Aura, a company of shots for digital photographs founded by the first Twitter employees, is introducing its latest model, Aspen, which adds new technologies to the device and its accompanying mobile app. In addition to hosting your digital photos in its 12 -inch HD display, the device now also allows you to add captions to your photos when they appear on the frame. In the meantime, the mobile app has added a search function of people who make it easier to find the photos you want to view.
Aura was founded by the former Twitter employees Abdur Chowdhury and Eric Jensen, and her vision was to offer more elegant and updated digital frames for viewing people’s digital photos in their home, combined with a well -designed software platform for the management of frame content.
Before the launch of Aspen, Aura offered other frames in different sizes and styles, such as Carver and Walden wall mounted. Its mobile app has over 6 million users, giving a sense of the scale of its users’ base.
The company today attracts customers who want to enjoy their digital photos in their homes and share them with friends and family through a private social network where members can contribute with their photos to your frames. This can make appeal to those who are looking for ways to connect with people close to them outside of traditional social media, while they also wander in the older family members allowing you to younger people and technology experts to manage the elderly frames on their behalf.
Last year, Aura says that customers shared 784 million photos of their frames, with a 55% increase on an annual basis. In addition, private social networks built by sharing photos between families, friends and other invited members have contributed to leading 50% of Aura’s annual sales in 2024.
On a given day, the Aura frames also show a cumulative of 5 billion photos and videos, has noticed the company.
Its most recent addition, the $ 229 Aspen frame, is now the thinnest of the company, at 0.5 inches on the edge. Its 1,600 x 1,200 HD anti -reflective display and the proportions 4: 3 also help to show people’s photos of people in the best light, calibrated for brightness, contrast and color.
However, one of the other great designs for Aura devices is that its software for the management of frames is not a rethinking.
The app that accompanies the sharing of Aura’s photos accompanies users through the connection to the Wi-Fi network of their home and quickly adding photos to their frames, in a few steps. The app itself is well built like any social app that you could already use, our tests have found, providing access to the various frames inside its navigation on the left side together with a two -mounted interface on the main page of the app for the addition of new photos and the management of the photos existing on your devices.
Generally, when add photos to an aura frame, you would surf with your camera or other photo albums to find your favorites and select them. But the search function of the new people of the app now simply allows you to touch a photo of a person whose photos you want to give priority. These suggested people are now in a row at the top of the “Add photos” screen. (Unfortunately, if you took photos of Ai yourself when you play with other photographic apps, those are not excluded, you will have to do it manually.)
This new research function is carried out locally on user devices to protect their privacy, observes Aura.
In addition, users can now add more context to their photos by entering the captions that could contain information such as the date, position or other personal notes, which are then displayed on the frame.
The Aspen frame is available in two colors, ink or clay and includes a metal support, a paper mat, a decorative coating and a cable wrapped in fabric that gives the device more than a high -level sensation. Like other Aura frames, it includes other technical characteristics, such as a environmental light sensor that turns off the night frame when your room darkens and a touch bar hidden above the frame that allows you to scroll your photos and adjust your settings without leaving fingerprints on the frame display.
The company, which is supported by $ 60 million growth capital by Lake Innovation Fund, has been profitable in 2024 and is still growing.
Correction: the article originally said that the cost of the frame was $ 299. It is $ 229. The article has been updated.
