There’s hardly anything to be said anymore for smart photo frames — your home is probably drowning in these endless carousels of precious memories anyway. But while displaying one high-definition image at a time may not be so impressive these days, displaying multiple at a time and with narrations no less may be a bit more exciting. You see, the Joy Photo Album isn’t a digital frame — rather, it’s the 21st-century answer to those enormous photo books that you still have lining your shelves, combining aural and visual cues into one sleek statement piece.
The Joy display allows you to not only showcase photos, but videos as well. Thanks to its Voice Notes feature, you can leave personal voice recordings on specific photos, adding an additional aspect of personalization. And like other digital photo frames, you can instantly beam new footage — whether it’s video or still — to other Joy albums across the world.
Beyond serving as a photo album, the Joy also doubles as a calling platform. The frame boasts a StoryTime feature that claims to initiate a voice call with screen share — so while you can’t see Grandma’s face if she picks up, you can tell her all about the new photo you just sent.
The Joy screen measures 13.3 inches, similar to your laptop screen, and is fully touchscreen operated, so you can select photos, videos, and choose from various layouts. Capable of supporting multiple file types, you can send and show off RAW, TIFF, JPEG, panoramas, and HD videos, too. To record a voice note, you’ll need only to press down on a photo or video and begin recording. It’s unclear as of yet if those recordings will be saved across all devices, or only your particular Joy Photo Album.
The product comes with 10GB of free cloud storage, and additional storage plans can be purchased for $4 per month for 200GB, or $10 per month for 1TB (if you’re really sharing a lot of photos). If you don’t have the Joy Photo Album, you can still share images and videos with folks who do. You’ll need to download the Joy App, and then send content by email to photo album owners. Photos are said to “instantly appear in your Joy App and your friend’s Joy Photo Album and Joy App as well.”
A single Joy Photo Album is available for $499, or you can buy two for $798.
