Is a smart digital frame worth buying in 2022?
The smart digital frame is often misunderstood. Many think that it’s an outdated piece of technology made just for the elderly. While this is true of many cheap and mid-range digital frames, the smart digital frame is a different case. For example, Pix-Star’s smart digital frames are packed with modern features like remote configuration support, importing photos from social media, sending pics with the mobile app & web interface, free-for-life cloud storage, and much more.
The best smart digital frames are great for the modern home & family. They offer a unique way to reminisce over old memories, get elderly users involved, and breathe new life into your home. These frames can send & receive photos from anywhere in the world in a few short moments. You can take control of any of your frames to adjust their settings, start & manage slideshows, make changes to cloud and local storage, and the list goes on.
These top smart digital frames are easy to set up and manage. In many cases, you can manage them via their supported web dashboard. Moreover, slideshow settings are versatile and easy to adjust. They often have motion sensors that wake the screen up when you walk into the room. You can set sleep/wake schedules for any of your frames, and much more.
A well-chosen digital frame is an excellent way to pull the family together. You don’t need to worry about endless accounts to manage, long frustrating phone calls with your grandma, or falling out of touch with your more distant loved ones. Smart digital frames are capable and fun ways to keep the family connected and sharing – no matter how far apart you are!
Is the Pix-Star a smart digital frame?
The Pix-Star frame is one of the most versatile and popular smart digital frames on the market. They’re packed with a robust feature set that includes premium features like free-for-life cloud storage, remote configuration support, importing photos from social media, and much more. Pix-Star’s frames are available as either a 10-inch smart frame or a larger 15-inch smart digital frame.
One of Pix-Star’s most unique and useful features is its remote configuration support. Here you can manage and control up to 25 connected Pix-Star frames from anywhere in the world. It’s managed through your Pix-Star smart frame’s web dashboard. If you purchase several Pix-Star frames, you can create unique multi-frame control groups. It makes managing all of your frames, what they see, and how they work a breeze. You can adjust their settings, start and adjust slideshows, manage local & cloud storage, update their firmware, and much more. It’s an excellent feature for elderly users that aren’t very tech-savvy – and particularly for big, busy families.
Another excellent Pix-Star feature is their web album support. Web albums are photo albums that are imported from external sources like social media, photo-sharing, and online storage platforms. This is a feature that’s rarely offered by other digital frames – even by far more expensive smart frames (e.g., Aura’s frames don’t sync photos from social media). A dozen external sources are supported, including; Facebook, Instagram, Google Drive, Google Photos, Flickr, Dropbox, and more.
Perhaps one of Pix-Star’s most useful web album features is syncing a folder from your computer. Simply create a folder on your computer, add it as a web album via the web dashboard, and connect all of your frames to it. To share photos to all the linked frames, simply drag and drop the photos into that linked folder. What is unique here is that you can set any web album to automatically update when you add new photos. It’s a great way to automate the photo-sharing process and save a lot of wasted time. Simply drop the photos into the linked folder and Pix-Star will take care of the rest!
Pix-Star’s mobile app (Pix-Star Snap) offers high-quantity photo-sharing from anywhere in the world. Unlike many other popular frames’ mobile apps, this mobile app is easy to use and set up. You don’t need to worry about paying extra fees to unlock the app (e.g., Skylight and Nixplay frames use subscription-based models – something we don’t recommend buying into).
Pix-Star’s mobile app lets you send up to 250 photos to several receiving frames at the same time. You can send them directly from your phone’s gallery or capture and send new photos at the moment. Send videos and audio messages to any of your Pix-Star frames too. You don’t need to create an account to use the app either. Set your Pix-Star frames to display incoming photo-mail (from the app) in the current slideshow the moment it received them.
How to load photos to a smart digital frame?
There are several ways to load photos into a smart digital frame. Most of these methods are heavily reliant on Wi-Fi and/or cloud connectivity. With that said, many digital frames let you transfer photos from a connected USB/SD card. In some cases, you can even view photos directly off the USB/SD card in slideshows – but this plug & play feature isn’t universally offered.
The most accessible and efficient way to share photos with your smart digital frame is through a supported mobile app. We almost always have our smartphones with us. It’s a familiar and convenient photo-sharing method. For example, with Pix-Star’s mobile app, you can send up to 250 photos to multiple Pix-Star smart frames at the same time – no matter where you are in the world. You can also send videos and audio messages to any of your Pix-Star frames via the mobile app.
