Wireless/Digital Photo Frame Popularity is Growing FAST, Esp. With FRAMECHANNEL!

The author of DigitalSmartFrames.com has written a compelling post on Life to the Fullest about the fast-growing popularity of wireless/digital picture frames, in particular the Kodak Easyshare wireless frames, which use FrameChannel:

Owners of digital frames know that one of the key features is ease in transferring pictures from your camera or laptop to your digital picture frame. Most digital photo frames require the use of a memory card such as a Secure Digital card to do this, however Kodak digital picture frames such as the Kodak EASYSHARE W820 and W1020 greatly simplify this step using wireless technology.

Digital frame popularity is growing fast as consumers realize their benefits over traditional picture frames and as manufacturers add features and lower prices. Digital picture frames enable consumers to get the significant amount of digital pictures they have stored computers hard drives and out on display in our homes and offices. Just as improved LCD technology has made digital televisions clearer and more popular, consumers now can display slide shows of pictures in their digital LCD frames with the same quality as prints, and get the benefits of dynamically changing pictures. Many even support other medial such as music and video.

Of course with the benefits of digital frames are new aspects to deal with, such as power supply, memory, and the transfer of photos from their source to the digital photo frame. Most models of digital frames allow you to transfer your photos either straight from your camera or from your computer by providing memory card slots. These usually support a variety of types of memory devices: Secure Digital (SD), Multimedia Card (MMC), Memory Stick (MS), or Compact Flash (CF) – pretty much the same type of memory cards that go in your camera.

This means you can take pictures in your digital camera, pop out the memory card, and then stick it straight into your digital frame to start viewing pictures. Many digital frames lack their own internal memory, which means you have to permanently use a memory device whenever displaying pictures in your digital frame. Digital photo frames with internal memory allows you transfer the picture files from the memory card to the frame’s internal memory (and store the pictures permanently on the frame). Another common practice is first transferring pictures from you camera to your computer, and using a picture management application to enhance them, group them, and prepare them for transfer to your digital frame. Many digital frames have a USB port for this reason since transferring picture files from a computer is often done via a USB flash drive.

A more recently offered feature in digital frames involves the use of wireless technology. This allows for pictures and other information to be transferred to the frame wirelessly, tremendously simplifying the picture transfer process. A wireless digital picture frame means that consumer can change the pictures displayed on their frame much more frequently, which really is what digital frames are all about – dynamic display of digital content that never gets old. By eliminating the need to put pictures on a memory device and going through the processes of transferring them from camera to computer to frame, wireless digital picture frames promise to be the preferred type of digital picture frames in the future.

Two leading wireless digital photo frames are the Kodak EASYSHARE W820, and the larger Kodak EASYSHARE W1020 digital frame. The 8-inch W820 and 10-inch W1020 come with tons of great features, but their wireless capabilities differentiate them from other Kodak digital frames. Best application of these frames is with a Flickr account, a popular online photo sharing website, which enables you to configure the frame to automatically move photos from your Flickr account to your W820 or W1020 wirelessly using a capability called ‘Photostream’. This means as you add pictures to various albums in your Flickr account, you easily pick and chose those you want to show up on your Kodak wireless digital frame, and let Photostream go from there. Since Flickr is a great application for downloading and storing new pictures as you add them to your collection, this makes it easy to keep fresh pictures on your Kodak digital photo frame.

Wireless digital frames bring promise for even more applications for these devices because the ability to transfer information to them wireless creates even more possibilities. The Kodak W820 and W1020 models for example also offer a wireless enabled service called FRAMECHANNEL, which can stream information such as news and weather to the frame using something similar to RSS feeds. This means your digital photo album is not long just for photos, but instead an information portal, also great for businesses and service industries who want to put digital display in places such as lobbies or use as advertising portals.

Kodak is not the only maker of wireless digital picture frames, Samsung, Ceiva, and others have all made similar models with similar features. But the Kodak EASYSHARE W820 and W1020 deserve strong consideration.

Regardless of what frame you choose, if you are getting ready to buy a digital frame, you’d be wise to consider a wireless digital picture frame.

Wireless/Digital Picture Frames Now Considered Mainstream Consumer Product!

