Aura Frames Reviews

by Divine Soccerball

I received my frame as a gift. Very excited! Then, totally unable to connect it to my wifi, after trying about 15 times and with other apps and devices having no issue connecting.

Support told me to reset to factory settings… which, ok, even though it literally arrived from the factory and had never been used. Thankfully, this worked! So I excitedly added a bunch of photos.

Then I had to unplug the frame and move it to another location in my house. And: back to not connecting to the wifi (and the frame’s new location is located right next to the router). Tried another 5 times, and I’m ready to throw this into the trash.

I guess I’ll reset to factory settings again, once I care enough to waste more of my time on this. And now, I’ll either need to re-add all the photos I want on the device or contact support to have them do this.

If you love banging your head against something meant to bring joy, and have plenty of time to kill with no guarantee of success… this may be the device for you!

Really disappointing and the opposite of joy.

by MOOOp64

I gave this to my grandmother for Christmas last year and it has stopped working all together. I set it up for her and I know what I am doing. She told me her Aura frame has not been working the last few weeks so I drove over to her house to fix it. I was beyond frustrated when working on a server is easier than trying to get this frame to connect to a public network. I keep following all the steps and troubleshooting but every time I try to change the WiFi settings on the frame it only brings up “Other Networks” with no entry areas instead of “Network Settings” with a list of local networks that are available. It used to work that way but not anymore, it’s as useful as a brick now.

by Laserak47

We have loaded a little over 400 pictures to AuraFrames . However on the frame we only see roughly 100 of those. I have been in contact with the company and have sent and received over 20 emails to try to get this straightened out. They keep saying that the pictures need to load. We have had the frame for over five weeks nothing ever changes. They keep saying that they are changing their algorithm to show the pictures on the frame. It would just be easier if they rotated all the pictures you had. How hard is that. On a positive note the pictures that we do see on the frame are very nice and high-quality.

by Shaerae77

I told my husband this is the best gift for his parents that live hundreds of miles from us. We purchased a frame for them yesterday and I have been so excited to set it up as a “gift” and load photos onto the frame for when it arrives.
The supporting Aura App is awful. I struggled to even save the cover photo and welcome message as AuraFrames continued to close on me. Once I was successful in saving after multiple attempts, I have added additional photos which took awhile but now... every time I try to edit the photos on the frame (placement,layout) AuraFrames freezes and closes on me.
Can these bugs PLEASE be fixed? What a great concept and product with an inadequate App.
Feeling really frustrated and disappointed.

by Mr. Guggenheim

How do you “share a reaction” or comment on a specific photo when it is added in a batch of more than one at a time? There doesn’t seem to be the ability to do this from the “Activity” area of AuraFrames . It would be pretty horrible UX design not to allow this… but I think that’s the case. Please fix this.

Also, the “remote” feature of AuraFrames to change pictures consistently hangs before updating for a very long time (~15 seconds) on AuraFrames side. And it’s not my connection, as I use apps for controlling other smart devices (televisions, speakers, lights) and those are near-instantaneous.

The smart photo frame war will be won by the company with the best app and features. Since Aura requires everything to be done via AuraFrames , I’d expect it to be better.

by Red Ape

I have been helping my in-laws set this up as they got this for a gift. I set it up on their iPad. It was disappointing that there is not an iPad version of AuraFrames only an iPhone sized one. I added photos from the iPad. If it is in landscape mode it will crop the portrait photos and vice versa. It would be nice to have the option to display the full photo without having it cropped.

I sent out invites to share photos to all the kids and grandkids emails through AuraFrames . No one received any emails. I thought it may be delayed due to Christmas Day volume. After digging on their website, it turns out that you must have AuraFrames to share photos. Fine but how is anyone supposed to know that? It would be nice if they would send out an email inviting you to download AuraFrames and join.

