I live hundreds of miles from my family and I venture back 'north' once or twice a year, so I do miss out on quite a lot of family milestones. I have 4 nieces and 6 nephews and rely on Facetime and WhatsApp for updates. Not too long ago I would have been nipping into Boots to have my photographic film developed to put into an album to treasure, but those days seem long gone because everything else has become so instant and your photo album because your phone or your iCloud, assuming you remember the passwords to log in. I had a digital photo frame some years ago and everything was controlled by an SD card and if you ever wanted to make updates, you would need to remove the card, add the new photographs to it, re-add it to the frame and then upload them, all of which got boring very quickly.
I have got one or two photographs in frames around the house, but as the mister and I have no children of our own and instead have three cats, it is nice to be able to display some semblance of family links somewhere, even creating something that can become someone else's memories in the future. This is where the Nixplay Iris can make a whole world of difference to your life and it brings together the ability to display your photos whilst using technology to create how you want to show off your snaps.
Meet the Nixplay Iris WiFi Digital Frame
The perfect combination of sophisticated design with cutting-edge technology.
It’s stylish and sleek, with a stunning display. And keeps you close to the people you care about.
Discover your photos in a new light.
The Nixplay Iris comes in a choice of colours, peach cooper (as seen in this post), silver and then burnished bronze and it plays photos on a 4:3 high-resolution IPS display. It is 8inches in size and you can choose whether you want it to display landscape or portrait photographs and because the power cable also doubles up as a stand, you can place the frame around your home but as the power cord does stick out a few inches from the outlet, you will need to ensure there is a gap between the wall and the furniture to plug it in. I have mine on my desk in the office and it is a nice afternoon distraction.
Designed to fit any home environment intelligently, the Nixplay Iris will dim and brighten its panel to best display photos according to your ambient light level. It also has what is referred too as an 'activity sensor' which means the frame will detect sound in the room display to your most recent photos first and if it is quiet, it powers off again until someone makes a noise.
When displaying a photo that doesn’t match the frame’s orientation, the Iris fills the background with a blurred version of the image, but there is the option to select “fill to frame” in the transition settings, something I have done and continue to do. One of the issues with using your phone as a camera is that the choice between a photo being landscape or portrait is important when using it with this frame.
As well as photos, this frame has built-in speakers, so it is compatible with videos too and for me, this is such a great feature, more so because I have videos of my nieces and nephews singing like angels (ahem) and it is something I want to keep (haunt them with) and have on show.
I am incredibly impressed with the colour quality, it comes with 8GB of built-in memory, so it does hold a lot of photos and at the last count, mine had well over 150 and still counting. I access my frame via WiFi and the Nixplay App and it makes life so simple to send photos and videos in just a few clicks. It took seconds to set up and just as long to figure out how it works. The Iris is also compatible with Instagram, Facebook, Flickr, Alexa, Dropbox and Google Photos. The use of the app means you can simply drag and drop photos onto your Iris really easily. I have folders set up for my Iris and each one has a theme - cats, for example, features my three boys in different poses from Kitten to adult, then I have the family, the mister and other memories. Once you have chosen where the photos are going on the Nixplay app, the frame, once connected to WiFi, will automatically download those photos and instantly start to display them.
As well as choosing which photos to display, the Iris gives you a few different display options and this includes choosing how long to leave each image up, whether to zoom in on photos which don't match the frames orientation and the type of transition between photos. As well as using the Iris itself, you can also make all of these decisions using the Nixplay app. The frame also comes with a handy remote control which gives you the option to turn the frame on and off, adjust the brightness, navigate through the menu and fast forward through the photos.
The best thing about this frame, other than being able to have more photos on my desk than anyone else in the office, is just how easy it is to use. As soon as the frame is hooked up to a power source, the on-screen welcome video essentially helps you set up your frame in a matter of minutes, including adding it to your WiFi connection, creating a Nixplay account and how to pair the frame with your photo via the app. It is so simple to use, I was uploading photos within minutes.
This frame is priced around £169.99 from Amazon (here*) and it is worth every single penny, I absolutely love how easy to use, the colour which is obviously on trend and the chance to now have photos and videos for my own perusal on my desk.
Have you ever tried a frame like this?
*this post contains PR samples and/or Affiliate Links unless indicated otherwise - you can learn more on my Disclaimer page.