My daughter is incredibly lucky for a number of reasons. One of the reasons is that she has great grandparents. It’s quite a rarity these days to have great grandparents so we cherish every moment and memory that we make with them and our daughter. The only issue we have is that they live in Scotland and we live in England, several hours apart. Whilst they do come to visit a few times a year, nothing beats being able to immediately share a moment from your phone. Only one problem here, they don’t have a smartphone.
I hunted high and low for a photo sharing solution. Many involved either a phone or a computer and they were clunky and fiddly. Google Photos and Apple Photos are great, but still require that the other party turns on a computer or owns a smartphone to view the images.
Then I stumbled across something called the Aura Frame.
Now you will have to excuse the lack of photos in this review – ironic I know – as we shipped off the Aura to the grandparents without taking a single photo of the frame itself, so any photos of the frame are taken from the Aura website.
What is the Aura Frame?
The Aura is quite simply a fabulously smart digital photo frame. Forget those god awful abominations from 2010 that were pixelated and overpriced and required a USB stick or SD card to load photos. This is the digital photo frame of the future. The Aura is a wi-fi connected photo frame that allows multiple family members to upload photos via a dedicated (and extremely well-coded) phone application. These photos then appear on the frame, with no input required by the end-user. The frame itself is a high quality 10″ display with a number of different colour and border options.
How Does the Aura Frame Work?
There are a few minimum requirements to get the frame to work. Most importantly, the end-user, in our case the great grandparents, must have Wi-Fi in the home. Thankfully ours already did. The second requirement is that the people intending on sending the photos must have an Android or iOS smartphone with the Aura app. Most people have a smartphone nowadays so that’s not a massive issue. I do want to circle back to the Wi-Fi however.
It’s possible to minimise the interaction and hassle needed to get the Aura up and running. My toddler’s great grandparents do have Wi-Fi, but they rarely add things to their network. In a stroke of genius, Aura have actually thought of a way round this. When you buy the Aura as a gift, there is the option of pre-entering the Wi-Fi SSID (that’s the name of the network to the non-tech-folk amongst you) AND the Wi-Fi password. This is then saved and when the frame reaches its final destination, it knows to login to that network automatically and do a little welcome message before it starts downloading the photos. This meant that all we had to do was jump on the phone and get the grandparents to pull the password card out of the access point / router and read us the information on it. We were then able to setup the Aura at our end, before we shipped it up to them. Genius. This sort of forward thinking is what really makes the Aura a fabulous piece of kit.
Once plugged in, the Aura can display photos in a number of fashions. It defaults to displaying the most recent images first, but anyone with the app that has been added to the family can choose a specific photo and force the frame to display it for a period of time – especially useful if you want to show the grandparents the new bike your bought for your little one or want to show them the exact moment your baby stood up! The photos can be uploaded via the app, but also emailed straight to the frame believe it or not.
What is the Aura App Like?
Excellent. The Aura App is really good. No glitches, no cheap feeling interface. Just a beautifully made mobile application.
At the top of the App are the usual settings and account options. Just below that, a list of family members are displayed, clicking on this list shows each member and how many photos they have uploaded so far.
For reference, each Aura frame can store and display 10,000 photos. Adding a new user is as simple as inviting them to the app via email or phone number.
Below this is the photo feed, which is a chronological display of the photos, with the most recent being at the top. Like Facebook, family members are able to comment and like the images. Swiping right on the photo feed shows all the photos in a grid and allows you to view many photos quickly.
Clicking on a photo allows you to share it externally from the app using other applications such as WhatApp or email. You can also edit the date the photo was taken and download it to your phone if you wish.
Adding photos requires that you press the big yellow “Add Photos” button at the bottom. This then brings up your phone gallery and you can select one or multiple images before uploading them. It really is super simple. Everyone with the app gets a notification and can see the images uploaded, whilst the person with the frame gets the images downloaded and displayed automatically via Wi-Fi without them having to do anything. Brilliant.
Are There Any Alternatives to the Aura?
Well not really if I’m honest. The other way that we share photos with relatives is by setting up a shared album on the Google Photos app, but this isn’t anywhere near as easy to access without a smartphone or computer. The other option is using a smart home device like a Google Nest Hub or Alexa display and adding the recipient to a shared album on that but again, its a pain in the arse vs the Aura and that requires them to have Wi-Fi too AND an obtrusive smart assistant device.
Basically, the Aura is the best photo sharing device out there for those that don’t have a smart phone.
Conclusion
I really like the Aura frame and app. So do the Grandparents. It’s lasted well and the simplicity is a massive selling point. I cannot think of a better way this could be executed – well done Aura. The costs are absolutely minimal too. There are no subscriptions and the frames themselves start at £149 which is very reasonable if you ask me and you can even buy them from Curry’s so it’s not hard to find one. I think this is a solid buy for anyone who wants an easy and instant way to share photos and memories with family members of all ages. A big thumbs up from Dad Hacks.
If you have any questions or want to reach out about this review, then please do contact me, as I love to hear from my readers.