The motion sensor on the frame is inconsistent at best to swipe the photos.

by TeddyTX

I absolutely love looking at my family photos, but I absolutely hate not being able to simply view them by any kind of sorting order. For example, one of my grandkids comes over and I want to view the pictures of just her so she and I can look at them together. Or, of her mom, or brother, or cousins. Or, I want to look at a series of pictures taken on same day, the same location, or sort by objects (cars, colors, sky, clouds, etc.).

There have been basic sorting features (now with great facial recognition) in so many applications and programs for years, it is incredible to me that something so basic is not available for this awesome frame. Why would a database sorting feature of the photos on my Aura photo frame be so difficult for you guys to implement?

by Stephen.jensen

The aura frame is such a brilliant idea and I love being able to share photos with my family. The thing I wished that AuraFrames would tone down is the nagware regarding sharing my entire photo album with AuraFrames . If you choose to only share a subset, AuraFrames with send you with badge alerts on AuraFrames as well as pop up notifications once per week even when I am not using AuraFrames telling me to share my whole library. This type of incessant pestering completely destroys my faith in AuraFrames to do the right thing and now I refuse on principal to share my whole library even though I recognize that my initial decision to do so was a bit paranoid on my part.

App devs, please remove this abusive behavior and realize that “no means no” with regards to sharing my whole library.

by GalenMcQ

Love the concept and the execution is perfectly functional. However, the overall workflow of AuraFrames is unintuitive and there are some misleading processes to get photos where you want them. For instance, “save” doesn’t accurately express that pressing that button will send a photo to a frame. There are redundant processes that seem to use different theories of execution. All in all, it’s pretty frustrating given its learning curve—another pass or two through UX quality control and testing would help a lot.

Other features that would really sell AuraFrames :

• Option to add a timer to photos so that they auto-delete after a certain period of time, enabling temporary pictures

• Option to tune the display algorithm to, for instance, adjust the relative frequencies of recent and older images

• Integration with iOS share menu, for easy sending to a frame from within the native photos app

• Video support (Live Photos are awesome, videos would be great, too!)

• Web app for easy access on other devices

As I opened with, I love the whole kit, and the Aura frame is lovely hardware—AuraFrames just feels like a beta release and could really stand some dedicated development time.

Thanks, y’all!

by Jessiebell00

First, the photo display is GORGEOUS.

However, I purchased this frame specifically to display photos in a particular order (one a day from the day my son was born to show his growth). Because this option is not available, I am thinking of returning it and purchasing another digital frame, despite the fact that the display may not be as clear on that one. If you are looking for a beautiful display and don’t care about the order in which your photos appear, then this digital frame is a great purchase. If the order/sequence of photos is important to you, it would be best for you to look elsewhere, unfortunately.

by Justthefax2

On the ipad the Videos no longer play. Can’t see the date information because after you tap on the photo, the second preview is cut off and positioned too low. This makes it impossible to update the date information. However, The date does still show on the frame. Also you can no longer enlarge the photo on the ipad. This feature is important for those who have poor vision. like my 95 yr. old mother, who can’t see the frame, but could previously stretch out the photos to make them larger and see them on her ipad. Please consider fixing these issues and I will be happy to update my review.
Thanks :-)

by ColoMtnGirl

Some photos, particularly photos taken vertically, get resized and AuraFrames tends to take the bottom 80% of the photo which tends to chop everyone’s heads off at the top. If it has to be a simple program, I would say taking the top 80% would be better. Luckily, as the frame admin, I can resize any photos uploaded from anyone, but we have 20+ people uploading photos for my grandma and it can be time consuming to keep up with it. Only other complaint is that it would be nice to be able to send one invite link to everyone you’re inviting, instead of individual links for each person. Inviting 20+ people individually was kind of a pain. Other than these issues, AuraFrames is fairly easy to use and my grandmother is LOVING being able to keep up with all the family that’s scattered worldwide!

by Rose1369

Absolutely love the quality of the frame. One issue I’m having with AuraFrames is for whatever reason some of my pictures that I’m selecting to upload to the frame are showing up as a white screen when I select it. I was hoping it was only white while viewing the picture to select and once uploaded the picture would be fine but to my disappointment the picture was uploaded with a white screen as well. Not sure how to get around that. Hopefully this issue will be fixed soon. Other than that I am very happy with the frame.

