Digital Frame Reboot: Review Of The Nixplay WiFi Cloud Frame
I always loved the concept of a digital frame – it is a great way to enjoy your photos – but the first digital frames that came out about a decade ago were more trouble than they were worth. While my family and visitors enjoyed viewing the pictures, it became a chore to add or make changes to the frame. I had to add photos to a memory stick, plug it into the frame, and upload the new photos. I honestly don’t remember if my old digital frame stopped working or I just got tired of it and put it away!
So when Nixplay offered me the opportunity to review their Nixplay Seed Wifi Cloud frame, I jumped at the chance. I have been curious about this frame for some time now. The fact that it works with WiFi and the Cloud means there’s no more plugging in the frame to your computer or putting a memory stick into the frame to add photos. Instead, you can send photos to the Nixplay frame instantly via WiFi and the cloud from your smartphone, computer, and email, and you can invite friends and family to add photos to your frame, as well! My head is spinning with all the possibilities! For example, you can give Grandma a frame and her children and grandchildren can upload photos directly to her frame from their phones. Just think of how thrilled she’ll be when new photos pop up on her Nixplay frame! Or how about as a gift for new parents, grandparents, college students, weddings or anniversaries? The possibilities are endless!
Needless to say, I was excited when the Nixplay frame arrived. It came in a sturdy box with an easy to follow Quick Start Guide inside. All I had to do was plug in the frame and choose my preferred orientation (landscape or portrait). The power cable doubles as the stand, which is a pretty cool design. After pointing the remote at the center of the frame, a welcome message appeared and I followed the easy prompts to set-up the WiFi connection to the frame (you just need your WiFi password, of course) and create my Nixplay account. Within minutes I had photos displaying on my frame!
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I had so much fun playing with this new frame. Here are some of the features I really liked:
It’s so easy to upload photos from your phone. You just install the Nixplay app and then select photos from your camera roll or gallery.
You can “add friends” and invite them to upload to your frame. In case you are wondering, you can also delete photos your friends upload if you decide you don’t want them (and they won’t know get a notification or anything!).
You can have multiple playlists. This is a great feature; for instance, you could create a vacation playlist of a recent trip, or at the holidays you could upload a series of photos from holidays over the years. I used to like to create themes like this with my old digital frame but I would essentially have to wipe out what was already there to add my new collection. With multiple playlists, that is no longer an issue!
If you are a Google Photos user, you can connect one of your playlists to your Google Photos account and select the “automatic” option so that each time an album in Google Photos is updated, your Nixplay playlist will be updated dynamically. Pretty cool.
You can also manage multiple frames (up to 10) in your account. For instance, you might have a frame at your house but also want to manage your mother’s frame for her.
You can upload photos via the mobile app, email or online at www.nixplay.com and you can add photos from your local drive, Facebook, Instagram, Dropbox, Flickr, Verizon Cloud, and more.
You can upload videos, too, though there is a limit of 15 seconds per video. If your video is longer than that, the app gives you a tool to trim/choose which 15 seconds you want. You can even record a video and then add it to a playlist for your friend or relative. What a neat way to send a message to a loved one!
You can adjust settings for the motion sensor (which can prevent a slideshow from running when no one is there), shuffle, transition styles, and clock.
Nixplay has great customer support including a searchable knowledge base, tutorial videos, email, and a phone number to speak to a real person.
The frame is beautiful and high quality with a crisp photo display. I also love the subtle fade effect on the side of vertical pictures and some horizontal photos. Just like you’d see in a professional slide show, it blurs the colors from the photo in the fade – here is an example:
I’ve been playing around with this frame for a couple of weeks now and I can honestly say I didn’t find anything that concerned me, but here are a few thoughts you may want to consider:
You can only rearrange the photos in your playlist when on the website, not in the phone app. Personally I think the best thing about this frame is how EASY and FAST it is to use, so I don’t even feel motivated to rearrange my pictures. I love that we can just quickly add photos and my family and I can instantly enjoy them! It sure is better than the photos just languishing on our phones.
The remote is a little square-shaped device that is not the typical rectangular shape you usually find in a remote, so it feels to me a little awkward to hold. However, I do like that it doesn’t take up much space and is easy to keep right next to the frame.
The WiFi Cloud Frames have a price tag starting at $139.99 and vary depending on size and style. It’s a higher sticker price than the digital frames that hit the market a decade ago (or that are still being sold without WiFi/Cloud capabilities), but in my opinion the quality, convenience and functionality justify the price tag.
Overall, this is a quality, innovative and convenient piece of technology that can help you quickly and easily enjoy the photos that are normally hiding on your phone. I can’t begin to explain how fun it was to be viewing my photos in a beautiful slideshow in my kitchen just minutes after removing the Nixplay frame from the box.
For more information about Nixplay frames, visit www.nixplay.com.