Another great photo-sharing method is to import photos from external sources. These often include platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Google Drive & Photos, etc. In some cases – as with Pix-Star’s frames – you can even import photo albums wirelessly from your computer. These web albums are a great, modern way to keep the family connected. They’re also fantastic for automating a lot of the photo-sharing process.
Many of the top digital frames let you load photos by email. This is a basic feature that’s common with upper-mid-range and premium frames. Pix-Star was the company that created and pioneered the digital frame photo-email feature. It’s elderly-friendly, doesn’t take much setting up, and can be done from anywhere.
Finally, the only offline way to get photos onto your smart digital frame is by USB/SD card. This is the most commonly offered method, especially among cheap and mid-range digital frames. A plug & play feature is a must-have function. It lets you view photos directly off a connected USB/SD card without needing to copy anything to internal storage first.
We suggest getting a premium smart digital frame with offline functionality. You don’t want to rely 100% on being connected to the internet – particularly for elderly users. You should be able to connect any size of USB/SD card to the frame and view its content in slideshows. This gives you virtually unlimited storage space for your photos and keeps internal storage free for your most important memories!
Does the Nixplay smart digital frame charge monthly fees?
The Nixplay smart digital frame, unfortunately, charges a monthly subscription fee called “Nixplay Plus”. This subscription package is required to unlock features like cloud storage, delete photos, play videos & audio, and use the mobile app/web interface. Without this subscription being active, you can only send photos to the Nixplay smart digital frame by email. All other methods are locked behind their subscription paywall.
We don’t recommend buying digital frames with monthly fees. Many of the best competing frames such as Pix-Star offer all of the same features – and many better features – without charging a cent extra. For example, with Pix-Star’s frames, you get unlimited USB/SD card support, free-for-life cloud storage, access to both a mobile app and web interface, web albums (from social media), and even remote configuration support for all your frames.
Many subscription-based smart digital frames are quite popular. It’s only after a couple of months or even weeks that users run into the paywall. The subscription-based nature of the frames is not discussed in-depth in the product description. Additionally, many of these “locked” features are essential for even the most basic of daily operations.
For example, Skylight’s frames are non-functional without the subscription being active. They don’t support USB/SD cards and there’s no internal storage. All loaded photos have to go through the Skylight servers first. The mobile app and email function are locked behind the paywall. In the end, without purchasing the Skylight Plus monthly subscription, you’re left with a smart photo frame that’s barely functional.
When you calculate the long-term cost of these (base price plus subscription fee per year of use), you get a very expensive smart digital frame. Considering that Pix-Star’s frames often have a cheaper base price, you end up paying a lot more for smart frames with monthly fees. Pix-Star’s frames offer much better value for money in the long run, along with greater ease of use and versatility.
Can I use a smart TV as a digital frame?
You can use a smart TV as a digital frame – but it’s going to be a lot more expensive and quite a bit less versatile. While a smart TV is going to be great for playing videos, their photo slideshow is generally sub-par. You’ll often only be able to load photos to the TV from an inserted USB/SD card. There often won’t be much internal storage either.
The aspect ratio doesn’t suit photos as most TVs are 16:9, yet most of our smartphones capture photos in 4:3. Slideshow controls are severely limited as you won’t have control over the play order or frequency of photos. You can import photos directly from social media or organize them easily in albums or folders. Sending photos from your phone to a smart TV is often a slow and clunky experience.
Smart digital frames like the Pix-Star cater to all of these issues. They’re cheaper (by base price), yet still, offer video and audio support – though not as extensively as TVs. You can send & receive photos from anywhere in the world via mobile app, web interface, and email. You can load and view photos directly from a USB/SD card – along with free-for-life cloud storage and automatic backups. There’s also a remote configuration tool that lets you manage your frames from anywhere.
These are all features that are rarely offered (except for video and audio playback) on the smart TV. They’re a lot more complicated to use and set up. You can easily manage the TV from outside of the room. The settings don’t suit photo-playback nearly as effectively as the smart digital frame. In summary, while you can use a smart TV as a digital frame, we don’t recommend it. You’ll get better value for money and more immersive slideshows from a top smart digital frame like the Pix-Star!
