To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories.
To revisit this article, select My Account, then View saved stories Best Wifi Photo Frames
If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. Please also consider subscribing to WIRED
Most of us have hundreds, if not thousands, of photos just sitting on our phones and computers that we rarely get to revisit in a polished way. I make photo albums, but some deserve to be more on display, and there are just too many to frame. That's why I love digital photo frames.
If you're thinking of the tacky, pixelated digital frames of the early aughts, you're in for a nice surprise. They've come a long way. They're nice to have around the house, and they also make great gifts. You can set them up for others and push your latest vacation photos straight to them, so your parents or grandparents can always stay up-to-date. Most require a Wi-Fi connection. Cheaper ones often have SD card slots, but the quality suffers. If internet isn't an issue, I have several recommendations. These are the best digital picture frames (and the worst).
Don't have enough pictures? Check out our many other buying guides, like the Best Compact Cameras, the Best Mirrorless Cameras, the Best Photo Printing Services, and the Best Camera Gear for your Phone.
Updated December 2023: We've added two new frame recommendations from Aura and Loop.
Special offer for Gear readers: Get a 1-year subscription to WIRED for $5 ($25 off). This includes unlimited access to WIRED.com and our print magazine (if you'd like). Subscriptions help fund the work we do every day.
You might not think that photos count as sensitive information, compared to a bank account statement or your Social Security number. But it can be devastating to find photos of loved ones used for nefarious or unsavory purposes.
This is why we prefer frames from reputable companies like Aura and Nixplay over cheaper ones with less clearly defined privacy and security practices. Nixplay offers reasonable security measures, like encrypting your photos during transmission, and Aura offers the option to delete metadata, like the location where a photo was captured. However, both say they may disclose personal information if court-ordered or subpoenaed, and neither provides safety guarantees against hacking.
If you're concerned about security, you can avoid connecting to third-party services, but your most secure option is to just download several photos on a tablet and disable all internet connectivity.
There's no beating Aura when it comes to digital frames. All of them have high-quality displays and unlimited photo storage. Plus, they're dead simple to set up, use, and share with family and friends. Everything is controlled with the app, so there's no laggy touchscreen to futz with—you can scroll through or heart photos using the touchbar on top. This 2022 version of the Carver drops the price to $149—from there, styles go up to $300, though they're often discounted. The Carver is landscape only, but some other Aura models can work in portrait too.
Maybe the best part is that Aura frames don't look like shiny computer screens. Several guests have said they didn't realize it was a digital screen until the photo changed, which is exactly what I want. You can use Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa to control some features, but you still need Aura's app, which is straightforward to use. There's a scan feature to help better display physical photos or your kid's drawings.
Recently, it seems that every digital frame brand is releasing extra-large versions meant to hang on the wall. I don't particularly like the idea of a cord hanging down, but if you don't mind it or can find a way to hide it elegantly, Aura's newest 15-inch Walden is the best option. It works in portrait or landscape orientation and has a white, textured mat around it for a more polished, professional look. It gets all the other Aura pros, and if you just want a large frame and don't want to hang it, it comes with a metal stand.
Nixplay frames are comparable to Aura, and if you can get one on sale for cheaper, you'll be happy with it. I typically prefer frames without touch screens because they tend to be low-quality and frustrating. Nixplay is better than the cheaper touch-screen frames, and it's nice to not have to keep track of a remote like some of the brand's other options.
Nixplay frames have additional perks, like a small clock you can add to the display, though that does make it look less like a real photo frame and more like a smart display. Google Assistant can only control power to the frames, but Alexa has more capabilities. As with the Aura, you still need to use the Nixplay app. As a bonus, Nixplay plants a tree for every frame bought in partnership with Trees for the Future.
Loop's frame also has a touchscreen, but it was among the best of the options I've tried, and photo quality is solid. You can text photos to the frame instead of having to do it in-app, which is nice if your family member is sending photos to your frame and you don't want them to see your entire slideshow. A few frame options offer the ability to email photos. Vertical photos can be shown side-by-side, auto-stretched, or letter-boxed. For the latter, the background is a blurred image of the photo, but Loop says a black or white option is coming as an app update. I was also impressed by the quality of the rose gold metal stand, which adds an extra element of style.
But there are some quirks that I think can be improved upon. I don't like that you have to do some of the signing-up on the frame and some on the app—and if you want to remove a frame, you have to do a factory reset on the device itself, and then remove it from the app, where your photos will remain. I think it should be app only.
The 15-inch Skylight Frame looks sleek and expensive sitting on my shelf—it should, it costs $300 (the 10-inch frame is $160). Upon closer inspection, you'll see that image quality suffers a bit, especially for the pictures I took on my iPhone. They lose a little bit of detail, but photos taken with a professional camera looked better. Skylight adjusts images to fill the entire screen, but you can zoom out with two fingers like you would on a phone or tablet.
When you create your account, you can set up a custom email address to send photos to or handle everything in the app, as you would on the other frames we like. Like the Aura Walden, there is a wall mount if you want to hang it, and you can install it in either landscape or portrait orientation. If you have a Fire device, like a Fire TV, you can display your images there too. There's an optional subscription, but it doesn't seem worth the money.
Monster's digital frame isn't as good as the other options on this list, but I found it to be the best of the cheap options. The touchscreen was noticeably faster, and the 1280p screen gets you crisp photos. You can use Google Assistant or Alexa with it too.
It has a limit of 4,000 photos, whereas Aura offers unlimited storage, but that's still a huge amount of photos to display. I took the white matting off, because I thought it looked a little cheap. Without it, the all-black look is much sleeker. It was around $130 when we first tried it, but it has since dropped down to between $50 and $70. For that price, it's not bad.
If you already have a smart display, you can set it to cycle through your photo albums when it's idle. You'll get more for your money by doing so, plus a voice assistant to control your smart home products and helpful additions like walking you through recipes while you cook. On the downside, smart displays don't blend into your decor the way digital frames are designed to. They can also be tricky to navigate for those who aren't tech-savvy, and built-in microphones and cameras come with privacy concerns.
We think smart displays are becoming less necessary, and we're not sure how long they'll be around. Google has stopped providing updates to some third-party displays, and we suspect more companies will follow. If you do want one, this Google Nest Hub Max is our current favorite. Google lets you specify who in your photos can show up on smart displays, and its displays are smart about avoiding, um, private photos. The Echo Show 8 is good for fans of Alexa.
I thoroughly investigated cheap digital frames. There are options that cost less than our favorites, but most don't look as nice, with low-quality touchscreens and frustrating apps, and you may not get a reasonable expectation of privacy and protection. Now that the Monster frame above has dipped to around $70 or less, we suggest going with that one instead if you don't want to spend the money on the better options.
$100 off Dyson Gen5detect Absolute vacuum + $100 of Airstrait straightener at checkout
GoPro Promo Code: save 15% on your next order
Samsung coupon Code for up to 40% Off the store
Redeem $1000 discount on iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max - Best Buy coupon
15% off VistaPrint promo code when you sign up for emails
Wireless Charger © 2023 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices