Naturally, home art is going the way of smart devices and there are some very exciting options out there. Essentially, you get a smart screen that displays photos, paintings, and other images in playlists and styles you choose and control through apps or online. From showcasing your recent trip in the most timely and regular way to bringing (digital recreations of) museum-level paintings into your home, it’s a very beautiful universe of devices. And with some recent launches, we figured it’s a great time to put together smart art frames we’ve tried and loved.
Meural Canvas II, $600 on Amazon
Adding new sizes and frame styles to the original Meural Canvas is a no-brainer. We’ve had the Canvas up at the Daily Beast offices for a while and it completely changes the mood of the space it’s in—naturally, we had to cover this month’s Canvas II launch.
The Canvas is easy-to-install and even easier to get going. And the reasonably-priced cincher—an annual Meural membership for $60—gives you access to more than 30,000 paintings and more as Meural keeps adding them (it works like Netflix, in that sense).
And its screen’s sole purpose is to show you art in the best mode possible, with auto-light detection and the ability to run vertically or horizontally (for the actual purpose of showing you landscapes and portraits, ha!). Whether you stream a playlist of your favorite Van Gohs, modern moving art, or your own photos, the matte screen will bring them to life unlike any computer screen can. And with the Meural Canvas II, you can choose between a 27-inch and a 21.5-inch display ($400) and four different frame styles. Whichever size you get includes gesture sensors to let you swipe through art in any given playlist and learn more about the art with blocks of info you swipe up for. At a dinner party, the Meural Canvass II would be a game-changer. From experiencing museum-like tour to avoiding the expense of purchasing, shipping, and mounting actual art, this is a solid investment with years of return.
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Nixplay 9.7-Inch 2K Ultra HD Smart Photo Frame, $280 on Amazon
After they made one Amazon’s best-selling smart photo frames, Nixplay is back right now with an upgrade very much worth checking out. The new frame can handle 2K Ultra HD and a 2048x1536 resolution in its display.
Each frame now shows up with an easy-to-install mounting kit and cord-stand system to make it look even better wherever you decide to showcase it in your home. And, of course, Nixplay is all about sharing your favorite photos in real-time.
Whether you upload them to the Nixplay or stream directly from Google Drive albums (yep, it’s that easy), you can tell Nixplay how often to cycle through photos and even trigger different playlists at different times. Wine party with friends? Vacation photos. Dinner party with family? Group photos from decades past. Staying in party with yourself? All your favorite vacations (or close-ups of your cat). From video support to Alexa integration, the Nixplay is really the most one-stop-shop smart frame of them all.
This option is WiFi-enabled and even has a motion sensor that turns the display on and off when you enter or leave a room. The high-resolution and easy-setup make this digital frame a great addition to anyone’s bookshelf.
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