Hey all,

I want to set up and send a few photo frames (<5) to a few family members and have the ability to remotely upload/show pictures on them.

There are thousands of "digital photo frames" out there but I have a very hard time trusting what I'm finding. If folks here wouldn't mind sharing their good & bad experiences, I would really appreciate it!

Specs:

- powered from AC/USB (ie it doesn't have to run from a battery)

- wifi

- extra bonus points if I could setup the wifi in advance (in the case of one network, I know the SSID & password)

- there might be one case where the person receiving the frame will have to setup the wifi - I'd love for that to be extremely painless

- probably not eink - I want to show photos and ... photos would not be as ... photo-y as on a regular LCD/LED display, right?

- I'd love to be able to email photos, or use some app on my iOS device to "share" photos? Or maybe upload photos on a site? Obviously, the easiest/less friction-less the better.

- actually it would be great if multiple people could email/use an app to share photos ie 2 people could upload photos to 3 frames.

- it would be neat to verify that the upload/sharing worked ie to know which photos are actually shown on the digital frame

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Anti-specs:

- I'd rather not use something iCloud-based - I'm never 100% sure if it's not going to share all of my phone's photos or do a weird unexpected sync. Unfortunately, I don't trust it.

- something very DIY - I've setup dozens of Raspis and love them deeply, but I'd rather not have to tailscale/ssh into a cluster of digital photo frames

- something deeply dependent on a seemingly fly-by-night company..? (I feel like I'll have to be flexible here)

Also wondering if there's a way to buy/setup an iOS/Android tablet and use that? Is that a good/bad idea? Or do I want a thing that has a frame and a little "leg"..?

Thanks a ton!

https://auraframes.com/

Avoid the Skylight frames and calendar, lots of cloud lock in and even though they’re Android powered, you can’t modify to remove the paid for cloud requirement bits.

Aura has worked for us. Setup was easy. We have multiple family members with frames all of which can easily be accessed from a single app

A printed analog one.

I've been using the Aura frame. Seems to tick off all the boxes you mentioned, and it's worked seamlessly for me so far.