CEIVA view point FRAMED

Posts Tagged ‘WiFi Frames’

Let’s face it; it’s that time of year when one can go a little crazy trying to find that ONE special gift for a special person that is just… well, just perfect. While most of us, at some point in our lives, have been on the receiving end of what we know was the perfect gift, many of us still fail to deliver on what we thought would be a perfect gift.

Why, do we often fall short when it comes to giving what we’d hope was a perfect gift? Well, to answer that question let’s look at what makes the perfect gift “perfect”. First, not only does the perfect gift need to be both useful and meaningful to the recipient; but let’s be realistic, it also has to fit into your gift giving budget. But more importantly, what truly really makes a gift perfect is the fact that it touches a recipient in a profound way. A perfect gift will take into consideration and honor the lifestyle, interests, and needs of the recipient, yet connect on a deeper level than other gifts.

So with that being said, you might be surprised to read that I believe that the typical digital picture frame is NOT the perfect gift… unless you take the time to personalize it so that it connects on a deeper level. A digital frame is just the means of delivery, not the gift. The gift is, as KODAK once said, “the moments of our lives” that are shared and displayed on the frame.

How do you personalize the gift of a digital frame? Well, that’s easy. When you first give a digital frame have it “loaded” ready to display photos that are meaningful to the recipient. However, be aware that digital frames are not like traditional frames that hold a single print. Most (not all) digital frames, usually end up showing the same pictures over and over again. Digital frames can quickly become stale energy sucking lumps of plastic, glass and metal if not updated. Over time, that gift you wanted to be personal over time just becomes annoying.

However, one type of digital frame, known as a “connected” frame, will remotely access new photos and ultimately deliver the perfect gift of fresh new photos for years to come.

Connected frames, such ones made by CEIVA, receive photos sent directly to them from any computer or standard camera phone. Plus, while CEIVA’s can directly connect to a computer via WiFi, these digital frames do NOT have to receive photos in this way. CEIVA frames also receive photos through a traditional phone land-line or Ethernet connection. (Land-line connectivity makes CEIVA frames ideal for seniors and less tech savvy people that do not have a computer or the Internet.)

Regardless of the type of connection used, these unique frames ultimately access CEIVA’s photo hosting and delivery service, known as Picture Plan. Picture Plan makes photo storing, sharing and editing an easy, safe and secure process. It also provides frame owners a way to invite family and friends in to send and share their pictures to the frame. The fact that CEIVA frames can have fresh new photos delivered right to them from loved ones keeps that personal connection alive and ultimately makes them a perfect gift.

Digital photo frames are often criticized by technology gurus for being simple and mundane gadgets. If this is so it causes me to wonder how some manufactures still can make them so exasperating.

Wanting to get the full consumer experience I recently purchased Pandigital frame from a local electronics superstore for review.  From the box I learned that 7” Pandigital frame has the following features: 1GB Internal Memory that holds up to holds up to 6400 images, LCD display, 4:3 Aspect Ratio,  SD/MS/MS-PRO/MMC/XD Card Reader compatibility, remote control, alarm clock, calendar, programmable ON/Off timer, audio, video and is both bluetooth and WiFi compatible.

While I selected the Pandigital PAN7000DW specifically for its WiFi function, I was soon to learn that getting WiFi was not going to be easy. While the frame’s box was quick to communicate that it is WiFi compatible, only after reading through the instruction manual did I learn that the generic WiFi adaptor I also bought for it would not work. Buried deep in the user’s manual, which is sealed in the frame’s box, are instructions to specifically buy a Pandigital WiFi adaptor… which, inconveniently, only can be purchased online for $23.99.

With a suggested list price of $99.99 the frame, the Pandigital PAN7000DW has a nice crisp picture will integrate with a variety of home interior styles.  However the physical design of the frame has some serious flaws including:

• The piece of glass that nests in the plastic frame is not secured and therefore could be broken if one is not careful.
• The adjustable foot is “light weight” and feels like it could snap and break when compared to the way the rest of the frame is constructed.
• The single speaker’s volume was barely audible, sounding almost as if the speaker was blown.
• The remote control, when stored on the back of the frame, totally covers the speaker and further muffles the sound.
• The WiFi adaptor hangs off the side in clear site instead of being hidden.

I also found some glitches with the internal functions of the Pandigital Frame including:

• The clock’s 1/8^th inch high numeric readout is very difficult to read.
• There is no “snooze” functionality built into the alarm clock.
• Fading from picture to picture in a slideshow was jumpy.
• When Zoom function was engaged, the top of the picture as obstructed with a ½ inch darkened band that displayed the image’s file name, time and date.
• The “back/previous” picture review function would not work.
• There was an approximate 10 second delay from the time on pressed the zoom button to the actual zoomed up image being displayed.
• Music files, loaded to internal memory, would NOT play when viewing a slideshow either streamed via WiFi or from an external memory card.

