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Support

Frequently asked questions

Which frames does MonoFrame work with?

The Elecrow CrowPanel ESP32-S3 4.2″ and 5.79″ e-paper displays and the Seeed reTerminal E1001 7.5″, flashed with the free MonoFrame firmware. Flashing takes a couple of minutes — see the flashing guide. Want another frame supported? Request it on GitHub.

Can I try the app without a frame?

Yes. In My Frames → Add a Frame, tap "No frame yet? Try a demo". You get a simulated frame that behaves like the real thing so you can explore the whole app.

My frame isn't picking up new photos

Frames wake about every 30 minutes to check for a new photo, then go back to sleep to save battery — so a just-sent photo can take up to half an hour to appear. If it still doesn't update: check the frame's battery/power, and confirm your WiFi is working. After several failed WiFi attempts the frame returns to setup mode (it broadcasts a MonoFrame-XXXX hotspot) — just run Add a Frame again.

Pairing fails during setup

• Make sure the frame is in setup mode (freshly flashed, or reset after WiFi failures).
• The frame only supports 2.4 GHz WiFi networks — 5 GHz-only networks won't work. Most routers broadcast both.
• Stay near the frame during setup; your iPhone briefly joins the frame's hotspot.
• Setup requires a real iPhone — the device steps don't run in the iOS Simulator.

Why do my photos look different on the frame?

The display shows pure black and white only. MonoFrame converts photos with Floyd–Steinberg dithering, which represents shades of gray using patterns of dots — the same technique used in newspaper printing. High-contrast photos with a clear subject look best. The app shows you an exact preview before you send.

Designing screens with an AI (and the MCP server)

Besides photos, MonoFrame can show screens — clock, calendar, countdowns, notes. In the app, open Screens → Create New Screen, describe what you want, and tap Copy Prompt. The prompt already contains your frame's exact panel size and the layout format, so you can paste it into any AI chat (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, a local model…), copy the AI's reply, and paste it back into the app. No API key or account is needed, and the app repairs common formatting quirks in pasted replies automatically.

Power option — the MCP server. If you use an assistant that supports the Model Context Protocol (Claude Desktop, Claude Code, and others), you can register MonoFrame's free MCP server so the assistant checks its own work: it fetches the design rules, validates the layout, fixes any problems, and hands you JSON that is guaranteed to paste cleanly.

Claude Code — one line in a terminal:

claude mcp add monoframe-screens -- npx -y monoframe-screens-mcp

Claude Desktop — add this to claude_desktop_config.json (Settings → Developer → Edit Config):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "monoframe-screens": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "monoframe-screens-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Other MCP clients: it's a standard stdio server — run npx -y monoframe-screens-mcp. You can also run it from source: clone the repo, then cd mcp && npm install and point your client at node /path/to/MonoFrame/mcp/server.js.

Once registered, just ask your assistant something like "design a MonoFrame screen for my 7.5″ frame counting down to our vacation on August 20" — then paste the JSON it returns into Create New Screen.

How do I remove a frame?

In My Frames, swipe to delete. To wipe the frame itself, re-flash it from the web flasher. If you'd like the frame's data removed from our servers, email us the frame ID shown in the app.

How is my privacy handled?

No accounts, no tracking of your photo library, and only the converted 1-bit image is uploaded. See the full Privacy Policy.

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