The Coolest Pieces of Gear We Tested This Week

A digital picture frame isn’t a new idea, but the Aura Frame looks good enough to leave out anywhere. With smart features, it’s a build that makes it easy to interact with. To start, the Aura is big: The 9.7-inch LED-backlit panel has about the same pixels as a larger iPad Pro and its 4:3 aspect ratio lets you situate it in either landscape or portrait mode. All the tech is wrapped a handsome wood or modern matte colors.

The frame stores some photos locally, but the magic happens when you connect it to a cloud and then beam photos to it from your phone, making updating the slideshow finger swipe easy. Once you download the Aura app, you’ll use it to select photos from your phone, then upload to the frame, where they’ll stay even if you delete the shots from your phone (as long as they remain in the Aura app).

You can tell Aura to automatically upload photos from iCloud or Google and if it comes upon an image of poor quality, it’ll skip it or let you crop them. But don’t worry, it won’t broadcast what is recognizes as an important document. Friends can also pop photos onto the Aura once they download the app. But the oddly satisfying feature is the motion sensor: Wave your hand forward or backwards in front of the Aura and it will scroll through the slideshow accordingly. See a photo you like? Swipe up to give it some love (you’ll get a notification on the app as to which photos have likes).

The Aura frame looks sharp but what sets it apart is the user interface that makes it simple to update, so it becomes something you look at daily. — Sal Vaglica, Senior Editor

[$399; auraframes.com]

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