Annota

• The device, powered on (USB or its battery).
• A microSD card inserted, formatted FAT32, with audio files in the root folder (subfolders and hidden/dot files are ignored).
• Optionally, a WiFi network, to use the web file manager and AI transcription.

The device has exactly two physical controls:

• Next (labeled BOOT on the board) — moves the selection or highlighted menu option forward.
• Select (labeled PWR on the board) — opens/ confirms with a short press, backs out/cancels with a long press (about 0.7 seconds).

A few gestures build on top of that:

• Long press Next on the file list — switches between the Audio Files view and the Text Files (transcripts) view.
• Long press Select on the file list — opens the on-device Menu (Refresh / Offline↔Online / Reboot / Close).
• Double-press Select quickly (within about a third of a second) on any row but the first — instead of opening that file's action menu, jumps the selection straight back to the top "Record new" row. A single press still opens the action menu as usual; the device briefly waits to see if a second press is coming before acting.
• Hold both buttons together for 5 seconds — from anywhere, opens a confirmation to erase the saved WiFi network and reboot into first-time WiFi setup. This is the recovery gesture if the on-screen "Delete WiFi Setup" button in the web UI isn't reachable (e.g. no WiFi at all).

The black bar at the top of the screen is always visible, regardless of which screen is showing below it:

• Left side: WiFi/status text (e.g. connection status, or a temporary message).
• Right side: battery percentage with a battery icon, and — if a card is inserted — an SD card icon.

Battery percentage is a voltage-based estimate (0–100%), not a precise fuel gauge; expect it to dip during playback/recording and recover at rest.

If no SD card is detected, the screen shows "Insert an SD card to see your audio files" and no navigation is available. Insert a card and reboot the device (or use the on-device Menu's Refresh once the device recognizes it) to load it.

The main screen lists files from the SD card root, one of two modes at a time:

• Audio Files — playable audio (mp3/wav and other configured audio extensions). This view also shows a "Record new" row pinned above the real files.
• Text Files — the .txt transcripts saved by transcription (see below). No "Record new" row here.

Long-press Next to switch between the two modes. The header row above the list shows which mode you're in and how many files it holds; a small down-arrow appears if there are more rows than fit on screen at once (the list wraps around with Next, it doesn't stop at the last item).

• Next (short press) — move the highlighted row down one (wraps to the top).
• Select (short press) on a file — opens that file's action menu.
• Select (short press) on the "Record new" row — starts recording immediately (no action menu, since there's nothing else to choose there).
• Select (long press) — opens the on-device Menu (Refresh / Offline↔Online / Reboot / Close).

Recording

Selecting "Record new" starts recording a new voice memo straight to the SD card (plain 16-bit PCM WAV, no encoding). The screen shows "Recording <filename>..."; press Select (short or long) to stop. The new file appears in the Audio Files list immediately afterward. If the microphone fails partway through, the screen shows the error message instead and recording stops automatically.

Recording and playback share the same audio hardware and never run at the same time; starting one stops the other.

Action menu (per file)

Opened with a short Select press on a file row. Next cycles the highlighted option, Select (short) chooses it, Select (long) backs out to the list.

For audio files:

• Play — plays the file through the onboard speaker. Press Select to stop; the screen returns to the list when playback finishes on its own too.
• Transcribe — sends the file to the configured AI provider (see "Transcription" below) and saves the result as a .txt file with the same name.
• Details — shows the filename, creation date, and size. Press Select to close.
• Delete — asks to confirm, then deletes the file.
• Cancel — closes the menu.

For text files (transcripts), the menu only offers Details, Delete, and Cancel — no Play/Transcribe, since there's nothing to play or re-transcribe.

On-device Menu

Opened with a long Select press from the file list:

• Refresh — re-scans the SD card and returns to the (current-mode) file list.
• Offline / Online — toggles WiFi. The label always reflects the live connection state. Choosing Offline disconnects and powers down the WiFi radio (saved network credentials are kept); choosing Online reconnects to the saved network. This does not erase any saved WiFi setup.
• Reboot — asks to confirm, then restarts the device.
• Close — closes the menu with no action.

Selecting Transcribe on an audio file uploads it to the configured AI provider's speech-to-text API and saves the returned text as a sibling .txt file (e.g. memo1.wav → memo1.txt). This version is built for OpenAI's Whisper API by default (whisper-1); switching providers is a compile-time choice.

• If the device is offline, it makes one attempt to reconnect to the saved WiFi network first. If that fails too, you'll see "No WiFi connection." instead of a transcript.
• An AI provider API key must already be set — from the web UI's Settings page (see below). Transcription fails with an error if no key is saved.
• The screen shows "Transcribing <filename>..." while the request is in flight (this blocks the device — no button input — since it's a network round-trip), then a result screen ("Transcription saved." or an error message). Press Select to close.
• The resulting .txt file shows up under the Text Files view (long-press Next from the list to switch there).

