Are Skylight digital picture frames the best frames for families?
While Skylight digital picture frames are one of the most popular options on the market – they’re far from being the best for families. Pix-Star’s digital frame range is arguably the most versatile and capable digital frame for families, elderly users, and modern homes with features like free-for-life cloud storage, access to both a mobile app & web interface, sending & receiving photos from anywhere in the world, and much more.
Perhaps Pix-Star’s most useful feature for families is the remote-control function. Here you can remotely manage & control up to 25 connected Pix-Star frames from anywhere in the world. You can adjust most of their settings, start slideshows (and change their sources and settings on the go), update firmware, manage local & cloud storage, import photo albums from social media & photo-sharing sites, and much more.
Pix-Star’s web album feature in particular is an excellent family-focused feature. Here you can connect to, link, and sync photo albums from social media, photo-sharing, and online storage platforms. Synced albums are automatically saved to the Pix-Star’s internal storage and can be remotely managed (to delete, edit, move, etc.).
Linked web albums can be set to automatically update to all connected frames whenever new photos are added to the album. This essentially automates the photo-sharing process and lets you share photos with all connected frames by simply loading them to the linked social media or photo-sharing profile. Pix-Star’s web albums are available offline and can be included in slideshows with just a couple of clicks.
Is the Skylight digital picture frame’s subscription plan worth it?
The Skylight digital picture frames premium subscription (Skylight Plus) is an option annual subscription that’s required to unlock features like cloud storage, video support (sending and playing), use of the mobile app, remotely deleting photos, adding captions to photos, and creating & viewing custom photo albums.
We rarely recommend getting a premium digital frame that requires a subscription fee as they seldom offer anything unique. For reference, Pix-Star’s digital frames offer free-for-life cloud storage, video support, access to both the mobile app & web dashboard, automatic cloud backups, web album support, and extensive remote-control functionality.
Skylight digital frames struggle to hold and send large quantities of files via the cloud service – with many users complaining that it tops out after 200+ photos. For reference, Pix-Star’s frames can send large quantities easily as web albums, via USB/SD card, or up to 250 photos to several Pix-Star frames at the same time via the Pix-Star Snap mobile app.
When you consider that Skylight’s frames are more expensive (base price) than top frames like the Pix-Star or Dragon Touch, it’s hard to justify paying all that extra money over the Skylight frame’s effective lifespan – especially for features that are offered for free elsewhere. The long-term cost of Skylight frames will be significantly higher than frames like the Pix-Star.
While the Skylight Plus is seen as a must-have, it doesn’t offer enough to justify itself – and you don’t get great value for money. This is one of the main reasons we don’t recommend buying digital frames that require additional subscription fees (unless they offer some unique or super-helpful feature that can’t be found for free elsewhere).
Do Skylight digital picture frames offer cloud storage?
Skylight digital picture frames do offer cloud backups for your photos and video – but it’s another feature that’s locked behind the Skylight Plus subscription paywall. Without purchasing the Skylight Plus annual subscription, you don’t have access to cloud storage and backups, or the ability to remotely delete photos & videos via the mobile app.
For comparison, Pix-Star’s frames have a lower base price, no subscription fees or hidden costs – yet they offer free-for-life cloud storage and automatic backups. You can remotely manage both the cloud and local storage for any of your Pix-Star frames (up to 25 from a single user account) from anywhere in the world. Other top digital frames like the Dragon Touch also offer free cloud storage; whereas others like Nixplay charge additional subscription fees too.
Can Skylight digital picture frames play videos?
Skylight digital picture frames can play video clips – but it’s a feature that’s locked behind the Skylight Plus subscription paywall. Without this annual subscription being active, there is no way to send videos or display them on the Skylight frame.
For reference, competing frames like the Pix-Star offer video playback without the need for an additional subscription package. Additionally, Pix-Star’s frames let you send video clips via the Pix-Star Snap mobile app. Video clips can be a maximum length of 2-minutes (which is more than almost all other premium frames). Alternatively, you can load videos to Pix-Star’s frames by USB/SD card – something that can’t be done with Skylight digital frames.
Skylight doesn’t let you include videos in slideshows and you can’t send video clips longer than 1-minute in length – even if you have the Skylight Plus subscription package active. When you consider that many competing frames like the Pix-Star or Dragon Touch frames include video support for free, it gets hard to justify choosing Skylight’s digital frames over them – a fact that’s made worse by Skylight’s high long-term cost.
How to remotely control Skylight digital picture frames
Skylight digital picture frames only offer the most basic remote-control features such as the ability to remotely delete photos or send photos to the frame via the mobile app. Unfortunately, all remote-control features are locked behind a paywall (the Skylight Plus subscription package).
Without this subscription package, the only way to control the frame is directly on the frame via the touchscreen or the button control on the frame’s rear (which are blocked if you choose to wall-mount the Skylight frame).
If you want to remotely control your digital frame, there are other superior options on the market. For example, Pix-Star’s frames offer a comprehensive remote-control feature that lets you remotely adjust the frame’s settings, start & manage slideshows, manage both local & cloud storage, change slideshow sources, update the frame’s firmware, import web albums (photo albums) from online sources like social media, photo-sharing, and online storage platforms.
Pix-Star’s remote-control feature is free to use and not locked behind any paywall. It’s easy to set up by registering your frame’s serial number at Pix-Star’s web portal. You can then manage & control up to 25 connected Pix-Star frames from a single user account via the web dashboard.
