Aura is introducing its newest model, the $499 Ink frame, which brings a 13-inch color e-paper display to the company’s otherwise LCD-based lineup. The technology, similar to that found in the Kindle Colorsoft e-reader, uses a six-color ink system to create the illusion of millions of tones. More importantly, using e-ink technology allows the frame to finally go cordless.
That makes it ideal for hanging in your home in places where a corded display may look bad, like a living room wall, stairwell, or anywhere else a cord would ruin the aesthetic.
The company, founded by early Twitter employees, has wanted to work with e-ink technology for some time, but it wasn’t yet up to the task of sharing colorful photos taken on your smartphone. But as e-ink systems have advanced, Aura has changed its mind.
The new frame uses Spectra 6 technology that delivers six primary colors — white, black, red, yellow, green, and blue — with better saturation and contrast, making it more adept at displaying photos.
In addition, Aura added a front light to the frame, taking a cue from the Kindle Paperwhite. This helps improve the contrast, notes Eric Jensen, Aura co-founder and CTO.
“It’s a very subtle light compared to an LCD. It’s maybe a sixth of the brightness of an LCD,” he told TechCrunch in an interview. “People often don’t even notice it has a light until they’re in a dark room and it turns off,” Jensen adds.
On top of the Spectra 6 technology, Aura built its own proprietary dithering algorithm, which uses error diffusion.
“We had to go back to the ancient dithering algorithms from like newspaper technology, where you had to figure out how to blend these dots to simulate other colors,” Jensen says.
Though the e-ink technology means you can go cordless, the frame still does need a recharge at times, which means you have to take it down from time to time to power it up. However, Aura claims the frame can get up to three months of battery life, so this isn’t a huge inconvenience. (We have not had the frame long enough to report on battery life at this time.)
To reduce its power needs, the Ink uses motion and sensors to turn off the light when no one is around. In the accompanying mobile app, customers can also choose to configure their own on/off schedule, if they prefer.
Like other Aura frames, the Ink has an upgraded look and feel with a graphite-inspired bezel, paper-textured mat, and glass front, making it seem more like a traditional photo frame than cheap tech bought online. (As well as it should, given the price.)
The frame itself is 13.3. inches with a 1600 x 1200 resolution and 4:3 aspect ratio. The box includes wall-mounting hardware, stand, and charging cord. Aura says the frame can be used in either portrait or landscape mode and, including both the display and frame, the Ink measures 14.1″ x 11.4″ x 0.6″.
The frame also includes a USB-C port, status light, and button controls for moving between your photos. If you don’t want to manually adjust the photos, you can rely on the frame updating to the latest photo in your preconfigured rotation overnight.
In tests, the frame delivered a more muted color than the existing Aura frames, but this also made it fit in better next to the printed photos on the wall. Depending on the image, it may not even be immediately obvious to guests that it’s an e-ink frame from a distance.
One thing that may throw you off at first is the photo-loading experience. It causes the screen to flash repeatedly, in a yellow-ish light, which can be off-putting. But Jensen says the frame updates its photos overnight, so customers don’t have to see this transition.
“The transition is a little jarring. It’s definitely a trade-off with this technology,” he admits. “You can adjust it up to 12 times a day, if you want, but that has a trade-off with battery life. The more times it changes, the more battery it uses, obviously.”
The company believes that customers may end up being more selective about the number of photos they add to the frame as a result. Perhaps they’ll only add a single photo they want to always display, then change it out when they’re ready for a new one.
Aura raised $26 million in 2022 after reaching 1 million frames sold and an app used by 3 million users. (Families often use the app together, for instance, to add new photos to a frame gifted to the grandparents.) Earlier this year, it closed $60 million in growth capital investment from LAGO Innovation Fund. Today, the company has sold “single-digit millions” of frames and is profitable. Its app has seen a billion photos shared to date, as well.
Though the founders, Jensen and CEO Abdur Chowdhury, hail from the earlier days of Twitter, Aura’s focus is now more on the private social networks built between friends and family who use Aura’s app and devices to share photos.
“We think that this space of sharing — not just photos, but connecting with loved ones — is really underserved. It’s obviously poorly monetized by ads,” Jensen says. “The marriage of a hardware device and that space really works well as a business,” he adds.
The company still considers itself a startup, as it’s continuing to develop new products and contemplate updates to the Aura app that could expand beyond frame management.
“We’ve done a lot of prototyping around software that’s not just tied to frames,” he notes. However, the company worries that focusing on a private photo network on its own may not be as good a business.
“We sell a hardware product that has a very straightforward value proposition: no subscription, unlimited photos. That works really well with the private photo network. And we’ve seen a lot of companies try the private photo network on its own in the past and not being able to find a business model for it,” Jensen says.
The Ink frame is on sale starting today on Aura’s website.
Updated to correct “double-digit” to single-digit millions for profitability.