Digital Frames… with Gadgets Galore! But Why?
April 20th, 2009 | Author: CeivaJoe
Recently I was searching the web looking for what’s new in the world of Digital Photo Frames (DPFs) when I came across this article: Cubit Launches Photo Frame with Built-in Florescent Light.
Well, I have to admit that title peaked my interest. Why? Well, a frame with a built in florescent lamp seemed like an odd feature to add to a frame. I just couldn’t help but wonder if the light, when turned on, put a glare over the frame’s screen.
Then I got to thinking about frames in general. It seems that lately, there is a FLOOD of new frames hitting the market, with many having some sort of “shiny” new gadget added on. It is as if the manufactures think that the more they add to their frame the more consumers will be attracted to buy it. (Kinda reminds me of this scene of Dory in Finding Nemo… but I digress.)
Anyway, I’ve seen digital picture frames with all sorts of add-ons integrated into them including such things as:
- Speakers
- Video Playback
- Television
- Photo Scanning
- Telephone
- Spy camera
- Alarm Clock
- Pen Holder
- Mirror
- News Tickers
- Photo printer
- Weather Report
- Mini Monitors
Now this is not to say that all these features are dumb. In fact, we here at CEIVA are always thinking of ways to improve our photo frames, and we have had our own share of dumb ideas. But we have learned that what works best is to stay true to what the product is… a picture frame, that just HAPPENS to be digital.
In the 9 years CEIVA has been in the digital frame biz our customers have taught us a lot about how they use their frames in their lives. While their frames are a big part of their daily life, they’ve shared that they don’t need or want their frame to be loaded with gadgets that constantly need to be tweaked, tinkered or fussed with like a Play Station controller.
So until the next post… that’s what CeivaJoe knows!
I’ll tell you what I’d like to see … I’ve owned a Ceiva since the first generation were available, and there are only TWO things I want from my Ceiva frames that are there (or are not advertised well enough): I want photo descriptions and I want to connect my frames to other photo services.
Photo descriptions are an easy sell: the photos I post are often of my travels, so my house-bound grandfather and my travel-reluctant mother can travel with me. But photos without a caption and description are mute and rarely useful (sure, a picture’s worth a thousand words … but without a caption, they words might as well be in Greek). How would I see this work? Well, the caption and description should never obscure the slideshow. Rather, I’d like to press a button while a photo is being viewed and have the caption and description animate into view. Release the button or push it again and they disappear and the slide show resumes.
As for other services, it’s really dead simple: I have 3,000 photos in my Flickr account. Why on earth would I want to duplicate all that effort? Why should I have to? The major players have APIs, and Ceiva, apparently, has talented programmers. Grab my photos, their descriptions, their captions — hell, grab their geodata too! — and then make use of them.
It’s so frustrating. Every year I renew my subscription but don’t see any real improvements being made in the service. Sure, the website is shinier. But for my mum and grandpa, it’s the same old thing — and after almost a decade, I’m growing tired of it.
I wanted to buy my dad a digital frame for his b-day but most of them at the store were over $100. You would think the price of this technology would come down. Although they definitely are adding lots of cool new feature to these things.