This Digital Frame Is One of the Best Gifts I've Ever Given

Cori sitting on a green chair against a white wall. By
Cori Sears
Cori sitting on a green chair against a white wall.
Cori Sears

Cori Sears is a writer with over a decade of experience, specializing in houseplants, gardening, and home decor. She writes about trending news, interior design, houseplants, and gardening for The Spruce. Her expertise in these areas has led her to contribute to other major publications including Better Homes and Gardens and Apartment Therapy.

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Published on 01/17/23

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Skylight picture frame

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Does anyone else struggle with what to buy their parents or grandparents for holidays or their birthday? When I was a kid I thought that by the time I was an adult, it would be easier to buy my parents gifts but for some reason no matter how old I get I still find it difficult. It always seems like an impossible task to find something that they will really enjoy and haven’t already bought for themselves.

So last year, when my boyfriend approached me and suggested we buy Skylight Frames for all of our parents for Christmas, I was equal parts relieved (now I didn’t need to come up with an idea) and I instantly knew they’d be a big hit (also, how didn’t I think of this first?). 

You’ve probably heard or seen at least one ad for Skylight Frames by now. If you are an avid podcast listener like me, you’ve heard at least a hundred of them. In fact, that’s how my boyfriend first heard about them last year. Skylight has definitely done a good job getting its name out there, and evidently, it’s worked. The Skylight Frame frequently goes out of stock around the holidays due to popularity, and after buying them for our parents I can see why.

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Skylight The Skylight Frame

Skylight The Skylight Frame

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For those who aren’t familiar with this product, the Skylight Frame is a touch-screen digital picture frame that is Wifi-connected and allows you to email photos from your phone or computer directly to the frame. This makes it ideal for parents or grandparents who love to get regular photo updates of their kids or grandkids—especially if they live far away from you. That being said, we live about five minutes from my mom and she still loves it! 

When you receive your Skylight Frame, you set up a unique email address for your frame, which is how it will receive photos. Then, there are two ways that you can send photos to your frame: you can download the Skylight app, add your frame to it (using the unique email address you created), and upload photos directly to the frame in the app interface; or you can literally send photos through email to the frame if you prefer.

The latter option makes it easy for people without smartphones or who are technologically challenged to use the frame. Personally, I prefer the app and use it regularly. The best part about the app is that you can add multiple frames to it and upload photos to multiple frames at once if you want. Since we purchased a few frames for our close relatives this makes it easy to send the same batch of photos to all of them at once. Plus, anyone can send photos to the frame as long as they have the email address. So our siblings can also send photos of their families to the frame for our parents to enjoy.

Hats off to my boyfriend, because the Skylight Frames were undoubtedly some of the most popular gifts we’ve ever given. It’s been over a year since we initially gifted them and they are still used regularly. We are now under strict instructions from all of our parents to regularly send updated photos of our daughter to the frames (and sometimes of us too, although they don’t care about those as much).

In fact, they’ve gone over so well that I actually asked for a Skylight Frame for Christmas this year too so that I could upload the hundreds of photos of our daughter and our pets that I have just sitting on my phone, and I love it! It’s sitting in our living room and I love seeing all of those old memories pop up.

I will say that I have not tested out other digital frames so I have nothing to compare to. That being said, I don’t feel like I’m missing anything in terms of functionality with the Skylight Frame and we haven’t had any issues with them since we first bought them last year.

One thing to be aware of is that there are additional features that you can unlock if you pay a monthly fee for a ‘premium’ membership called Skylight Plus (there is no monthly fee otherwise). These features include things like adding captions to your photos or adding videos to the frame, both of which are things I personally don’t feel I need. At about $150, this frame is relatively affordable too, especially compared to some more expensive digital frames that can cost upwards of several hundred dollars.

All in all, the Skylight Frame definitely tops my list of 'best gifts', particularly for family members!

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