What sets it off, what arrives, what they see
Magic, orchestrated.
Everything on Gnomely is built from the same two choices: what sets it off, and what gets sent. This page covers every option for both, how each one actually fires, and what happens on the other end.
The shape of it
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1
You make something. Write the letter, record the video, upload what you already have. Take weeks over it if you want. Nothing leaves your hands while you're still working.
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2
You choose a trigger. A date, a place, or something they have to do. This is the part that turns a nice thing into a moment, and it's the only decision that's genuinely yours to get right.
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3
It goes without you. When the trigger fires, Gnomely delivers it. Nobody has to remember, be awake, be holding their phone, or be around at all.
Triggers
Four ways to set something off. Any of them works with any of the formats further down, and any of them can be a single stop on a Trail.
Date and time
Pick the moment down to the minute: tomorrow at seven, or the third Saturday of a year that hasn't happened yet. Gnomely watches the clock for you, so it fires whether or not anyone is online, awake, or thinking about it that morning. Most things use this one.
Location
Setting it. Search for an address to get the map roughly right, then drag a pin to the exact spot and leave it there. A particular bench. The tree on the left. The corner of a car park nobody has ever named. An address can't describe any of those, which is why the pin is what counts, not the address you searched for. Switch to the satellite view and you can see the thing you mean. If you happen to be standing there while you set it up, there's a shortcut that drops the pin on wherever you are.
Firing it. They open the page and tap "I'm here". Their browser asks permission that one time, checks whether they're close enough, and unlocks it on the spot. That's the entire mechanism. There's no app to install, nothing running quietly in the background, and no record built of where they've been in between.
How close is close enough. Around 30 to 40 metres. A phone is usually accurate to somewhere between 5 and 20 metres outdoors, and noticeably worse beside tall buildings, so a tighter radius would mean people standing in exactly the right place being told they weren't.
Task
Something they physically do: scan a code, type in a phrase, find the thing you left. This works everywhere a location trigger struggles, indoors, underground, or anywhere you can hide something small. A QR code taped under a bench. A short phrase worked into a letter's design. A sticker on the back of a picture frame.
Nothing has to know where they are for this one. Finding the code is the proof.
Person
Someone you've nominated confirms it's time. Used by Locket only, and Locket is a later release, so this trigger isn't part of the first one.
What you can send
Five formats, three of them in the first release. Mix as many as you like into a single occasion.
A letter, written
Opens on a page of its own when the trigger fires. Nothing to download, no account, no password. Just the letter, sitting there waiting, for as long as they want to keep coming back to it.
A letter, posted
Genuinely printed and put in the post, arriving through the door the way letters used to. Written now, posted automatically the moment the trigger fires, whether that's next Tuesday or the year after next. UK addresses to begin with, while we're certain of the printing and the post.
Three finishes:
- Standard
- Typeset on Gnomely stationery and printed exactly as you previewed it, wax-seal crest printed on the envelope. Included with every letter.
- Design+
- Real print effects rather than a font choice. The ransom-note finish is composed from actual scanned newspaper and magazine clippings, every letter set at its own slight angle, so no two ever come out the same. Redacted-document styling, aged paper and illustrated borders live in the same tier.
- Bespoke
- Real melted wax, pressed by hand with the gnome crest, on heavy cotton paper with a deckle edge. Carried to the post office by hand, because a genuine wax seal will jam a sorting machine. Finished one at a time by an actual person, so only so many can go out in a day.
A video
Recorded or uploaded now, held back until the trigger fires, then played in their browser. Nothing to install at their end either.
A public post A later release
Scheduled to your own social accounts and posted on your behalf, for the occasions that are meant to be seen by everyone rather than kept for one person.
A private nudge A later release
A short message to a handful of people alongside the main piece. For the ones who don't need the whole thing, just to know it's happening.
How the pieces combine
Same triggers, same formats, arranged four different ways.
The smallest unit, and the one everything else is made of. Pick a format, pick a trigger, name who it's for. It fires exactly as set and then it's theirs.
Several pieces for one person, built together in a single sitting rather than assembled from bits lying around. Every piece keeps its own trigger, so you can land them all on the same minute or space them across a whole day, breakfast, lunchtime, last thing at night.
A Medley can also sit inside a Trail as one stop, so a single stop can open into several things at once.
A chain of stops, each with its own trigger, each unlocking only once the one before it has fired. They only ever see the stop they're on: not the route, not what's coming, not how many are left. That's the whole point of it.
An email goes out each time a stop unlocks, so nothing depends on them thinking to check. A stop never times out either. Reached late, reached years late, it still works exactly as you built it.
The only one where the trigger is a person rather than a date or a place. Everything you'd want shared once you're gone: public tributes, private letters, even new trails and moments that go on inspiring people. Someone you trust confirms when it's time.
Moments, Medleys and Trails come first. Holding something safely for decades is a promise worth making properly rather than early, so Locket follows once the rest of it is proven.
A letter can be a clue. A place can be a trigger
Everything above, assembled. One Trail, moving between the physical world and the digital one without ever breaking stride.
Five stops here; a trail can be two, or twenty. One continuous piece of orchestrated magic, none of it depending on anyone remembering to "do the next part" in real time.
What the other person sees
The half of this that's easiest to forget, and the half that decides whether any of it actually lands.
They never make an account
No sign-up, no password, no app, nothing to agree to. An email arrives with a link in it, and the link is the whole thing. Someone who has never heard of Gnomely and never will can still receive everything you build.
It comes from you, not from us
The email leads with your name, because that's the only part that matters to them. It's clear from the first line that a specific person they know prepared this on purpose, rather than reading like marketing from a company they've never dealt with. We don't follow up, and we don't use it as a way in.
The link doesn't expire
It isn't single use and it never stops working. They can open it that morning, open it again that night, open it on a different phone in eleven years' time. What you send is a keepsake, not a one-time action, so it's built to be revisited rather than consumed once and lost.
On a Trail, only the stop they're on
They can't skip ahead, can't see the route, and can't tell whether the next one is around the corner or across the country. Each unlock brings its own email so the trail comes to them instead of waiting to be checked.
What stays in your hands
Change your mind right up until it fires
Rewrite it, retime it, swap the place, call the whole thing off. Everything stays editable while it's waiting. Once it's actually sent, it locks, because at that point it isn't yours any more.
If it sits unopened, you'll hear
Something too important to go unseen shouldn't quietly go unseen. If a Moment or a Trail stop stays untouched for a while, we'll let you know rather than leave you wondering.
Nothing is on a clock at their end
There's no countdown, no expiry, no pressure applied to the person receiving it. A stalled Trail stop simply waits. The unhurried version of this is the only version worth building.
Location is asked for once, by them
Never in the background, never continuously, and never without a deliberate tap. Our maps and place search come from a provider chosen specifically because it doesn't build advertising profiles or follow people between sessions, which matters more than usual when the places involved are somebody's actual life. Everything you put in, you can take a copy of whenever you like.
What isn't there yet
- Posted letters go to UK addresses to start with. Elsewhere comes once we're sure of the printing and the post, and we'd rather say that plainly than promise it early.
- Locket is a later release. Moments, Medleys and Trails come first.
- Public posts and private nudges come later too. Letters, written or posted, and video are what the first release sends.
- There's no phone app. Everything runs in a browser, which is exactly why arriving somewhere is a tap rather than something detected silently in the background.
Magic, orchestrated.
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Magic, orchestrated.
The moment delivery platform.