Frequently asked questions
About the app
What is HelperMate for? An employer plans what gets cooked; a helper cooks it. The recipe appears in her language, she can ask a question without leaving the dish, and the employer sees how it went. That is the whole product.
Is this a tool for monitoring my helper? No, and it is built so that it cannot become one. There is no location tracking, no clock-in, no working-hours total, no background camera, and no performance score. An overdue dish is shown so you can plan dinner, not so it counts against anyone. We wrote these down as design limits before we wrote the code, and section 4 of the Privacy Policy lists them.
How much does it cost? Nothing. There is no payment screen anywhere in the app.
Which languages? Simplified Chinese, English, Bahasa Indonesia, and Burmese. Employer and helper each pick their own — the recipe is translated between them.
Does my helper need an iPhone? No. The helper's side is a web app that runs in any phone browser, including older Android phones. Only the employer's side is an iPhone app.
Does she need an email address? No, and we do not ask for one. She joins with a 6-character invite code you give her, and picks a 6-digit PIN.
Getting started
Where do I get the employer app? From the App Store. It is free, iPhone only, and currently available in Singapore. If you would rather not install anything, the web version at helper.luy.li/e/ has the same features.
How do I add my helper? iPhone app → Household → Generate invite code. Send her the link (WhatsApp works well). She opens it, chooses her language, sets a PIN, and she is in.
The invite code expired. Generate a new one. Codes are single-use and time-limited on purpose.
Can two people in my family both use the employer app? Yes. Both sign up, and both can be employers in the same household. If one of them deletes their account, the household continues.
Can I have more than one helper? Yes. Today's menu groups dishes by helper, and each helper only ever sees her own tasks — not her colleague's, and not your conversation with her colleague.
Recipes
Where do recipes come from? Three places: a small starter library we provide; recipes you import; and platform recipes you adapt to your own taste.
How does importing work? Paste the recipe text, upload screenshots, or paste a link. The app turns it into a structured recipe and then asks you to check it. You must confirm four things separately — amounts, heat, allergens, and food safety — before it saves. There is no "accept everything" button, and that is deliberate.
Why do I have to confirm four separate things? Because those four are the ones that hurt someone if they are wrong. The AI is instructed never to invent them: if the source did not state a heat level, it leaves it blank and the app highlights it in orange rather than guessing "medium heat". Someone has to actually look, and a single checkbox lets people click through without looking.
The link I pasted did not work. Common. Many recipe sites block automated reading. Paste the text or use screenshots instead.
Can I edit a recipe from the shared library? Not in place — those are shared by every household. Tap "Make my own version" and you get your own copy to change however you like. The original is untouched, and your copy keeps all four translations, so adapting it costs nothing.
I edited a recipe. When does my helper see it? The changed parts are re-translated in the background, usually within a minute. Only what you changed is re-translated; the rest is reused. Dishes already assigned keep the version they were assigned with — a recipe never changes under her hands mid-cook.
Cooking and messages
What does my helper see? The dish, ingredients, and steps in her language, plus any note you added, at the top. She accepts, cooks, and submits a photo when she is done.
She tapped "I need help". What now? You get a notification and it appears at the top of the task. Asking for help is not recorded as a failure anywhere — that is the point of having the button.
Can I message her? Yes, one-to-one, with photos. Either of you can tap "translate" on a message to read it in your own language. Translation happens only when someone taps it.
Can I export our chat? No. Neither of you can export the other's messages. Your data export contains only what you sent.
Notifications
When will I be notified? Employer: when she submits a dish, when she asks for help, when she messages you, and if a submitted dish has been waiting for you for half a day. Helper: when you assign a dish, when you message her, the evening before a dish is due, and if something is still open the next morning.
What are quiet hours? A window when nothing is sent. It defaults to 22:00–07:00 and is on by default. Notifications during that window are dropped, not queued up to arrive later. Your helper's rest time is protected by the same setting.
Notifications stopped arriving. See the checklist on the Support page.
Data and privacy
Who can read my recipes and messages? The people in your household. Our infrastructure provider stores them. When someone taps "translate", or when you import a recipe, that specific text goes to our AI provider. Photos are never sent to the AI provider.
Do you train AI on my data? No.
How do I delete everything? In the app: Household → Account and data → Delete account (helper: Home → Account and data). Section 9 of the Privacy Policy sets out exactly what is removed for each role.
What happens to my helper's account if I delete mine? It is closed too. A helper account belongs to the household that invited it — it cannot be moved to another family. If she goes to work for someone else, that employer invites her and she sets up a new account there. Tell her to export her data first if she wants to keep anything.
Can my helper take her account to her next employer? No. Each household issues its own helper accounts. This keeps things simple and keeps one household's records out of another's, but it does mean her history does not follow her. She can export her own data at any time from Home → Account and data.