Customer Reviews

Innovage Digital Photo Keychain

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(20)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(36)

 

 

I decided to review this because I had a hard time figuring out how to use this, and I basically pieced it together based on other reviews. Consider this a "how to" for those PC owners who are frustrated and don't want to take it back:

1) Go to mscustomercare.com, click on "Innovage Digital Photo Keychain," then download the "Photo Viewer Install." Try to save the .zip file to your desktop for easy finding/access.

2) Once it is downloaded, open the .zip file, click on "photo viewer" folder, then click "setup." Let the program run. It will put an icon on your desktop called "Photoviewer." Don't bother clicking on that right now.

3) Plug in the USB cord, then plug in the device. A blue screen will pop up on the device. (If it doesn't, then click the power button first). Choose the "USB Charge" option. Allow the device to charge for at least an hour. [The booklet says to let it charge up to 7 hours first, but I found that this isn't necessary].

4) After an hour (or longer), click the power button on the device. Another blue screen will pop up, along with some options. At this point, you can program the date and time.

5) Next, unplug the USB from the device, then from the computer. Then re-plug in the USB cord into your computer, and then into the device. Then turn on the device. Choose the "USB Update" option. At this point, your computer should automatically detect the device as storage hardware, and will automatically configure itself. (I have Windows XP, btw.)

6) After the computer finishes configuring itself, you will be able to open the Photoviewer program. (As you probably know, most people say that trying to open the program before doing this will result in a "no program detected, will terminate" or similar message.) Anyway, if all goes well--which it should--the program will open and you can then upload your pictures onto the device. It's really quite easy and self-explanatory.

7) A good rule of thumb is to save all of your pictures in a folder, in the order you want them to be on the device. Perhaps even better would be to resize or photoshop them before hand for maximum viewing quality. For example, the pictures I have that are close-up headshots look really great and fit nicely/clearly, while the ones I have of lots of people are not so clear. In fact, you can barely see some people's faces.

8) Once you are done cropping and adding your pictures, hit "synchronize" and it will put them on the device. Once it finishes, it will tell you. Just close the program then, and safely remove the hardware from your computer (click on the icon on your computer tray). Once you safely remove it, I prefer to just plug it in again, and choose "USB Charge," until the battery is fully charged and the light is green.

So, with some planning and patience, this device can work out pretty well. It took some time to figure this out, but I am happy to pass it on, as knowing this would have saved me some serious time. I am quite happy with it, and will be sending it to my cousin who is serving in the Marines in Iraq. :)

I found this on sale and picked it up on a whim. My intent isn't so much to use it as a keychain but as a substitute for those little photo albums some people carry around -- just something to tuck into my purse and pull out upon occasion. For that it seems to be working great. The software installed with no issues on my WinXP PC laptop; as an earlier reviewer said it's just drivers wrapped in an install package. Not being able to re-order pictures was annoying but could be worked around by pre-sorting. Synchronization was a single click and then I had a little picture album to carry around.

For what it is, it's a nice little gadget, with an intuitive menu and relatively easy interface. But don't try to make it into something it isn't. It's not really well suited as a true keychain. It's not a substitute for displaying photos on your computer screen or for seeing things in crystal clarity. It's little more than just a flash drive with an LCD screen, and if you're looking for any more than that, move on...this isn't the product for you.

If your program won't load, this may be why. I have Spysweeper on my computer to protect against spyware and adware. When I started to install the utility for this digital keychain, it stalled and quit. I discovered that my Spysweeper had detected two adware programs in the installation filed - the names were "comet cursor" and "give4free". Having complete faith in my Spysweeper, I started the install again, told Spysweeper to allow the adware to be installed, and then used the Spysweeper to remove them. The problem here, besides the adware, is that you cannot choose to NOT install them - either you go ahead and then clean them off later, or you can't use their little utlity !! Definitely not a legit way to do business.

After I got the utility installed, I've had no problems using it. I like the way it lets you choose the part of the picture you want to see in the keychain window. The keychain has a nice, bright picture. Easy to see and use. Too bad they trashed up their product with that hidden adware.

UPDATE - after about 3 months the internal battery died and no amount of recharging would keep it charged. The battery would only last about 30 seconds. I threw this product in the trash.

I got a great deal on this keychain on black Friday-9.99. I only got 3 of them and the told some family members what I had gotten for other people and they said "I want one of those" so I went back and now they are 20.00. I pre-loaded them with pictures for my less technical family members. When I read the reviews here I got worried seeing all the horor stories of software problems, but be patient. You have to load the cd first! The unit will not load automatically. Once you load the software, open the program and hook up the keychain to the usb (make sure to select "update" on the unit). The sofware is easy and the great thing is it shows you the crop so you know how it will look on the keychain and you can change the cop as well. The other thing is the software even works with Vista...nothing works with Vista!

The only I guess "compliant" and the reason I gave a 4 and not a 5 is that there is no adjustment for brightness. Aside from that, the quality of the pictures is much better than I expected. I love the keychain and wish I got more!

I got this photo keychain for my grandmother. I wanted to load pictures of my family that she could show off to people without having to cart along photo albums. I have to say I am pleased with the results.

The pictures are thumbnail sized and the square shape of the device limits what photos look best on it. If you have wide shots especially pictures with lots of people, the people on the outside edges will be cut off. I either allowed the cropping or I fixed the photos with adobe photoshop before loading.

