Dory’s logo is E ink, smart window simplicity at its best

Many devices that are marketed as “smart” make me wonder if it would be better to be dumb.

Some examples are smart TVs who insist on sending your actions to businesses following yousmart refrigerators that use the Internet around sales, smart fitness equipment that won’t work offlinesmart brushes that the batteries are running out quicklyor any tool that forces you to use less useful or less fun software.

In many cases, modern technologies, such as inter-device communication and artificial intelligence, are designed to be devices that would be smarter to use, cheaper, more accessible, and/or more robust without them.

The symbol of Doryhowever, it is a reminder of how technology can transform something as simple as a brand without overshadowing the main purpose of medicine, which in this case is effective and fun communication.

Dory is a small sign that, like most E Ink displays, is easy on the eyes because it doesn’t use bright light. You control what the banner shows through a free iOS or Android app that doesn’t force you to share your email or name to use it. The program has clear sections for changing the title, header, and footer, adding an image, and choosing a background. It also allows more than one person to change the display and connect to the signal via Bluetooth.

An image of the Dory Sign app. Changes to the text, image, and background appear on the screen in real time.

Credit: Sharon Harding/Dory

You can upload your own photo or background, but the app comes with pre-drawn images, such as animals, flowers, and pictures, and filled backgrounds, including what looks like brush strokes or marble and more, like landscapes. You don’t have to spend a lot of time creating a banner, but if you want to create it, the program has six different types of text and sliders for text size, line length, font spacing, and text color (which makes the text dark or light).