Features
Everything a lab runs on, in one place.
An electronic lab notebook (ELN) is a digital, searchable replacement for the paper lab notebook. Joey ELM is an electronic lab management platform built around one: a structured notebook, a living graph of your work, an AI partner grounded in real data, and a camera that turns handwriting into entries, one workspace instead of six tools, free during beta.
Every citation is a real paper with a working DOI. We never invent them.
Agentic joey AI
Ask your notebook. Cite real papers. Get things done.
joey AI reads your own experiments, inventory, and equipment, and searches live scholarly databases. Ask it to book equipment, update your inventory, or clear a to-do, and it does that directly, on top of drafting protocols grounded in real data.
- Real literature from OpenAlex and Semantic Scholar, never fabricated
- Books equipment, logs inventory, and manages to-dos on its own
- Drafts a protocol you review before anything is saved
Agentic joey AI
joey AI reads your real data, searches live literature, and drafts protocols you approve. It also checks off to-dos, logs inventory usage, and books equipment, right from the same chat.
AI Digitizer
Photograph a handwritten page or drop in a PDF, and joey's AI drafts a structured entry with title, category, reagents, and steps, ready for you to confirm.
Mind graph
Personal Mind and Lab Mind lay your work out as a force-directed graph, so the links between projects show up on their own.
Equipment register & booking
Keep every instrument in one register with status and location, then reserve it on a shared calendar. joey AI can check availability and book it for you.
Structured notebook
Capture experiments, protocols, results, and literature as typed nodes with headings, tables, equations, and image uploads. Every entry is a real record, not a blank page.
Shared inventory
Track reagents and consumables as one shared lab stock with quantities, storage, and low-stock flags. Ask joey AI to restock an item or log usage and it makes the update.
Flexible sharing
Create a lab everyone can see, or share a single entry or folder with one person by name or email. Set view or edit access and revoke it anytime.
Bench to-dos
Keep experiment checklists and daily tasks beside the science they belong to. joey AI can add, check off, and delete items for you.
Instant search
Find any node, result, or note across your whole workspace in a keystroke. joey AI searches it too.
AI Digitizer
Photograph a page. Get a structured entry.
Snap a handwritten protocol or upload a PDF, and joey drafts a typed entry with title, category, reagents, and steps, and flags every uncertain value for you to confirm before it saves.
Can I digitize handwritten lab notebook pages?
Yes. Photograph or scan any handwritten page and joey converts it into a searchable, typed entry in seconds, with the original image kept alongside it.
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How joey compares.
A quick, honest look at where joey fits next to a paper notebook and the ELNs you've probably already evaluated.
| Capability | joey ELMBest fit | Paper notebook | Paid ELNs (Benchling, LabArchives, Labguru) | Free / open-source ELNs (SciNote, eLabFTW) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cost | Free during beta | Notebooks add up over time | Paid, per-seat licensing | Free tier, or free if you self-host |
| Agentic AI | Drafts protocols, cites real papers, and acts on your to-dos, inventory & bookings | No AI assistant | Not a standard feature | Not a standard feature |
| Handwritten pages | Photo or PDF → structured entry | Native, but not searchable | Rarely supported | Rarely supported |
| Graph view of linked work | Built in | No graph view | Not standard | Not standard |
| Searchable | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| Getting started | Sign up in under a minute | None needed | Cloud, often needs procurement or onboarding | eLabFTW needs your own server and IT support |
Competitor details reflect publicly available information as of July 2026 and can change. Always confirm current features directly with the vendor.
See it on your own bench.
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