Estarling Impact8 Wi-fi Photo Frame

Other products by eStarling Connected Wireless Digital Photo Frames

Product Details

• Item Weight: 2.9 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 4 pounds
• ASIN: B001IX8BPE
• Item model number: Impact8
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #12,589 in Electronics (See Bestsellers in Electronics)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: October 21, 2008

Product Description

Product Description

We invented the email & social media empowered Wi-Fi digital photo frame and launched our first generation product during the 2006 Christmas season. Our definition of the best Wi-Fi photo frame includes the following:

Email Frame: Each frame has its own unique email address so that photos can be received from computers or mobile phones. A built-in email filter protects against unwanted photos. No setup is required for senders to send photos to the frame.

Social Media Frame: Through API integration, users can have pull friends' photos, as well as their own, directly from social networks and display them on the frame.

RSS Frame: The eStarling frame supports all major RSS photo feeds. Users can recommend and share their favorite RSS photo feed among the eStarling community.

Group Frame: Family and friends can set up a single email address that corresponds to multiple frames so that photos can be easily shared and displayed on those frames.

Timed Play Setting: Users can choose photos to be displayed on an eStarling frame on specified dates, such as displaying selected photos on a users birthday or anniversary.

Other Features: Power saving - the eStarling frame can be programmed to turn-off automatically at night in order to save power and protect the screen.

Main Features

Easy - Easy to set up, easy to navigate, easy to control.

Fast - View photos on the frame minutes after friends send them

Handfree - Once setup, photos arrive automatically.

Social- Get photos from Social Network, RSS, Email and almost all online sources.

Fun- Add text, bubbled words to photos, twist photos and many other features

Service Term

Frame is refreshed automatically from the seeframe.com server every 3 minutes with any new photos

Photos feeds from RSS & Social Networks get updated automatically hourly with the first 40 new photos

Option to store original copies at Photobucket.com

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Overall great (v3), November 13, 2008

By	Tom Ricket (San Mateo, CA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Just received this as a birthday present from friends, and it's been great. Apparently earlier versions of the hardware/software were a pain to set up. The new release, which includes a remote, quickly identifies WiFi networks and allows you to enter any passkey (WEP, WPA, and more all appear to be supported). The frame connected to several different networks, of different makes, with no problems.

After the account is set up, viewing photos either locally (via removable media card) or from a RSS feeds (such as a PicasaWeb album) works beautifully. One note: many RSS feeds do not report an entire list of items -- so if you have, say 1,000 photos in your main PicasaWeb album, add multiple sub-albums instead, or you may get only 40-50 photos.

My only feature request so far is a random cycle ability -- the system appears to go linearly through the photos, in a consistent order. Having a shuffle feature would bring this up to five stars in my book.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Be Forewarned!, November 11, 2008

By	J. S. Brown (California USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Everything went as advertised until I couldn't complete the frame registration process and sought help from eStarling. I should have known that service would be an issue with a company that doesn't list a phone number...any phone number. Just try searching for any real-time contact information on eStarling or PF Digital. As a result, I'm forced to troubleshoot via email with someone who's English isn't great and can only find time to reply once per day. He/She refuses to call me too. Evidently, "wi-fi has some uncertainty" and these frames will not work with even the most mainstream access points (ie., Linksys). I have asked for a return authorization twice and have been offered $50 towards the purchase of a new wireless access point. I don't have any more time or patience to work with this company and am still pressing for a timely refund. I'm hoping to send many wireless frames to friends and family this year as Christmas gifts. eStarling's products won't be under the tree for sure. My D-Link replacement is expected to arrive tomorrow and I'm praying for a better outcome. Buyer beware.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Great features, horrible functionality, January 8, 2009

By	C. Piekarz (Fort Collins, CO United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Got this for my mom for Christmas. The features and image quality on the frame are superb. Where it's really lacking is the functionality and support.

Several reviews I read before purchasing indicated that it was difficult to set up and get running. I'm a rather tech-savvy user, and figured I could manage. I quickly learned I was wrong.

The wireless reception is horrible, and seems to be getting worse. What was once meant to be a living room fixture is now on a shelf in the corner, and may soon be moved to the same room as our wireless router.

And unless I've missed something, there's no way for e-mailed pictures to automatically show up on the frame; you need to log into a buggy website, and add the images you've received to a scheduled album. The point of this eludes me.

Overall, if you're willing to deal with the headaches, this is a great product. However if you're getting it for somebody who isn't willing to fight with technology, skip this one, and go for a mainstream product.