What should I look for in a digital wall picture frame?
Buying a digital wall picture frame can be hit or miss when you choose carelessly. These incredible devices have the potential to bring new life into your home and change the way you connect with your loved ones.
The first and arguably most important feature of a digital wall frame is Wi-Fi and cloud compatibility. The frame you choose should be able to connect to standard home Wi-Fi networks and include related features like a dedicated email address, a supported web interface/mobile app, and multi-frame control. Some secondary features like web radio & music, web albums, weather, alerts & reminders can also be very useful depending on your needs and your family.
A big and bright screen with a 4:3 or 3:2 (10-inches and above) aspect ratio is essential. The resolution of the display should be above 800×600, with adjustable (manual) brightness and color settings (this isn’t a biggie if it’s not available). As for aesthetics, you should find a frame with a high screen-to-body ratio as they offer a more minimalistic look to better suit a modern home.
You should avoid touchscreens as they need to be wiped down very frequently, and the fingerprints are highly visible – especially in bright rooms. You also have to consider the reduces the longevity of touchscreens and that they’re more prone to scratching and damage. They’re also quite a bit more difficult to navigate for elderly users. You should also avoid battery-operated digital wall picture frames as they’ll need to be near their charging cable more often than not.
Look for a digital wall picture frame that lets you remotely take control of the frame (and possibly other connected frames) and change settings, start slideshows, manage the frame’s storage, update firmware, and so on. This feature makes it easy to streamline making sure that everybody in the family gets the latest photos as soon as they’re uploaded.
One final essential feature is cloud compatibility. A great digital wall picture frame should have access to cloud storage, backups, and related features. You’ll want to manage your frame through the web interface so that you don’t need to be in front of the frame to do anything. It also means you can make changes when you’re out of the house, or want to make changes to grandpa’s frame.
What is the best digital wall picture frame to buy?
Pix-Star’s digital wall picture frame is one of the best on the market for modern homes. They’re well suited to large families and elderly users. Coming with a robust and impressive feature set, Pix-Star’s frames find an excellent balance between ease of use and versatility, making them fantastic gift ideas, or an intuitive way to stay connected and in touch with your loved ones.
One of Pix-Star’s most useful features is web album support. You can link your frame to photo albums on your favorite social media and photo-sharing platforms including Facebook, Instagram, Google Photos & Drive, Flickr, and many more. These web albums are synced to your frame once linked – and they’re saved to local storage for offline use. Whenever you add new photos to these connected albums, they’ll be updated and saved on each connected frame. It’s one of the best ways to keep large families connected and to save a lot of the time spent on sharing photos with everyone.
Pix-Star’s frames support a standard VESA-type mount for secure and versatile wall mounting options. There are hanging holes if you’d prefer to hang your digital wall picture frame over mounting. Each frame comes with an attachable stand for those times you need to rest the frame on a table or mantelpiece.
With 1024×768 pixel displays and a versatile 4:3 aspect ratio, Pix-Star’s digital wall picture frame offers an immersive viewing experience. The fluid user interface combines with the classy aesthetic to deliver a smooth user experience and a highly functional and capable frame.
It’s super easy to send photos to the frame through the web interface and mobile app. The mobile app in particular is very user-friendly and lets you natively record media or select it from your gallery before sending. You can send multiple frames at the same time and from anywhere in the world.
Overall, Pix-Star’s digital wall picture frame offers great value for money, simplicity, and enough features to keep everyone in the family connected and involved. There are no recurring fees for multimedia support or cloud storage. Everything comes unlocked and ready to go when you buy their digital wall picture frame.
How to start a slideshow on digital wall picture frames?
Start by navigating to your frame’s media library, file explorer, or gallery. This should be the place where you can browse through files, create new folders, and manage your frame’s storage. Select the folder(s) you want to include in the slideshow and select the “Play” or “Start slideshow” option. Note that the process might differ between models and brands of digital wall picture frames.
It’s also worth noting that some digital wall picture frames limit slideshow choices to “play all picture on the frame” or something similar. Additionally, you might not be able to play slideshows that include multiple sources. For example, you might not be able to include web albums in a slideshow that contains pictures from the connected USB/SD card, or a folder created in the local storage.
Can I change orientation on a digital wall picture frame?
Switching between landscape and portrait is usually done through the frame’s settings menu. It’s very rare (and often problematic) to find digital wall picture frames that can automatically switch orientations. You also have to consider that you’d need a wall mount that includes a swivel to flip the frame according to the desired orientation.
Can I display art on a digital wall picture frame?
You can display any kind of pictures on a digital wall picture frame, be it art, professional sketches, photography, and so on. That being said, they need to match the frame’s format requirements and often need to fit the frame’s resolution to be displayed correctly.
If you want to display art, make sure the artwork matches the aspect ratio, resolution, and required format of the digital wall picture frame. This ensures you get an edge-to-edge display without auto-cropping or black bars. You should try to display your art on a digital wall picture frame with a display larger than 10-inches and adjustable color settings. Nobody knows your art better than you, so getting the perfect hue and saturation through the frame’s settings can make all the difference.
