Can the Skylight digital frame play videos and audio?
The only way to play video and audio files on the Skylight digital frame is to pay for the Skylight Plus subscription. This is required to unlock video playback. Even with Skylight Plus active, you can only play one-minute video clips on the frame.
For comparison, Pix-Star’s digital frames let you play two-minute video clips, send them to the frame via the mobile app or by USB/SD card, include them in slideshows, play audio over slideshows, and much more – all without charging any extra fees.
This means that even with purchasing the Skylight Plus subscription package, these frames struggle to compete with most other premium options. Pix-Star’s frames even let you listen to web music & radio. Alternatively, you can play audio files on the frame from a connected USB/SD card and connect external speakers/headphones for a more immersive viewing experience!
Do Skylight digital frame work without Wi-Fi?
Skylight digital frames have internal storage to save all photos loaded to the frame via email or through the mobile app – though this is only one dimension of the problem. Skylight’s frames don’t let you load photos to the frame by USB/SD card, and the email/mobile app method is locked behind the Skylight Plus subscription paywall.
If you don’t subscribe to Skylight Plus and don’t have photos saved to the frame’s internal storage, there’s no way to load photos to the Skylight offline. That being said, once photos are saved on the frame’s internal storage, you can view them in slideshows. It’s worth noting that there are very few slideshow controls available on the Skylight frame – whether or not the frame is connected to Wi-Fi.
Is the Skylight Plus subscription on their digital frame worth it?
Skylight Plus is an optional subscription for Skylight digital frame users to unlock specific features and functions. Some other top frames like Nixplay use a similar subscription model (Nixplay Plus). Skylight Plus is required if you’d like to send photos by email from anywhere in the world, send and play videos on the frame, add text captions to photos, unlock and expand cloud storage, grant online access to your frame’s content, access to the mobile app, and the ability to create custom albums.
The main issue with Skylight Plus is that almost all of these features are offered for free on competing frames like the Pix-Star or Dragon Touch digital frames. Without an active Skylight Plus subscription, the Skylight digital frame is essentially no different from a cheap or mid-range frame. You can’t send photos wirelessly, can’t access any photos online, don’t get cloud storage, can’t play videos, etc.
When you consider that the Skylight frame is slightly more expensive than Pix-Star’s frames, it’s hard to justify charging an additional subscription fee – especially when Pix-Star’s frames offer the same (and better) features for free. The Skylight Plus subscription is not worth the money and lacks the uniqueness to justify its long-term cost. You’d get much better value for money with a top digital frame like the Pix-Star or Dragon Touch – or any other non-subscription-based digital frame!
How to view photos from Facebook on the Skylight digital frame?
Skylight digital frames don’t have a feature that lets you import photos from external sources like Facebook or Instagram. The only way to get these photos onto the Skylight frame is to download them to your phone or computer and transfer them to the Skylight frame via the Skylight app. This is better when done on the mobile app as it’s less buggy than when done on a computer.
This isn’t the ideal setup as it takes a lot of manual input. Since social media is such a commonly used method for photo-sharing, we’d expect any modern digital frame to offer a way to import photos. For example, Pix-Star’s frames offer a robust web album feature. This feature lets you import photo albums from external sources like social media, photo-sharing, and online storage platforms. They’re linked, synced, and saved to each connected Pix-Star frame’s internal storage.
Once saved locally, these web albums are accessible offline and can be set to automatically update & sync any new photos that get added to any linked albums. It’s an excellent way for families to share photos with the family – while requiring very little input on the receiving frames.
Is the Skylight digital picture frame better than the Pix-Star?
On paper, the Skylight digital picture frame looks like an excellent alternative to the Pix-Star frame. Unfortunately, when you look at their real-world practicality, Pix-Star’s frames are the clear winner. Pix-Star’s frames have a far more robust feature set and they don’t require an additional subscription fee to unlock features like cloud storage, video playback, access to the mobile app, etc.
While Skylight digital frames have great picture quality, the display is severely let down by the 16:9 aspect ratio. Pictures are often surrounded by black bars and the “smart fill” feature often ends up cropping or distorting them. By contrast, Pix-Star’s frames use a 4:3 aspect ratio. Since most of our modern smartphones capture photos in 4:3, they use the display’s full area and pictures aren’t unnecessarily edited or cropped. This is a massive time saver as you don’t need to manually resize every picture you send to the frames.
Without the Skylight Plus subscription, Skylight’s digital frames don’t compete with top frames like the Pix-Star. Their severely limited feature sets leave them with few ways to load photos to the frame wirelessly. You can’t play videos or audio, you don’t have access to the mobile app (or online access to your frame’s content), and no cloud storage & related features.
On the other hand, Pix-Star’s offers free-for-life cloud storage, access to the mobile app & web interface, remote control functionality, web album support, online access, USB/SD card support with a plug & play feature, video & audio playback, and more. Pix-Star’s are not only overall better digital frames than Skylight, but they’re also one of the best on today’s market – especially when you consider their excellent price point and zero additional costs.
