Email Photos to Your Digital Picture Frame

Kodak Pulse

With picture taking and sharing on the rise, don't forget about keeping your digital photo frame in the loop. New frames with built-in wireless Internet access and their own email address make it easy to update grandma's frame with photos from the latest trip to the playground or sending photos to the kids at home while you're traveling. All you need is your camera and a computer or a camera phone and the ability to send email.

Most email-enabled frames use a service called FrameChannel, which in addition to photos sent to your frame’s email address, delivers news and entertainment Web channels and photos on Facebook, Flickr and Picasa. Once you register your frame on the FrameChannel Web site, the frame is assigned a username@framesend.com email address. Share the email address with friends and family, and they can email photos to your frame.

Currently there are several companies making frames with built-in Wi-Fi, for Internet access, and FrameChannel service, including D-Link, PhotoVu and Toshiba (for a complete list click here).

Kodak has a similar service for its 7-inch Pulse ($130, available in March). It also uses Wi-Fi to receive emailed photos and pull pictures from the Kodak Gallery photo sharing service.

Pandigital Photo Mail

Pandigital takes a somewhat different approach with its 8-inch Photo Mail digital photo frame ($150). It has a built-in cellular modem for receiving photos. There’s no monthly service charge, but after the first 300 photos you have to buy "photo allotments" for additional emailed photos – $10 for 100 photos, $30 for 400 and $50 for 700 photos. The service is provided by Snapfish and enables you to pull pictures from its photo sharing service as well.