Aura vs Pix-Star – Which is better for importing photos direct from social media?
No Aura vs Pix-Star comparison would be complete without looking at web album support. The web album refers to the ability to import photo albums directly from social media, photo-sharing, and online storage platforms. These are saved directly to your frame’s internal storage and can be included in slideshows.
Pix-Star’s frames let you import web albums from almost a dozen supported platforms; whereas Aura doesn’t support web albums at all. With Aura’s frames, if you want to import photos for Facebook, for example, you’d need to download them to your phone, select and send them via the mobile app, connect the frame to Wi-Fi, and sync and view these photos in slideshows.
Pix-Star’s frames let you perform this effortlessly – and even lets you automatically keep web albums up to date (by syncing any newly added photos in the linked albums to all linked Pix-Star frames).
Do Aura and Pix-Star frames play video and audio files?
Aura’s frames don’t offer any video or audio support, playback, or features. Aura’s frames can only be used for viewing photos in slideshows. Part of this is due to the frame’s lack of internal storage space, total reliance on a cloud & Wi-Fi connection with Aura’s severs, and missing internal software support. This lack of video and audio support is surprising considering how expensive Aura’s frames are.
On the other hand, Pix-Star’s digital frames offer both audio and video support and playback. Pix-Star’s frames can send videos using the Pix-Star Snap mobile app or by USB/SD card. You can send voice messages through the app, and listen to audio files & music from a connected USB/SD card. Alternatively, you could use Pix-Star’s web music & radio feature to listen to a plethora of stations and even play them over slideshows. Pix-Star’s frames let you play 2-minute video clips, include them in slideshows, and even set them to play muted by default.
Can Aura and Pix-Star frames work offline?
The ability to work offline is a key digital frame feature. It lets you access your frame’s internal storage, manage local storage, adjust the frame’s general & slideshow settings, start & manage slideshow, and use some non-Wi-Fi dependent features. Any digital frame for elderly users needs to offer offline functionality to be practical and reliable in the long run.
Aura’s digital frames don’t offer any internal storage, USB/SD card support, or offline functionality. Each Aura frame needs to be constantly connected to both the Aura cloud servers and Wi-Fi to sync, view, and manage your storage. This means you have little to no control over the play order or frequency of photos in slideshows, and it’s a much trickier system to make full use of.
By contrast, Pix-Star’s frames are some of the best on the market for offline use. You can manage almost all of the frame’s settings, view and manage local storage, start & control slideshows, move files around, and use some features like games. Pix-Star’s frames have 8GB of internal storage and offer extensive USB/SD card support. Since connected USB/SD cards don’t have a maximum capacity limitation with Pix-Star, you can use them to provide essentially unlimited storage space while offline.
All incoming photos (expect by USB/SD card) are automatically saved both locally and to the cloud. This means that all of your photos – including web albums – are available online and offline. This makes the Pix-Star frames far superior to Aura’s frames in terms of offline functionality – and arguably the best digital photo frame for families and elderly users on today’s market.
Aura vs Pix-Star – Which is the better overall digital frame?
The Aura vs Pix-Star debate is far from new. These frames have been compared and put toe-to-toe since their co-existence. Aura’s frames are some of the most expensive high-end frames on the market; whereas Pix-Star’s frames are some of the most affordable premium frames. In this case, Aura’s higher price doesn’t make them better overall frame.
While it’s true that Aura’s frames have arguably the highest resolution displays, they also use a 16:9 aspect ratio. Its awkward ratio means that most photos will be surrounded by black bars or cropped to fit the wider screen (since most smartphones and cameras shoot in 4:3 and 3:2 respectively). Pix-Star closes the gap by using a 4:3 aspect ratio and as such, offers more immersive and effortless slideshows.
Pix-Star then goes on to offer a host of features that Aura’s frames don’t. These include video & audio playback, more slideshow controls, weather, radio & web music, importing photo albums directly to the frame from social media & photo-sharing sites, USB/SD card support, internal storage, the ability to work offline, and comprehensive remote configuration capabilities.
When you consider all of these features, along with Pix-Star’s significantly lower price point, it’s easy to see why they’re the better choice. Despite having a lower resolution display than Aura’s frames, both Pix-Star and Aura are going to look very similar from across the room. You’ll likely only notice the difference upon close inspection – which is seldom how the frames will be used in the real world.
Can Aura and Pix-Star frames be remotely configured?
Remote configuration is a digital frame feature that lets you manage and control all of your frames from anywhere in the world. It’s a feature that’s usually managed via the web interface, though there are a few frames that let do so through a mobile app. remote configuration is a function that’s only found among the best digital frames on the market. It requires both cloud and Wi-Fi connectivity.
Pix-Star’s frames offer a far more robust and comprehensive remote configuration feature than Aura offers. You can manage and control groups of up to 25 Pix-Star frames via the web interface from anywhere in the world. With each – or all – of these Pix-Star frames, you can adjust their settings, start & manage slideshows, manage local and cloud storage, link new albums from social media, adjust slideshow settings & sources, update firmware, and more.
Aura’s frames don’t offer any such feature. There’s no local storage to manage and you need a constant connection to Aura’s servers to sync and view photos. Without this remote configuration feature, Aura’s frames aren’t ideal for families; whereas Pix-Star’s are the ideal choice. You can make sure that all the Pix-Star frames in the family (or with your close friends) get all the latest and greatest pictures at the perfect time. It’s also a fantastic way to get elderly users more involved without requiring much input on their part.
