Review: Aura Walden 15” Digital Photo Frame

An Aura Walden 15″ photo frame The Aura Walden 15” digital frame is the best photo frame I’ve seen and used. It’s easy to set up and use, easy to invite family and friends to add their own photos to, and easy to enjoy. It is, however, expensive, and—at least right now—almost impossible to get.

I’ve tried digital photo frames in the past. Each time, I’ve been underwhelmed by the small and easily ignorable screen, and frustrated by the difficult and needlessly annoying task of putting photos on the frame. Hope springs eternal, however, and three weeks ago a review edition of the Aura Walden showed up on our door.

It’s since become an important part of our family life. I simply didn’t know how important it was to get all those photos and memories buried on my phone into our lives. Adding photos to the Aura Walden is simple and quick First, the tech details: I’ve tried three or four digital frames in the past.

In each case the photos didn’t appear big enough to be really visible at room scale, and the software experience in the app was horrible, resulting in frustrating and lengthy set-up times. For Aura Walden, from unboxing to viewing photos took probably 10 minutes, and a big chunk of that was me fiddling with the supplied kickstand to get the frame to stand up in landscape mode. To add photos, you download the app, pair it with the number flashing on the screen, and then simply select photos from your phone’s photo library.

The app asked permission to share my home wifi with the screen, which I granted, and asked if I wanted to send a text message to anyone to add more photos. I did, and very shortly my wife’s and son’s photos began appearing on the screen as well. You can select timing and duration for how long photos stay on screen in the app.

We selected five minutes as a happy medium, but you can zip them by every 15 seconds, if you like, or drool over them forever at 24 hours. Depending on whether you’ve set up your Aura in landscape or portrait, you’ll see some cropping of photos that don’t match its physical orientation. If that’s a problem, you could only upload photos that correspond to your photo frame’s set-up, or theoretically—and my wife has suggested this—you might buy two and ensure you only load landscapes on the horizontal Aura and portraits on the vertical one.

The tech experience was great, but I wasn’t prepared for what seeing our photos live in our living space would be like. We like to hike, and this past year my wife and I went to Zion National Park, resulting in hundreds of photos of amazing canyons, mountains, valleys, streams. It’s admittedly massively corny, but seeing these and other amazing spaces right in our home was an incredible experience that captures my attention almost every time I walk by, makes me pause, and either re-live the moment or simply take the occasion to be thankful.

The on-device controls are handy too, since not all the photos my son has added match up to my wife’s exacting standards. While she could delete them via the app, the on-device controls are more immediate and useful. I’ve wanted the ability to display some of our photos for years.

While I haven’t been happy with the frames we’ve tried—there’s one back in its box still in storage somewhere right now—I’ve considered getting a Samsung Frame TV as an option. For our space, however, that would be both a $2,000-3,000 expense and would require some carpentry and/or drywall work in order to not have a cord hanging from the art. That’s something we still might do.

But for now, we’re enjoying seeing our photos in our home, reminding us of some of the great experiences of the past. Should you buy one? We’ve already bought a second Aura for my 88-year-old mom, which we’ll load up with photos for her. We’ll also share the invite for other family members to add photos as well, and if they don’t want to download the Aura app, they can simply send photos to a dedicated email address for the frame.

That said, it’s not cheap. There’s plenty of $99 or cheaper 10-inch frame on Amazon, and companies like Canupdog or Livingpai offer 15” and 16” frames for as low as $130. NexFoto also has a 16.

2” screen for about $150, and it’s mostly well-reviewed on Amazon. I haven’t tried these brands, so your mileage may vary, but you might consider them if the Aura looks a bit pricy for what you’re getting. Also, it might be challenging to find the 15” Walden: there appears to be limited supply at the moment, and it’s certainly not available at all in Canada.

That said, I’d buy it. The Aura Walden that I have been testing and using is a review copy, which I have to return to the company. I will be asking, however, if I can simply purchase it from them instead.

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