Wireless Digital Picture Frames

[johnnyshaka]

Anybody have one?

Thinking about getting a digital picture frame for my parents so they don't have to wander into the basement to see pictures of their granddaughters on the computer. But, seeing as they likely won't update the pictures themselves (probably could write out some instructions for them but it could get complicated) I would love to have a way to update it for them so they don't have anything to worry about...and I guess it would be nice to be sitting down for their morning coffee only to see a new slide show of pictures of their grandkids getting into all sorts of mischief.

So, anybody have any experience with them and are there any suggestions for what/what not to buy?

Thanks!

[DanGarion]

Personally I'm not really a big fan of them. They just don't look that good IMO.

[TheOhioStateUniversity]

I would recommend cnet.com for reviews

[Alan T]

We got one for my in-laws a while back, it lets you just put pictures on a flash card from your computer and then plug the card into the frame. It then autoloads the pictures on the card and cycles through them.

Works great with no problems at all, and since they are not very computer literate, from time to time we just update a new card for them to put in and get the old one back. They love it and it is no hassle for us (takes only 2 minutes to update a new card).

The ONLY caution I have is when these first started becoming popular, there were several made in China that came with a virus/trojan that would infect your computer when you connected to them. if you stick to a frame like I have where you don't actually connect your computer to it, you should be fine though.

[johnnyshaka]

We got one for my in-laws a while back, it lets you just put pictures on a flash card from your computer and then plug the card into the frame. It then autoloads the pictures on the card and cycles through them.

Works great with no problems at all, and since they are not very computer literate, from time to time we just update a new card for them to put in and get the old one back. They love it and it is no hassle for us (takes only 2 minutes to update a new card).

The ONLY caution I have is when these first started becoming popular, there were several made in China that came with a virus/trojan that would infect your computer when you connected to them. if you stick to a frame like I have where you don't actually connect your computer to it, you should be fine though.

Read about the virus stuff last night...hilarious!!

My folks are on the other side of the country so I'm thinking of a wireless solution (there are frames out there that will use services like flickr to stream pictures continuously) instead of having to manually update stuff.

[DanGarion]

Just tell them to leave their computer on all the time, and then get the Google / Picasa screen saver extension for Firefox, and set that up. :)

[Alan T]

Read about the virus stuff last night...hilarious!!

My folks are on the other side of the country so I'm thinking of a wireless solution (there are frames out there that will use services like flickr to stream pictures continuously) instead of having to manually update stuff.


Ahh, I can't help with that too much. My wife has family in South America, and my family lives in the Southeast U.S. so I know about long distance family though. What we did there was just set up a webserver with a photo album on it and teach them how to connect to it. It has 4500 or so pictures now, and any time it is not updated regularly we get harassing phone calls from other countries :) I haven't done anything with the picture frames that connect wirelessly though, that seems like a neat idea.

[johnnyshaka]

Just tell them to leave their computer on all the time, and then get the Google / Picasa screen saver extension for Firefox, and set that up. :)

LOL!! Actually, I currently have a website setup with a gallery they can check out but, being old folks, the computer is in a dark corner of the basement as they believe they should be. I'd like something they can put on the coffee table and not be pissed off about it.

[johnnyshaka]

...and any time it is not updated regularly we get harassing phone calls from other countries :)

Precisely why I got a phone call from Mom last night!!! :)

My sister should be calling any day now...

[Logan]

Read about the virus stuff last night...hilarious!!

My folks are on the other side of the country so I'm thinking of a wireless solution (there are frames out there that will use services like flickr to stream pictures continuously) instead of having to manually update stuff.

Didn't even know such a thing existed. I thought you were looking for a cordless digital picture frame. That's pretty cool though.

Bought my mom one for Mother's Day last year and loaded it up with pictures of her grandkids. She loved it.

[johnnyshaka]

Digital Picture Frames (http://www.wirelesspictureframe.com/)

Decent site to do some reading about this stuff but I'd still like to hear an opinion or two from guys/gals I know (well, as much as you can know somebody from FOFC...LOL!!).

[DanGarion]

Here is one I just heard about today.

http://gadgetress.freedomblogging.com/2008/11/17/a-picture-frame-with-its-own-phone-number/5058/

Coming this week from T-Mobile: A digital picture frame with its own phone number.

[johnnyshaka]

Nice..."You've reached your picture frame. Sorry I'm not here right now but upload any pictures you want and I'll get them up right away. Thanks and have a good day."

[johnnyshaka]

Anybody else care to chime in?

[RendeR]

*chime*

[johnnyshaka]

Just bought the Kodak W1020 EasyShare digital picture frame. Got to play with one at Best Buy this afternoon and it's pretty slick. I'm going to do some more playing with this one before I give it to my folks for Christmas just to make sure it's something they will be able to use without too much fuss. It was a little pricey, $300 CDN, but my brother and I are going to split the cost so it isn't that big of a deal. I probably could've found something a little cheaper online but I wanted to make sure I had my hands on it a little while before we leave for home.

[AgustusM]

two years ago we bought two Ceiva ones for Christmas. One for my parents and one for my wife's both of which live pretty far away from us.

The way they are supposed to work is the connect via the phone line or wireless to get updates and you upload pictures to your Cieva account.

My parents are not very technical, but at least use computers for work and have a wireless home network (that I setup for them previously) I configured everything here and then sent it to them. It never quite worked, although when I was at thier house about 3 months ago I looked at it and they didn't plug everything back in correctly (which is odd, because really it was one power cord and one usb wireless dongle)

My wife's parents are really non technical and barely use the home computer they have from 1995. So I had to configure theirs to update via the phone line. I tried walk them though it on the phone (again nothing more than one power and one phone line) and we could never get it to work. They did at least plug it in and enjoy the old pictures, but could never get the new ones.

so long story long, our experience was not great.

[johnnyshaka]

Precisely why I'm going to play with this thing, for a week or so, to get myself familiar with it so I'll be able to troubleshoot it over the phone. And one thing I have going for me is that I"ll be able to set it up for them at their place and show them how to do whatever it is they may need to do.

Fingers crossed.

[johnnyshaka]

For anybody interested in buying one of these Kodak is offering $100 off their 8 inch wireless digital picture frame:

hxxp://www.kodak.com/eknec/PageQuerier.jhtml?pq-path=13166&pq-locale=en_US&CID=KOSBANNER&LOC=120108_DOORBUST_FRAM_thin

This looks like a US only deal and I believe it's only for one day.

So far, from what I've seen from the one I've bought my parents (bought the 10") it's a pretty solid product. A couple of gotchyas, however, for the software on your workstation at home to recognize the frame wirelessly, they must be on the same subnet. That means that some of you who's wireless routers, like mine, create a 192.168.1.0 subnet for your wired network and 192.168.2.0 for your wireless network won't be able to have your PC and frame "talk". But, have no fear, you can still get the frame to talk to the web and you can still confirgure your frame by simply using your web browser to point to the frame itself. From there you can configure settings and setup all the web stuff...so, really, no big deal...for my purposes at least.