Finding the perfect Christmas photo frame for your home and family is a meaningful and affordable gift for your loved ones. You’ll be able to share photos to any of their frames from anywhere in the world, relive your favorite memories, and connect with loved ones at any moment. We explore what features you should look for, how to get value for money, and which photo frames are the best in today’s market.
Is a Christmas photo frame a good gift?
A Christmas photo frame is a meaningful and easy-to-use gift for families and seniors. You can share photos with any of your digital photo frames from anywhere in the world. Many of the best Christmas photo frame brands have supported mobile apps and web dashboards to let you send photo albums from your phone, sync them from social media & photo-sharing sites, and much more.
Several trusted digital photo frame brands offer robust feature sets and good value for money. We recommend buying a digital frame that offers both Wi-Fi and cloud connectivity to make wireless photo-sharing easier and more senior-friendly. Many of the top digital frames support USB and SD cards to share photos in bulk, with some even offering a plug & play feature for playing slideshows directly from the connected USB/SD card.
Photo frames for Christmas such as the Pix-Star offer several family and senior-friendly features. You can share pictures via the mobile app, set incoming photos to display in the current slideshow, manage your frames remotely, import photo albums from social media, and much more.
It’s worth noting that some Christmas digital frames charge optional subscription fees. You need to pay these extra fees to unlock the frame’s full feature set – something that many competing frames offer without charging extra. Subscription-based digital frames include the Nixplay frame and the Skylight frame. Make sure to investigate which features are offered for free, and which are locked behind the subscription paywall.
What is the best Christmas photo frame for families?
The Pix-Star frame is arguably the best photo frame for families to buy this Christmas. The frame has one of the best feature sets, doesn’t charge recurring subscription fees, offers Wi-Fi and cloud connectivity, and a host of elderly-friendly features such as remote configuration support, automatic slideshows, and much more.
Pix-Star’s frames are quick and simple to set up. You can control multiple frames from a single user account, manage the cloud storage for all frames from a single computer, and even start slideshows (and adjust settings) remotely. Pix-Star’s frames can mount on the wall and displayed in either orientation.
Using the Pix-Star Snap mobile app, you can send up to 250 photos to several Pix-Star frames at the same time. Send short 2-minute video clips and audio messages from your phone and even share entire folders and collections to any of your frames in just a couple of moments.
Pix-Star’s frames also have a web interface that lets you remotely control and manage any of your Pix-Star frames. Here you can link and sync web albums to any of your frames. Web albums are photo albums imported from a dozen external sources including social media, photo-sharing sites, your computer, and even cloud storage platforms. Set web albums to update automatically whenever you add new photos for easier automated sharing.
Can seniors use a Christmas photo frame?
Pix-Star’s Christmas photo frames are designed for both seniors and families, with features supporting bulk photo-sharing, remote configuration, automatic slideshows and sharing, and modern features such as mobile apps, etc.
Pix-Star’s interface is designed for one or two-click slideshows from the home screen, easy-to-navigate options, and quick adjustable settings. You can adjust slideshow settings without leaving the slideshow, change the orientation of the photos, delete pictures, and more.
Pix-Star’s remote configuration feature is one of the best features for seniors. A multi-frame control group feature lets you manage up to 25 Pix-Star frames from a single user account. Here you can adjust each frame’s settings, start and change slideshows, manage cloud storage, update the frame’s firmware, and much more. It’s the perfect way to get grandparents and non-tech-savvy users involved in sharing photos and videos with the rest of the family – and a fantastic photo frame as a Christmas gift.
Do Christmas photo frames play video and audio?
Pix-Star’s Christmas photo frames can play 2-minute video clips and audio recordings sent via the Pix-Star Snap mobile app. Note that while 2-minute clips might not seem like much, it’s more than most competing frames offer – and doesn’t require users to pay extra subscription fees. For instance, Skylight and Nixplay lock video playback and extended playback behind their subscription paywall.
Unlike many other top Christmas photo frames, Pix-Star’s frames let you include videos in slideshows alongside photos. You can set videos to play muted by default or not play in slideshows at all. Once sent to any of your Pix-Star frames, video clips are saved to both the cloud and locally on your frame’s internal storage.
P.S. Pix-Star photo frames can play audio files from a connected USB or SD card over slideshows. The USB or SD card needs to stay connected at all times and the audio files need to be in a supported file format.
Do I need to pay a subscription for a Christmas photo frame?
Pix-Star’s Christmas photo frames do not charge any recurring or extra subscription fees. All of Pix-Star’s features are unlocked when you buy your Pix-Star frame. Note that you still need to connect your frame to Wi-Fi, add its unique email address to the Pix-Star Snap mobile app, and register the frame via the Pix-Star web dashboard to start using all of its features (e.g., web albums, remote configuration, cloud storage, etc.).
Some competing Christmas photo frames including Nixplay and Skylight are subscription-based. To unlock all of the frame’s features, photo-sharing, mobile app access, and more, you will need to purchase the recurring “Plus” subscription. It’s worth noting that these frames charge a similar upfront price to non-subscription-based frames like the Pix-Star – but lock many of their best features behind a subscription paywall.