by Lovetofish98

Overall, I like the frame and app. My son and daughter also have frames. My biggest complaint is the “random” order of photos. It seems to assume that if you upload a lot of photos at once, they are less important than when you only upload one or two photos. So, certain photos repeatedly display. That simply doesn’t apply to me. I am scanning and uploading photos from 50 years and even older, so an upload may have photos from various years and subjects. Please add an option for full random! We should also be allowed to tag photos such as travel, certain family members, etc. — this would allow display for a purpose for event.
I have an older frame from a different vendor that doesn’t require WiFi and allows upload directly from a computer - that functionality has value that the Aura frame doesn’t have.

by Babacksh

Love the frame. Bought it for my wife and the whole family is uploading photos to the frame. The biggest complaint is that uploading photos from the library can be slow because there is no way to search as dates. You can look at your different albums but if you have a large library you have to scroll. And if you are going back and doing it at different times you have to keep scrolling through the newest pictures first in order to get the older ones every single time!

by Jilliana13

I like this frame very much, but I have one complaint and it’s kinda big deal. I see others do as well. The shuffle is horrible!!! I feel like it shows the same pictures over and over I currently have 700 pictures in my frame and not only does it just show them all in the same order- the same day the pic was taken but it also just shows the same photos over and over. I noticed in AuraFrames as well so many pictures are blocked out so I have no idea what they are and they don’t play. I end up uploading the same photos again because it’s just a white box. Extremely annoying... So yess that’s very frustrating!! Besides that I guess it’s a good frame. I really hope they get this issue fixed and then I think it would be the perfect frame

by Madvulture3509

This frame turned out to be the perfect holiday gift for my elderly parents. Remote set-up was relatively easy, and my parents love it. I wish it had these features: 1) would let you put added photos into albums or categories and let you choose to show only certain albums at certain times. It’d be fun, for example, for my parents’ anniversary, to only show pics of them together that day or on a kid’s birthday let you only show that kid’s photos that day; 2) would let you rearrange the order of the shuffle; 3) would do better at auto-positioning photos to fit in the frame. You have to do a fair amount of going into each photo to pinch it/reposition it to display photos properly without people’s heads cut off.

But overall, intuitive and easy to use app and good frame.

by Bridgie6

Got this for the grandparents for Christmas so that all of the family members can add photos of the grandchildren. One feature that I noticed was missing right away is the ability to change the order or shuffle the photos that have been added to a frame. Shuffling photos should be an easy addition to AuraFrames ... it would really help when having multiple people add the same frame, so that one families photos are not all clumped together during the slideshow. Or it would be nice in AuraFrames to be able to drag and drop photos to rearrange the order in the collection on a particular frame.

by Sbcindy

This was a gift from my son last Christmas. I love it!!! I take so many pictures and this gives me a way to enjoy them every day. I love that you can invite others to add pictures to your frame as well. AuraFrames is super easy to use and I love that u can save a picture to your frame from text messages. I love it so much I bought one for my parents and in-laws this Christmas. It’s a way to share all your memories. I have my frame in my home office to enjoy every day. Highly recommend

by Slow To Merge

Received as a gift and absolutely love it!! Finally can enjoy and share with everyone all my favorite pictures that have been hiding in my phone. My adult children who live away surprise me all the time since they have access to my Aura. They’ll add their family pictures that I would probably never see. I plan to to give my mother one of these for Mother’s Day. She’s 82 y/o, a great grandmother and is home bound. I’ll connect our entire family and she’ll love seeing all the pictures of her grand babies. An absolute must have!!!

by NarxistDan

Hard to understand how there are so many positive reviews. It is nearly unusable.