Good sales are predicted for wireless/digital photo frames, according to Lifestyles PR Blog:

Consumers in the UK are buying digital photo frames faster than ever before, according to Futuresource Consulting. In excess of 1.8 million digital frames were sold across the UK during 2008 and it’s estimated that ten percent of UK homes now own at least one digital picture frame.

A high number of low cost 7-inch wide screen frames contributed to an increase in sales volume of 60 percent in comparison with 2007. Sales are heavily driven by gifting and first time impulse buyers attracted by increasingly low prices. Between December 2007 and December 2008 prices fell by about 20 percent for the highly popular 7-inch wide screen model of frame.

The gifting market is very strong and there are strong sales peaks in advance of major holidays. Consumers love the ability to customize the frames by loading them with photographs prior to handing over their gift and many are now becoming aware of the possibility of providing “updates”, either by passing over a new memory card with new photos on it or even by wirelessly downloading a batch of photos from the web.

Well known brand names such as Kodak, Philips, Samsung, Toshiba and Sony grew their market share (to 54 percent) in 2008, but unbranded frames and lesser known models continued to sell well also.

Even allowing for the current economic climate, sales are expected to grow by between 10 and 20 percent in 2009. Market analysts are forecasting that we will see increasing numbers of “convergence products” – items such as iPods, TVs, notebooks etc. which include picture frame functionality – and that these may gradually erode the sales of dedicated digital frames.

That would certainly seem quite reasonable considering the large number of products which are now incorporating digital frames. Small 1.5 inch key ring type frames are perhaps a predictable development – but thermal travel mugs, desk tidies and even sunglasses with digital frames are also currently available in the marketplace.

In fact, as digital frames are developed with ever increasing functionality it may become difficult to tell whether a device is a frame which can also browse the net or another type of device which can also display photographs. Frames already exist which can read news feeds from the internet and receive wireless transmission of photographs from internet photo sharing sites. Similarly, large screen TVs which can be used to display family photos rather than a blank screen when they are in standby mode, are now available.

In summary, digital photo frames must now be regarded as a mainstream consumer product rather than a high technology gadget. Their mass appeal in the gifting market will guarantee ongoing sales growth in 2009, in spite of the economic climate, and future technology fusion will drive further sales growth in the medium to long term.

The Kodak EasyShare W1020 Wireless Digital Picture Frame: On Sale!

The Kodak W1020 wireless digital picture frame I posted about a few weeks ago is still awesome, and now it’s ON SALE!

At Digital Frame Guy.com, the Kodak W1020 wireless digital photo frame is only $159.28!

PC World says: “The KODAK EASYSHARE W1020…takes the top spot due to its ease of use (and) very good color accuracy.”

Kodak even has a website for the W1020 tech support.

Kodak’s Easyshare gallery will send your pictures, wirelessly, to your frame. Since Kodak frames are FrameChannel-compatible, you can even access your FrameChannel account via your Kodak wireless frame and get much more than pictures!

Kodak’s Quick Touch Border makes the frame easy to manage.

Besides being WiFi-compatible, and FrameChannel-compatible, the Kodak EasyShare W1020 has two SD car slots and 512 MG of internal memory – that’s enough internal memory for over 4,000 pictures!

This wireless frame will also play your videos and your favorite Mp3’s.  You can even set your slideshows to music!

Kodak Announces EasyShare D830, D1030 Digital Picture Frames

From Pocket-Lint.com, we learn that Kodak has announced two new EasyShare digital picture frames:  the D830 and the D1030:

Kodak has launched new EasyShare digital frames, the new D830 and D1030, 8-inch and 10-inch models respectively.

However, rather than just offer another photo frame into the market, the two new models will be able to be removed from the frame so you can put it in your own frame to match your decor.

With just 512MB of internal memory, the frames offer both memory card and USB slots and a “Quick Touch Border” that claims to enable easy scrolling through photos and picture editing.

The frames won’t,  however,  offer wireless connectivity.

Features include a “dynamic collage mode” that displays several pictures at the same time, as well as the option to display an image alongside a clock or calendar.

Eco-wise, Kodak is highlighting the mercury-free displays and the fact that the gadgets offer programmable on/off settings to control power consumption.

Both models will go on sale in September with the D830 from £119.99 and the D1030 due to cost £169.99.