What is the best Wi-Fi picture frame for families in 2022?
The Pix-Star frame is arguably the best Wi-Fi picture frame for families in 2022. A good part of this is their robust feature and loads of family-friendly features like web albums (importing photo albums from social media) and remote configuration support (controlling your frame from anywhere via the web interface).
Pix-Star Wi-Fi digital picture frames come with either a 10-inch or a 15-inch display. They use a 4:3 aspect ratio to perfectly match the aspect ratio that most smartphones capture photos in. It’s great for families that share lots of photos from their phones and don’t want to waste hours editing and resizing pictures before sending them to the frame.
Pix-Star’s mobile app (Pix-Star Snap) is one of the best in its class. It’s perfect for families as you don’t need to create an account for each user. Simply download the app, add the receiving frame’s email address (only needs to be done once), and send it away. You can send up to 250 photos to several Pix-Star frames at the same time from anywhere in the world.
Another great feature for families is Pix-Star’s video and audio support. You can send video clips to your frames via the mobile app or with a USB/SD card. There’s also an option to play audio files from a connected USB/SD card over slideshows. Pix-Star’s mobile app also lets you send audio recordings from your phone to any of your frames.
Pix-Star’s slideshows are incredibly versatile. You have plenty of controls that let you adjust the play order and frequency of photos. Videos can be included in slideshows along with photos – and you can play audio files over them.
Pix-Star’s web interface is perhaps the most suited to family use. Here you can create multi-frame control groups with up to 25 Pix-Star frames. You can easily adjust their settings, start slideshows, manage local and cloud storage, update firmware, control the motion sensor, and much more – no matter where you are in the world.
This remote configuration feature fits in perfectly with Pix-Star’s web album support. Here you can import and sync photos from a dozen external sources including social media, photo-sharing sites, and even cloud storage platforms. Once you set web albums to automatically update, they’ll sync all the new photos from all linked albums to all connected frames. It’s a great way to automate photo-sharing for big families and especially for those with elderly users that want to be more involved.
Pix-Star doesn’t charge any extra fees or subscriptions – unlike Nixplay frames and Skylight frames. This means you get incredible value for money and a frame that effortlessly caters to everyone in the family. Unlike competing frames like Aura (no internal storage, no audio or video support, no USB/SD card support), Pix-Star’s have loads of family-friendly features – all while offering great offline functionality and ease of use!
What are the best family-friendly features in a Wi-Fi digital frame for 2022?
A remote-control feature is a must-have feature for the modern digital frame with Wi-Fi. Note that only a handful of the top digital frames like the Pix-Star offer a remote configuration feature (via Pix-Star’s web interface). Some digital frames even lock this feature behind a subscription paywall, and even then, it’s not nearly as versatile as Pix-Star’s frames.
Great digital frames with Wi-Fi work well without Wi-Fi. You don’t want to be restricted by having to stream photos every time you want to view them in slideshows. It also leaves you vulnerable to losing access to your photos when Wi-Fi cuts, the company servers go offline, or you stop paying for the monthly subscription (Nixplay and Skylight frames).
Finally, cloud storage should be free and easy to set up. In Pix-Star’s case, you simply need to register your frame on the web interface via its unique serial number. Once you’ve done this, you’ll get access to the web dashboard. Here’s where you can manage cloud storage, remotely adjust your frame settings, start slideshows, and import photo albums from social media.
Do the best Wi-Fi picture frames for families in 2022 work offline?
Pix-Star’s Wi-Fi picture frames offer great offline functionality. You can use any USB/SD card size and a wide range of formats. Simply load the USB/SD card full of pictures, video, and audio files, insert it into your Pix-Star frame, and start a slideshow. You don’t need to copy any of its content to the frame’s internal storage before viewing them in slideshows.
Another great feature for offline use is Pix-Star’s 8GB internal storage. While this is relatively standard at this price point, Pix-Star’s automatically saving web albums are unique. All photos sent to the frame via the web interface, mobile app, and email are automatically saved to internal storage.
This lets you access your photos offline via the file explorer, start slideshows, adjust settings, and much more. Pix-Star’s frames are ideal for families, photographers that send photos from their cameras to their frame via SD card, and elderly users that don’t always have access to Wi-Fi.
For reference, many competing frames like the Skylight and Aura frames don’t have internal storage or USB/SD card support. Nixplay’s frames offer internal storage, but no USB/SD card support. With these frames, you need a constant and strong Wi-Fi connection to stream photos for slideshows.
What is the best display size for a Wi-Fi picture frame for families?
We recommend the 15-inch digital frame as the best Wi-Fi picture frame size for families. They’re great for large and well-lit rooms like the living room or the entrance to your home. The larger display is excellent for wall mounting and offers a broad viewing angle.
Pix-Star’s 15-inch digital frame uses a 4:3 aspect ratio, which is far superior to 16:9 and 16:10 digital frames for displaying photos from most modern smartphones (they capture photos in 4:3). With 16:9 digital frames, you’ll spend a lot of time editing and cropping images to match the display’s aspect ratio. This can be a huge time sink – particularly for families and anyone not very tech-savvy.