While I found the glitches, hiccups and design snafus of the Pandigital PAN7000DW a bit annoying; setting up the WiFi connectivity was exasperating.

Before I go into details, let’s be clear about WiFi connectivity in digital frame. A WiFi can be configured to communicate out through a router, over the internet and directly into a photo hosting website and/or it can be set to connect and pull pictures right off a local PC.

So while tedious and time consuming, I did find setting up WiFi connectivity to the 3 compatible photo hosting sites (Windows Frame It, SnapFish and Picasa) on the Internet was easy.

However, setting up the WiFi connectivity so that the frame could display pictures stored on a PC was SUPER exasperating.  First off, the instructions guiding one to set up a Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) Server, published in Pandigital’s owner’s manual, are minimal and wrong. A 25 minute call to Pandigital Customer support finally resulted in some guidance that helped.  The polite support tech told me that while he had never actually set up this type of WiFi connectivity he assured me all that needed to be done was to make sure that the desired image files were being “shared” in Windows Media Player 11 and “the frame would do the rest.” So after spending some time fiddling, futzing and tweaking I finally got it to work. Well, it worked yesterday. Today is a whole new day and for some reason the Pandigital frame has lost its WiFi connection to the PC and the files it displayed yesterday. Why doesn’t it see the files it saw yesterday? I am not sure as nothing was changed.

After spending hours, reading manuals, searching the internet for solutions, reading online support information, being on hold, talking to customer support and then trial and error tweaking to get it to work yesterday I give up. I don’t have the time to figure out NOW what is going wrong. At this point this mundane Pandigital frame is just another lost cause and I am resigned to be another exasperated consumer.

Last week technology product review sites and blogs were all a-buzz about Hewlett Packard’s latest product release… the HP DreamScreen.  Because so much was being said I found myself enticed to read more and more. But the more I read the more I noticed a pattern develop. I noticed that many “industry experts” were confused and unsure as to what the DreamScreen is or is not supposed to be.

Below are 16 quotes from various technology gurus and geeks who grappled with their own understanding on just how to best describe what  the HP DreamScreen is and/or is not. As you read through these quotes note that what they have to say about the DreamScreen is quite varied, perplexing and at times contradictory. Regardless, I am pretty sure this is NOT the industry buzz HP wanted.

• CNET ASIA-Crave “There are products which simply defy categorization.”
  

• Tech News World “DreamScreen …is it some sort of hobbled tablet netbook, or is it a pumped-up digital photo frame?”
  

• Business  Week “HP turns the digital photo frame into an electronic social calendar.“

• Mashable “HP’s new DreamScreen Tablet is some type of hybrid between a computer, a digital photo frame, and a music player. “

• Coolest Gadgets “In the case of the HP DreamScreen, it might not be fair to call it a digital photo frame.”

• Venture Beat “It’s a category of computer that is suitable for casual use by broader, mainstream audiences who might use it while browsing TV.”

• Geek.com “HP’s DreamScreen wants to be the iPod of digital photo frames.”

• Yahoo Tech “Depending on how you look at it, the sleek new DreamScreen is either a very powerful digital photo frame or a fairly limited Internet tablet—take your pick.”

• The Inquisitr “HP DreamScreen Shouldn’t Be Called A Digital Photo Frame.”

• eHomeUpgrade “HP Launches the HP DreamScreen Infotainment Display“

• Digital Picture Frame Review “I hesitate to call the DreamScreen just a digital picture frame, although it does do that. So it’s more than a frame – it truly is a new platform.”

• Gadget Republic “You see, the DreamScreen is like a smart TV/lightweight laptop hybrid tablet that has plenty of interactivity and always-on connection via Wi-Fi but it serves the purpose of being an aesthetically pleasing media hub.”

• CNET Crave “It sort of reminds me of a super-sized Chumby–another interesting jack-of-all-trades gadget that never really seemed to take off.”

• PC Magazine “The DreamScreen is meant to act as a wireless gateway to the Internet and all of the digital media stored on your network and other home computers.”

• Tech News World “HP has shared its dream with the world, but not everyone is sure what to make of it. The DreamScreen is much more than a digital picture frame, but much less than a tablet PC.”
  

• PC World “But the DreamScreen, for me, is stuck in tablet purgatory. It’s not quite the tablet I want it to be and too expensive to justify as a replacement for the digital picture frame I never use.”

The more I read articles (with quote like these) the more I could not help but think that if the industry experts, whose business is to know and understand new technology, don’t understand what the DreamScreen is, then how does HP expect the consuming public to understand it and in turn buy it?