First time / no network saved: the device opens its own WiFi access point named "Annota-Setup" (no password) and shows an on-screen prompt. From a phone or laptop, join that network — a captive portal (or http://192.168.4.1) lets you pick your home WiFi network and enter its password. Once submitted, the device connects and remembers the network for every future boot.

Every boot after that: the device reconnects to the saved network automatically in the background while the rest of the UI comes up — no setup portal, no blocking. If the router isn't reachable within about 10 seconds, the device just continues offline; the status bar reflects this, but nothing modal interrupts whatever's on screen. Recording, playback, deleting, and browsing all work fine offline — only transcription and the web file manager need a network.

Every ~15 minutes, if the radio is on but the network has become unreachable (not just a one-time reconnect failure), the device automatically drops to offline mode on its own to save battery, rather than burning power retrying against a network that's gone.

Forgetting the saved network: this is deliberately hard to trigger by accident, since it's irreversible. Two ways:

1. Web UI → Settings → Delete WiFi Setup (with a confirmation).
2. On-device: hold both buttons together for 5 seconds, then confirm.

Either way, the saved credentials are erased and the device reboots straight into the first-time setup portal.

A plain reconnect retry (without erasing anything) is available from the on-device Menu's Offline↔Online toggle, or the web UI's Reconnect WiFi button.

Once the device is on WiFi, note the IP address shown in its status bar (or the web UI's Settings page), and open http://<that-ip>/ in a browser on the same network. Two pages, reachable via the top nav bar:

Files (/)

A table of every file on the SD card root: name, date, size, and per-row actions. Features:

• Upload — drag a file onto the drop area, or use "choose one", to upload it to the SD card root. A progress bar tracks the upload.
• Download — per file, or in bulk via the selection checkboxes.
• Play — streams an audio file in-browser via a small player bar.
• Transcribe — per audio file (or in bulk, via the batch bar). This runs independently of the on-device Transcribe option: your browser fetches the saved API key from the device, downloads the audio file, sends it straight to the AI provider itself, and posts the resulting text back to the device to save — the device's own network stack is only briefly involved, not for the whole transcription. The result is the same sibling .txt file either way.
• Delete — per file, or in bulk, with confirmation.
• Select all / batch actions — check multiple rows to download, transcribe, or delete them together.
• Sortable columns (Name, Date).

Uploads and deletes made here update the SD card immediately, but the on-device file list is only refreshed on the device's next reboot or its own Menu → Refresh.

Settings (/settings)

• Status — live WiFi connection state (IP address, or "working offline") and whether the system clock has synced over NTP.
• SD card — capacity, space used (with a usage bar), and a count of audio files vs. text files.
• WiFi — Reconnect WiFi button (disabled while already connected).
• Power — a slider (1–180 minutes) for how long the device stays idle before deep-sleeping to save battery. Takes effect immediately, no reboot needed.
• <Provider> API Key (e.g. "OpenAI API Key") — shows whether a key is currently saved (never the key's actual value, since this page is served over plain HTTP). Enter a new key and Save API Key, or Clear API Key to remove it. Leaving the field blank and saving does nothing.
• Danger zone — Delete WiFi Setup, with a confirmation prompt. See "Forgetting the saved network" above.

To save battery, the device automatically deep-sleeps after a period of no activity (default 30 minutes; adjustable 1–180 minutes on the Settings page, see above). "Activity" includes any button press and any request served by the web file manager — so actively browsing/uploading/downloading over WiFi, or a transcription in progress (on-device or via the web UI), keeps it awake. Recording, playing back, or transcribing on the device also blocks sleep outright while in progress.

Before sleeping, the screen shows "Sleeping... Hold Select to wake."

To wake the device: hold the Select button. (Next/BOOT does not wake it — this is deliberate, so the on-screen instruction stays accurate.) Waking is a full restart: the device boots up the same way it does from a cold power-on, including re-scanning the SD card and reconnecting to WiFi.

• "Insert an SD card..." — no card detected. Check it's seated correctly and formatted FAT32.
• Device seems unresponsive after a long idle period — it's likely asleep; hold Select to wake it.
• Transcription fails with "No WiFi connection." — the device is offline and couldn't reconnect to the saved network. Check the router, or use the on-device Menu's Online option / the web UI's Reconnect WiFi button.
• Transcription fails despite being online — check that an API key is saved on the Settings page.
• Can't reach the web file manager — confirm the device's WiFi status (status bar, or Settings page once reachable) and that your browser is on the same network. If the device is offline and you don't have the setup portal available, hold both buttons for 5 seconds to reset WiFi and start over.
• Stuck in "Annota-Setup" mode after already configuring WiFi once — this only happens after an explicit "Delete WiFi Setup" (or the 5-second button-hold gesture). Reconfigure a network the same way as first-time setup.