LovedWords
Your voice. Their first words.
Open LovedWords →Or visit lovedwords.netlify.app on your phone.
What it is
LovedWords is a free flashcard app built for a single, narrow purpose: helping a toddler learn the names of the people, pets, and objects in their actual life — not generic stock photos with a stranger's voice.
You take a photo of someone (Grandma, the dog, a favorite toy), record yourself saying the name, and the card joins the deck. Tap a card to hear your own voice. Swipe to the next card. That's the entire app.
Free forever
No accounts, no subscriptions, no in-app purchases. Not a freemium tier — just free.
No ads, no tracking
Zero analytics. No third-party scripts. No telemetry. Nothing leaves the device.
Photos stay on your phone
Photos and voice recordings are stored locally in the browser (IndexedDB). They never get uploaded anywhere.
Works offline
Once the page loads, the app runs without internet. Take it on a flight, into the woods, anywhere.
Toddler-safe kiosk view
The cards-only swipe view has no buttons that exit the app. Adult settings are gated behind a math problem.
Multiple decks
Family, animals, foods — organize cards into separate decks. Includes a starter "First Words" deck.
How to install on your phone
LovedWords is a Progressive Web App, which is a fancy way of saying it's a website that installs onto your home screen and runs full-screen like a real app. There's no app store involved.
Android
Chrome browser
- Open https://lovedwords.netlify.app in Chrome.
- Tap the three-dot menu in the top right.
- Tap "Install app" (or "Add to Home Screen").
- Tap Install to confirm. The icon appears on your home screen.
- Tap the icon — opens full-screen, no browser bar.
iPhone & iPad
Safari browser
- Open https://lovedwords.netlify.app in Safari (must be Safari, not Chrome).
- Tap the Share button (square with up-arrow) at the bottom.
- Scroll down and tap "Add to Home Screen".
- Tap Add in the top right. The icon appears on your home screen.
- Tap the icon — opens full-screen, no browser bar.
How it works under the hood
LovedWords is one HTML file (~70 KB) with no backend. When you take a photo, the browser stores the image bytes directly in IndexedDB on your device. When you record your voice, the MediaRecorder API captures audio and saves it the same way. There is no server to upload to and no account to sign into — and that's not a feature decision that could change later, it's the actual architecture of the app.
You can export your entire deck (photos + voice clips + names) as a single .lovedwords JSON file. Move to a new phone, import the file, you're back in business. You own your data because no one else has a copy of it.
Why isn't this in the Google Play Store?
It will be eventually. The Android version is built and signed; it's waiting on a Google Play Console identity-verification step. In the meantime, the web app version is the same software with the same offline behavior — just installed via a URL instead of a store listing. If anything, it's lower-friction: parents don't need a Google account to install it.
About the author
LovedWords is built by the same author as PE-Calc (free engineering calculators) and HydroComplete (paid stormwater design software). It is not a commercial product and there is no plan to monetize it. It started as something to use with my own kid; it costs me nothing to host, and the value is in handing it to other parents.
Bug reports, feature ideas, or "this broke on my phone" notes are welcome via the newsletter signup below — reply to any issue and it'll be read.
Try it now
No download. No sign-up. Tap the link, install in two taps.
Open LovedWords → https://lovedwords.netlify.app