Syncs with local photos or Google photos... well... except it doesn’t. It loads them when you first set it up. Then it stops updating to reflect new photos or changes to photos or albums. If the developers don’t want to use the bandwidth it would take to sync automatically, at least give us the option of a ‘sync now’ command so that we can update the album we want to use and then have it populate the frame.

by J Brian F

Read this excerpt that says you grant an unrestricted license to AuraFrames maker. No thanks. My frame is being returned for a full refund. The TOS excerpt follows.

License to Your Content: Subject to any applicable account settings that you select, you grant pushd a fully paid, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive and fully sublicensable right (including any moral rights) and license to use, license, distribute, reproduce, modify, adapt, publicly perform, and publicly display, Your Content (in whole or in part) for the purposes of operating and providing the pushd Properties to you and to our other Users.

by KelleeeeeS

PLEASE UPDATE!
AuraFrames freezes on my phone all the time. I have two frames and it’s near impossible to add photos. Really want to love this. Sometimes if I have ten minutes I might be able to add a few if I wait a few minutes between screens. I have incredibly fast WiFi so that is not the issue. Would love it if I could create a shared apple album then have the photos auto populate to the frame

by Brendan33

The picture frame itself looks wonderful. I just can’t get over the fact that there is no shuffle feature. Listen to your customers!!! I understand you developed a smart feature but it is NOT random and you could give customers an option to shuffle randomly and still have the smart feature as an option? Please listen to your customers and make this update!

by Marchondo

My family has four Aura frames and we can all share pics to each other’s frames. That part is great. But any portrait oriented photos need to be repositioned or cropped since the frame is landscape, which would be fine if AuraFrames didn’t ALWAYS crash when cropping/positioning. I’ve been using AuraFrames for over a year and this bug persists. Boo.

by BzeMc

Please get it together!!
I’ve had my frame going on two years and I love it. It’s exactly what I wanted to relive some of my favorite moments. Gifted it to two other people so far. BUT AuraFrames is pain in the...!!!
It takes forever to load. Crashes all the time. Photos I think I’ve added don’t actually get added and overall just cumbersome!
I give the frame a 5! (Would suggest various phot sequence modes ..that would be cool)
But AuraFrames ...a 2 and continuously trying my patience!

by Apple Since 1984

AuraFrames works great with photos that were taken on my iPhone. I also like to use pictures taken from my DSLR and they show up on my photo stream. When I use the Photo Stream pictures they are low resolution pictures when uploaded. They look great on my phone in my Apple Photos app. Once I select them in the Aura app they reduce in resolution. If all my photos stayed at high resolution I would give AuraFrames 5 stars.

by EbnOzn

Would be great to shuffle or re-arrange order of photos. Also, when adding multiple photos, after selecting the photos from the Choose Photos button, and clicking “Add Photos” at the bottom, the screen shows our frame to select, but after selecting, there is no “button” underneath to click “Add Photos” ... I can barely make out the outline-possibly a bug? iPhone 8 with iOS 11.2

by Codiphurus

It got the job done without much of a fuss. Our grandmother loves her frame and the set up went fairly smoothly. AuraFrames did not crash, and all the users got added without much of an ordeal. Hopefully this means that AuraFrames is improved. I would still describe it as clunky and not super intuitive, but the process is also not complicated. So with a little fuss, you can get the hang of AuraFrames and after the set up, adding pictures is easy.

by Prospero2u

Very enjoyable programming the photos to play on a schedule or by sending our presence nearby. Quality of the images is very good and ease of use is admirable.
Unfortunately, you have to adjust/ crop many photos (such as verticals used in the horizontal frame)

by McKRoro

I would like to edit the photos, however, once the photo has past by, it’s impossible to retrieve it and if I try, the feed is stalled, staying on one picture for several minutes. I’m referring to AuraFrames on my phone. Otherwise, very happy with the Aura.

by Ali And Charlies Baby

My husband and I bought this frame for my parents who live in Florida so they can see our baby’s pictures as we take them... They absolutely live it. Also gave my brother access so he can also upload pictures of his 3 daughters.