Now, I did have a problem with the software initially. The instructions in the manual say that you MUST install the software before plugging in the device, otherwise you might damage the device. The instructions in the manual seemed pretty straight forward. Put install CD in computer, install, restart computer and then you are set. Not exactly.

I wanted to make sure the software was installed before I plugged in the device. Unfortunately, I got a "software not found, program terminated error" everytime I tried to start the photo viewer. So I uninstalled the software and reinstalled it. Repeat three times. At this point, in response to my mounting frustration, my husband comes over and says, "You have to have the device plugged in before the software is going to work. It is looking for hardware and not finding it so it is terminating the program." It would have been nice if the software had simply said that. Sure enough, I plugged the keychain in, the photo viewer software could be opened and the rest of the process worked just fine.

I found loading, cropping and rotating the photos with the photo viewer software to be very easy. In fact, it was much easier than I was expecting. The only real downside to the software is that the photos are displayed on the device in the order you choose them. There doesn't seem to be any way to sort them or change the display order once you pick them.

The screen will probably scratch easy but it hasn't in the two days that I have been messing with it and keeping the two-year-old from destroying it.

I plan to buy more for Christmas gifts for other family members. I will just sort the photos in my pictures folder before loading next time.

Don't be surprised with my ratings. Yes I had the same problems other had it. I am software developer myself and I know the problems. The software which is nothing but drivers are wrapped in installer software which can be easily done at home, but is not directly compatible with Win-XP or probably Vista out of the box. Read more below...

The problem
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As soon as driver was loaded, upon click of the software - photoviewer I got the message - program not found. I was upset. My wife spoke to customer service rep at the first call without any wait. May be were lucky, I cannot say. She was asked to change a config file to say windows 2000 and it started working. Because Win-XP has a NT/2000 base changing a configuration file worked.

The Good
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The screen is definitely bright and pictures are nice. Menu option is easy. The entire body is plastic but I think for the price compared to that of Brookestone and other expensive toys this one is ok. Use the model with Black front as viewing is great. The same concept as LCD TV's

Why I love it?
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My wife bought it for me as a gift. I would not pay more than $15 for this personally. This toy is something you can look at when you are traveling and missing your kids or family which I do daily. I do not have a fancy toy like - video and mp3 players yet so for me this is good. If you have one of those toys you do not need this one.

Be aware of
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Scratches can come easy on the product screen if you use as anything but a toy in your pocket or handbag. The backside which is silver will be smudged with finger prints.

I just bought 8 of these for Christmas presents. I paid $9.99 each at Walgreens, so for 10 dollars this would have been a cool toy (If it works) I decided to open one and test it out before giving them. I'm lucky that I knew better than to try to insert the tiny CD into my Mac Powerbook. (This is crazy to make a tiny CD and say that this will work with a MAC, Apple CD/DVD slots in laptops to do not pull out so you cannot eject the disc. There is no way this CD is usable. I searched online for the Innovage website. Couldn't find it but I found a link to Amazon and read the reviews. Someone was kind enough to add a link to this site that had a software download. I downloaded the file from the website, my first thought was oh great it's an PC exe file. That's what it said, but I downloaded it anyway. It was a Mac version, but doesn't work on my intel MacBook Pro. I keep getting this message: "The application Photo Viewer quit unexpectedly".

I plugged the keychain in and it is charging. I see two pictures flashing in a slideshow. I played with the settings and easily set the time and date. Not that it matters because I don't think that I'll ever be able to get this lousy software to work. So it might just be a 10.00 keychain watch with a picture of someone else's baby on it.

I'm going to spend another 10 minutes and then I am heading back to Walgreens for a refund. So far what a waste of time and money on a piece of junk. It's an hour later and can't find an Innovage website. It simply doesn't exist. What does this say about a company who has to know that this product is junk and isn't interested in supporting it. They should just make this a flash drive with a viewer so at least we wouldn't have to try to use the Photo Viewer software that doesn't work. Would be nice if we could just copy photos onto it. Oh well back to Walgreens I go.

My Advice: DO NOT BUY THIS PRODUCT!
Do a search online and see how many people are looking for information in order to use their products.

I had to rate this a 1 star. Only because they didn't have a MINUS -5 star option.

I purchased 4 because I thought these would make great gifts. I returned 3. (I only kept the 4th becasue the package was opened and I didnt want to pay the restocking fee on a $20 item.) I am very dissatisfied with this product. It came with a tiny cd, which doesnt seem to work on my laptop or macbook. Why wasnt this mentioned in the specs? Maybe I'll get it to work eventually, but I am not going to put much effort into it.

I was able to load the software and upload photos without any problems. The loading program won't let you change photo locations. Move photo 10 to spot 8...NO WAY, erase everything and reload! The main issue is that, after spending time to charge, if you leave them off too long without a refresh charge, the batteries die for no reason. I have fully charged these to come back a few days later and find they won't turn on! NOT an isolated incident! I have four, purchased all at once, and planned to use them as mini digital catalogs. I don't have the exact amount of time, but it seems that after a few days - even if you do not turn them on after a full charge - the batteries are dead! A plastic key fob that holds two photos would have been more useful than these were for me. Well OK, maybe not that bad, but at least the fob would be a lot more dependable! Comes in easily scratched black and constantly smudged by fingerprints silver plastic. Good Luck...

This software will not download onto my computer whatsoever. Called customer service on directions and given website to download from there is does not work. Have tried on two computers!!! Do not buy!!! My money went down the drain and now I have to return.