Nixplay Seed 10.1 smart photo frame review
*Ad – gifted review
This year I’ve taken a lot fewer photos than in previous years. Mostly because N doesn’t like having his photo taken, the weather hasn’t been great when all the flowers have been beautiful, and Instagram just hasn’t been as much fun as usual. But I still have stacks and stacks of photographs that we don’t look at that frequently. When I was asked to review the Nixplay Seed 10.1 smart frame I jumped at the chance.
At a basic level the Nixplay Seed 10.1 is just like any other digital photo frame. It plays photos. But it does more than that. It lets you upload photos straight from your smart phone and due to everything being stored on the cloud you can share your photos with the family and friends who have a Nixplay frame too.
What’s in the box
As well as the digital photo frame there is a quick setup booklet which is really easy to follow but not really needed, remote control and the cable along with two plug ends. It’s UK compatible and US/ European so there’s no need to worry about having the right plug connection.
Nixplay set up
We found the Nixplay Seed really easy to set up. It’s a case of just plugging it in and following the instructions on screen to setup the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Then install or update the software. It didn’t take long to do that. I did need to download the app which is compatible with Android and Apple.
Using the remote control is easy to move around the screen although I kept forgetting it needed to be used. I just want to reach out and touch it like a tablet. But it isn’t touch screen, it’s app or remote controlled access.
Once you’ve got the app downloaded then you can start uploading your photos into playlists. This did take some time despite me having fast WI-Fi. I’d recommend leaving it to upload while you go off and do other things. It’s definitely worth pulling together playlists, you could have them for each of the children or for your holidays or whatever else you wanted.
You can upload via your phone photos, Google Photos or via Facebook or Instagram through the website.
Using the Nixplay Seed 10.1 smart frame
Once the Nixplay Seed 10.1 is set up you just a need to leave it plugged in and place it somewhere it will catch people as they walk past. One of the best things about this is that you don’t just have to leave it running when no one is in the room. There’s a motion sensor on the bottom left hand corner which means the frame will recognise when someone has walked in and therefore when to start playing. For us, this wasn’t going to work because we don’t have anywhere there’s a surface that people walk past, but soon as we turn it on it starts scrolling anyway so it’s not a problem.
When you turn on the plug, the frame is on. After pressing play on the remote the Nixplay Seed comes to life and starts rotating through the photos. You can change the playlist that’s playing or just set it to show everything
You can control the Nixplay frame either from the remote directly to the screen or from the app. From the remote you can scroll forward and back you can also amend how the next photo transitions into the screen. Whether you want it fading in or scrolling across, or another set up, there’s plenty to choose from.
When you playback you can choose whether to roll through all the photos or just specific playlists. Directly from the frame you can also choose the last 200-500 photos rather than everything.
Many digital photo frames only show photos, but with the Nixplay Seed you can also show videos. You can turn off the volume which is probably better for most people, otherwise you don’t want someone walking in the room with all of a sudden being surprised by the video blaring out. You can easily turn up the volume as needed with the remote control. We liked being able to mix the playlist between video and photos. You can control the playlists via Alexa too. It really is a smart frame!
Photo sharing
If you know someone else with a Nixplay Seed frame, you can send your photos to it and vice versa. It means easy sharing of family photos around the world and are secured on a private family network on the cloud. I think this is great because most people tend to share photos with family members via Facebook and other social media but with the Nixplay it’s much more private with you in control via the app.
Our verdict
N loved setting this up, he found it really easy and straight away wanted to share photos from my phone. My only problem is that I tend to download my photos from my phone really quickly rather than storing them for ages. So it’s another stage that have to remember before I delete my photos off my phone. That I need to upload them to the Nixplay Seed 10.1 first.
I think the quality of the screen is really good, it feels and looks quite like a tablet. The size isn’t too over-the-top, and it’s small enough to move around if you need to. The picture is really clear – obviously dependent on your photo quality – and the colour seems true to life.
You can buy the Nixplay Seed 10.1 online and get 25% off the Seed frame. I think they’d be a great present for family.
Disclosure we were sent the Nixplay Seed 10.1 smart frame for the purpose of review.