What finally solidified my concerns that HP has some marketing work to do on the DreamScreen was when I read a quote by Leslie Fiering of Gartner Research.  Ms Fiering, a vice president covering mobile computing concluded that “the DreamScreen appears to be an interesting product in search of a use.

So just what is the HP DreamScreen? Is it a tablet PC? Is it a Digital Frame? Is it  Social Calendar? Is it a Lite Weight TV? Or is it an Infotainment Display or possibly a Media Hub? Personally, from what I can deduce from my own reading, I think PC Magazine probably best describes what the HP DreamScreen is all about. However I won’t truly know until I actually set one up and and use it for awhile.

Regardless of what HP intended the DreamScreen to be, the industry is not getting it.

For more information about HP’s DreamScreen I recommend you visit the DreamScreen website.

The digital picture frame designers at CEIVA have tapped into the fact that more and more photos are being stored on home computers.  The new CEIVA Pro80 frame has been designed for easy access directly to an entire photo collection kept there. A clever new feature included in CEIVA’s newest frame is its built-in connectivity that allows photo streaming from Windows Media Server back to it.

Like all other CEIVA frames, the Pro 80 ingeniously connects to the internet to allow friends and family across the world to share their pictures by sending them directly into it. This exclusive internet connection is one of services that are bundled within the CEIVA Picture Plan. One year of the CEIVA Picture Plan is included FREE with every CEIVA Pro80.

The CEIVA Pro 80 features a high resolution 8-inch active matrix digital LCD screen, 640 x 480 display resolution, standard memory card readers, WiFi adapter, interchangeable face plates and CEIVA’s Perfect True-to-Photo display that puts an end to photo stretching, cropping or squishing. Internet connectivity is via WiFi or traditional phone line.

The soon to be released (release date 8/10/09) CEIVA Pro 80 has a list price of $179.99.

While digital frames keep evolving, consumer understanding stays pretty much the same… and can be misunderstood. Only after owning and using a frame does a consumer understand what their frame does and doesn’t do. So if you are in the market for a digital frame, answering these two seemingly simple questions will spare you disappointment later.

QUESTION 1: What do you want to SEE on your digital frame?

Now this might seem like a stupid question, but actually there are three content types to choose from when it comes to what a frame can possibly show. Of course there are frames dedicated solely to photo content. Then, while it is not highly desirable, there are some frames that can show short video content.  Finally, there are also frames that can accept information feeds that display instructional, marketing and/or news related content. Since not all frames show all content types, knowing what you want your frame to show will help guide and direct your purchasing decision. This leads us to the second question…

QUESTION 2: How will you connect to load & manage frame content?

Typically consumers don’t give this question much thought. Up until now they were typically sold on “stand-alone frames” (aka card reader frames) that offered what seemed to be a straightforward solution. Connecting to a frame to load it with photo content just by popping a card out of a camera and into the frame seemed simple enough. But over time, consumers with stand-alone frames began to understand that while it may have been simple to load the first time, the loading process becomes tedious as more pictures are taken. Plus, if the content requires any editing, doing so within a frame is an awkward undertaking, if it is even offered as a feature in the first place.

While connectivity to the frame controls content delivery, it does not always control what also is important to customers: content management. What shows, when it shows and how long it shows on the digital frame is content management. To make loading, managing and editing pictures simpler, frame manufactures are beginning to have their frames connect to a PC via WiFi or Bluetooth. Much like sending a document to a node printer connected on a network, content files stored on the PC can be to  “Node Frames” for display. Any editing would take place on the PC before sending.

Some Node Frames can also use the PC as a gateway middleman to a variety of Internet sites for content housed on the site. However, setting up and managing multiple connections from multiple sites to the middleman PC and then back into the Node Frame can be exasperating, tedious and difficult for most. Beware, this middleman PC approach to content delivery and management is currently being “sold” a simple Internet frame solution… but, in reality it can be a whole new approach to frame frustration.

Finally, there are true “Internet Frames” that are designed to connect directly to one site on the Internet via a wireless connection or through a traditional land line.  Unlike the Node Frame, that again depends the PC as content and management middleman, the true Internet Frame connects to one Internet site as the gateway access point to all desired frame content and content management. The Internet site is designed as a one stop content and management solution for the frame.  The site offers and manages all the functions related to picture hosting, content delivery, a variety of information feeds and even photo editing. Conflicts for access to and display time on the frame are eliminated because all content types are managed at one site.

Knowing a little more beyond what is being marketed and sold by most frame manufacturers will ultimately serve the consumer looking to buy a digital photo frame. Asking and answering two simple questions regarding what types of content they want to show and how they want to connect to load and then manage that content  on the digital frame will ultimately save them time, money and frustration… guaranteed.

So until the next post… that’s what CeivaJoe knows!

COMMENT