About this app

HiLois is a FREE, realtime social platform that facilitates photo and message sharing between a person(s) in the middle of the “Circle” with a tablet, and their family and friends with smartphones. HiLois is named after the founder’s mother who suffered from Alzheimer’s. The app was developed in partnership with researchers at the University of Cincinnati and a technology accelerator program.

HiLois is a combination of private social network, photo frame, and instant messenger. Circle users send the photos and messages, and the VIP receives them on their tablet device in full screen format – instantly!

Use HiLois to:

* Create your own private social network that is “centered” around a Very Important Person(s).
* Send photos and messages directly to a tablet-based photo carousel. Photos and messages appear in full screen on the tablet, and also appear on the social timeline for all users to see and interact with.
* Receive replies from the VIP indicating they received the content.
* Comment on photos and messages so that other Circle members know what you’re thinking.
* Chat in the app with members of your private Circle with one-to-one as well as group chat.
* Challenge the VIP with Brain Teasers – simple trivia questions that they can answer before view a new photo message. Pick categories such as entertainment, sports, politics and more. Set difficulty levels (1 to 3) and be notified when the VIP has answered a Brain Teaser.
* Receive realtime push notifications when there is Circle activity, such as a new post, a new reply, a new Circle member, and more!
* Remotely control the VIP tablet from anywhere in the world. Start, stop, and move the carousel, disable device power saving mode (display sleep), change carousel speed, and more.
* Displays text-only messages in full screen mode


HiLois requires no special hardware. If you have an older tablet that is not being used, simply provide it to mom and/or dad and connect it to your Circle. Then you can send photos and messages to it as easy as a text message. Within seconds the post shows up on the tablet with an audible tone. The VIP can enjoy the photos immediately from the family, whether near or far!

HiLois was specifically designed to be ‘cognitively scalable.’ This means the functions of the app can be dialed back for minimal user interaction. HiLois has been successfully tested with dementia patients and those with limited abilities. And for advanced VIP users, you can set HiLois for full engagement for those who are perfectly capable of tapping, typing and changing settings. The app is role-based and configured as the VIP (where the primary interface is a photo carousel on a tablet) or for the supporting Circle (sending content and managed by a standard timeline view on a smartphone).


HiLois is now FREE!

New features

Fixed a bug preventing push notifications from working properly.

App Permissions

Allows applications to open network sockets.
Allows applications to access information about networks.
Allows an application to read from external storage.
Allows an application to write to external storage.
Required to be able to access the camera device.
Allows applications to access information about Wi-Fi networks.
Allows using PowerManager WakeLocks to keep processor from sleeping or screen from dimming.