Here to help.
Your creature can't talk — it glows, chimes, and prints instead. This page is the phrasebook. And if you're ever truly stumped, write me: hello@stickyfax.com.
What the light is saying.
The glowing ring around the button is your creature's face. Every light below is live — same color, same rhythm as the one on your desk.
the one you'll mostly see
Slow-breathing green — all is well.
Online, listening, content. A fax could arrive in the next minute or next month — it's happy either way, and there's nothing for you to do. This is the light it wears almost all of its life.
waking up & getting online
Pulsing white — just waking up.
The first few seconds after it gets power. It moves along all by itself.
Breathing magenta — new here, ready to meet you.
A fresh creature — straight out of the box, or straight after a reset — makes its own little wifi network and prints setup instructions. Follow the sticker; it knows the way.
Blinking blue — joining your wifi.
On its way online. A moment or two.
Blinking cyan — calling home.
Telling the StickyFax server it's awake so friends can reach it. Usually gone before you can point at it.
asking for a hand
Blinking yellow — can't find my wifi.
It knows exactly which network it wants; it just can't hear it right now — a router mid-reboot, an internet hiccup, or a creature that moved houses. It keeps trying quietly, forever, and slips back to green the moment your wifi returns. Curious? Press the button once and it prints a note about what it's looking for (with its recovery code, for safekeeping). And if that wifi is never coming back, the long hold starts it fresh.
Blinking amber — out of paper (or the lid's ajar).
Feed it a fresh roll and click the lid shut — it sorts itself out from there, no buttons needed. Faxes that arrive while it's hungry aren't lost: they wait, and print the moment it's fed.
Yellow and amber blink alike. When in doubt, check the paper first — if the paper's fine, it's the wifi.
Steady red — something's genuinely wrong.
Rare. Start with the classic: unplug it, count to five, plug it back in. If it wakes up red again, that's my department — write me.
Fluttering red — the reset countdown.
You'll only ever see this under your own finger: it means you've held the button about twelve seconds and a factory reset is three… two… one away. Let go to call the whole thing off — nothing is lost. More on the long hold below.
The long hold.
One gesture, three depths — and your creature narrates the whole way down, so nothing can happen by accident. Letting go always cancels.
Ten seconds in — a double-beep, and out comes the diagnostics slip: the nerdy printout of how it's been feeling. Handy to photograph if you're writing me about a problem. Let go here and that's all that happens — nothing is forgotten.
Keep holding — the alarm: three rising warning tones, and the ring flutters urgent red (as shown above). This is your final off-ramp. Let go and everything stays exactly as it was.
Held all the way — factory reset. It prints a goodbye slip with its recovery code, forgets your wifi and its own name, and reboots as a brand-new creature — breathing magenta, ready to be set up again.
When you'd want this: you moved, your wifi name or password changed, or you're handing it to someone else for a fresh start.
The recovery code.
Your creature's most precious possession is its fax address — the stickyfax.com/to/… link your friends use. A factory reset forgets it… unless you have the recovery code: eight characters, KH7M-Q3PR style, printed on the goodbye slip.
When you set up a StickyFax, the setup page asks: "Reviving an old Sticky Fax?" Type the code there and it wakes up as exactly who it was — same address, same name — so the people who love you never have to update a thing.
Keep the slip — fridge, junk drawer, a photo on your phone. But don't panic if it wanders off: as long as your creature is up and running, it can always print you another. The factory reset itself hands you a fresh goodbye slip, code included, moments before it forgets — and while it's hunting for wifi, a single button-press prints the code too. The slip is truly precious in one case: if the creature itself is ever lost or broken, the code is how its address moves into a new one. In a jam without it? Write me.
Care & feeding.
Paper: standard 80mm thermal rolls, and never any ink. The sticker-backed rolls that make StickyFax StickyFax are four for $50 from me; plain receipt paper works in a pinch — you just lose the peel-and-stick. Running out is a non-event: the light blinks amber, incoming faxes wait safely, and everything prints once it's fed.
The nap cure: most oddities respond to the oldest medicine — unplug, count to five, plug back in. It's safe any time; a fax it hadn't finished printing will come again on its own.
And that's the whole regimen. No app, no charging, no updates to babysit — it quietly keeps itself current. Walk away for a month; it'll be there, breathing green.
Still stumped?
Write me: hello@stickyfax.com. You'll get me, not a ticket queue. I built your creature by hand, I signed it, and I'll make it right — that's the deal.