Friday, August 22, 2008
Why don't digital photo frames work?
Is this a market that is destined never to fly, or does it need a manufacturer such as Apple or Philips to solve some of the issues above and develop a really classy design? Or has anyone solved this issue already?
Tags: design, digital photo frame, flickr, photobox
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- Power: these devices gobble batteries or power cables are unsightly. You’re limited to sticking it near a socket and there’s never enough
- Integration: getting photos into a digital photo frame isn’t a trivial exercise. Wi-fi connectivity to a web app such as Flickr would be a good solution
- Style: designs are like cheap TVs, not living room chic. Real photo frames are much more decorative
- Price: they are expensive and don’t represent value
- Context: albums are for sharing photos, frames are for displaying photos that have special memories. The digital photo frame demands a change of mindset
Tags: design, digital photo frame, flickr, photobox
Comments:
Personally I think the problem is that they look a little bit Chav-tastic?
Kind of a bit like those curry-house moving pieces of "art" they have on the wall?
Hmm, or maybe that is just the curry houses I frequent and I need to move to somewhere more upmarket :-)
Kind of a bit like those curry-house moving pieces of "art" they have on the wall?
Hmm, or maybe that is just the curry houses I frequent and I need to move to somewhere more upmarket :-)
I have a beautiful Digital Spectrum MF 8104 wireless digital frame with a lovely beveled wooden frame and I LOVE IT! Many wireless/digital frames let you use any correctly-sized frame you might already have on hand. My wireless frame doesn't demonstrate a constant change of mind as to which photographs are dear to me; it allows me to select several and watch them all in a smooth slideshow.
Honestly? If my house caught fire and all the people and cats were safe, that wireless frame would be the next thing I'd save.
It works great; I've never had a single problem with it. That might be because FrameChannel is my content provider.
I'm the world's biggest wireless picture frame fan. I absolutely LOVE mine.
Honestly? If my house caught fire and all the people and cats were safe, that wireless frame would be the next thing I'd save.
It works great; I've never had a single problem with it. That might be because FrameChannel is my content provider.
I'm the world's biggest wireless picture frame fan. I absolutely LOVE mine.
Me too, have to say I love mine - have hundreds of pics on it and usually set to slow slideshow. Is a plain dark wooden frame and looks fab in our cottage (unlike many of the dodgy fake chrome and glass ones on the market).
I think the problem with a lot of them is they are just too small. You need a decent sized screen or it just becomes a flicker in the corner of a room and the larger frames are still relatively pricey.
I think the problem with a lot of them is they are just too small. You need a decent sized screen or it just becomes a flicker in the corner of a room and the larger frames are still relatively pricey.
Agreed with Andy B. To my mind they seem a bit tacky - a bit like one of those electric goldfish bowls you can get full of plastic fish. They're just... somehow... wrong.
Mind you, they say nobody ever lost money underestimating the public taste, and this could be an interesting PR challenge. I think the key to changing their image would be to get them in a slightly broader range of retailers. So far I've only seen them in PC World and, like you, Jessops. I guess they're in John Lewis. But Binns? M&S? not seen any there yet.
Perhaps the tactic would be to identify key retailers and offer the product to buyers on ridiculously favourable terms for a limited period, to see if it went some way towards making them more mainstream.
I daresay there's lot of other PR skulduggery that could be used, but I couldn't see it being a simple job.
Mind you, they say nobody ever lost money underestimating the public taste, and this could be an interesting PR challenge. I think the key to changing their image would be to get them in a slightly broader range of retailers. So far I've only seen them in PC World and, like you, Jessops. I guess they're in John Lewis. But Binns? M&S? not seen any there yet.
Perhaps the tactic would be to identify key retailers and offer the product to buyers on ridiculously favourable terms for a limited period, to see if it went some way towards making them more mainstream.
I daresay there's lot of other PR skulduggery that could be used, but I couldn't see it being a simple job.
Y'see I'd like one that was linked to a tag specific RSS feed from my Flickr stream...
That way I could buy one for my Mum, set it all up and then moving forward all I have to do when uploading to Flickr is just tag any pics I want to share with 'Mum' (for example) and voila - they appear in her front room!
:)
*That* would be cool...
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That way I could buy one for my Mum, set it all up and then moving forward all I have to do when uploading to Flickr is just tag any pics I want to share with 'Mum' (for example) and voila - they appear in her front room!
:)
*That* would be cool...
