What is the best digital picture frame with an app?
Pix-Star’s digital picture frame with an app is arguably the best on the market in terms of versatility, ease of use, and value for money. The Pix-Star Snap mobile app lets you send up to 250 photos to multiple Pix-Star frames at the same time. There’s no need to create an account to use the app and none of its features are locked behind a subscription paywall (as they are with Skylight and Nixplay digital picture frames).
Pix-Star’s digital picture frames can also receive videos clips (2-minute maximum length) and audio messages via the mobile app. Videos need to be selected from your phone’s gallery and can be sent to any of your Pix-Star frames via its unique email address. For comparison, Dragon Touch frames only let you play 30-second video clips, Skylight frames let you play 15-second clips, and Aura frames cannot play videos or audio files).
How to send photos to a digital picture frame via mobile app?
With the Pix-Star Snap mobile app, you can send photos to your digital picture frames from anywhere in the world. All you need to do is add your Pix-Star frame’s unique email address to the mobile app via the “Add a New Frame” function. Once an email address has been added once, it will be remembered from then on and only needs to be selected from a list of linked frames.
To send photos to your digital picture frame through the app, simply select them from your phone’s gallery – or capture new pictures directly through the app (via your phone’s camera). Once you’ve selected all of the desired pictures, hit send, and wait for them to display on your frame. With Pix-Star’s frames, incoming photos can be set to automatically show in the currently playing slideshow (unless you set the frame to request manual acceptance for new photos).
Can digital picture frames with apps work offline?
Pix-Star’s digital picture frames with an app have great offline functionality – but this isn’t a common offering – even among the top digital picture frames. Pix-Star’s frames can be set to automatically save any incoming photos, videos, and audio messages from the mobile app to the frame’s internal storage. Alternatively, you can set the frame to request manual confirmation before saving it to local storage.
Once photos and other media from any source are saved to the Pix-Star’s 8GB internal storage, they’re available for offline use. This includes photos albums that have been imported from external sources like social media, photo-sharing, and online storage platforms. Even when the frame is offline, you can start slideshows, manage local storage, delete and move files around, adjust the frame’s settings, manage the display’s brightness and color settings, and much more.
By contrast, many other top digital frames like the Aura frame have little to no offline functionality. Aura frames need to be connected to Wi-Fi and the company cloud servers at all times to function properly. This isn’t ideal as many elderly users and homes don’t have constant Wi-Fi access – or the know-how to make use of online-only features.
How do digital picture frames with an app work?
Digital picture frames that have an app are usually only found in the premium end of the market. Having a mobile app is an extremely versatile feature that lets you send photos, videos, and audio messages to your frame(s) from anywhere in the world. It’s a great feature for families and homes that do a lot of photos sharing. For example, the Pix-Star Snap mobile app lets you send up to 250 photos to several frames at the same time – all in one go.
Pix-Star’s digital picture frames with an app have internal storage, cloud storage, Wi-Fi connectivity, and a unique email address. This unique email address is used to identify the frame and receive a photo mail from the Pix-Star Snap mobile app. The incoming photos can then be set to automatically save to the frame’s internal storage upon reception (or request manual acceptance). They’ve also backed up to the cloud automatically and this storage can be remotely managed from anywhere in the world.
To start using the app, you simply need to add your frame’s unique email address to the app’s list of connected frames. this only needs to be done once. From then on, you only need to select the frame from a list of linked frames.
The ability to send videos and audio messages isn’t a universally offered feature and it comes with limits in almost every case. For example, Pix-Star mobile app lets you select and send video clips from your phone’s gallery. You can live record voice messages and send them to any of your frames. Video clips are limited to 2-minutes in maximum length (which is more than almost every other frame on the market).
Do you need to pay subscription fees for a digital picture frame app?
Finding the best digital picture frame with an app is usually only possible at the premium end of the market. You’ll rarely find a mid-range or cheap digital picture frame with a support mobile app that also lets you send pictures – at least with fluid real-world performance. Top digital picture frames like the Pix-Star come with access to both a mobile app and web interface.
In Pix-Star’s case, the Pix-Star Snap mobile app is free to use and doesn’t require account creation. You only need to download the app and add your frame’s unique email address. It’s easy to use and elderly-friendly. Pix-Star’s case is rather unique in terms of versatility and cost.
Other top frames like Nixplay and Skylight have mobile apps, but you need to pay for the premium “Plus” subscription to access them. Without paying for the subscription, you can’t send photos or videos and can’t use the app to remotely control some of your frame’s settings.
Aura’s frames have a mobile app, but the difference is that you need a constant Wi-Fi and cloud connection to view photos. All photos sent via the app are synced to the company cloud servers first. They’re then synced to the Aura frame. This means that the app doesn’t technically send photos directly to your frame as you’d get with Pix-Star’s frames (the Pix-Star method is the recommended choice) for most modern homes & families.
