone briefly joins the frame’s private Wi-Fi network (Wallie-XXXXXX).
Photos move directly from your phone to the frame.
When the transfer finishes, your phone reconnects to your normal Wi-Fi automatically.

Switching between Wi-Fi and offline modes

The mode you set during initial pairing is the mode the frame stays in. To change modes — for example, you set Wallie up with Wi-Fi and now want it fully offline, or vice versa — you’ll need to:

Factory reset the frame (how to).
Pair it again as if it were new (Getting Started).
Pick the other mode during setup.

Your photos and account come back as soon as you re-pair, so the only cost is a few minutes.

Updating Wallie

Firmware updates happen automatically during scheduled wakes when Wi-Fi is available. You’ll see the lights alternating green and blue while it downloads. The frame restarts itself when it’s done — usually overnight. No action needed from you.

Caring for your Wallie

Wallie’s display is the e-ink panel itself — a glass surface with a soft matte finish, with no separate cover or screen protector over it. You’re cleaning the panel directly. Keep it simple:

Dust with a soft, dry microfiber cloth — the same kind you’d use on a phone or eyeglasses.
No cleaners of any kind. No water, no sprays, no alcohol, no glass cleaner, no wood polish, no paper towels.
For the wood frame, a light dusting is all it needs.

→ Troubleshooting if something seems off.