Aura released a new digital photo frame, the Aura Ink frame, which features a 13.3-inch display. The frame utilizes e-ink display technology and retails for $499.

Color e-ink technology recently became feasible for commercial digital frames. The manufacturer of e-ink displays currently produces screens in red, blue, green, yellow, white, and black. Aura developed a proprietary dithering algorithm that blends this limited color palette into patterns designed to appear as smooth gradients.

The algorithm optimizes portraits of people. Eric Jensen, co-founder and chief technology officer of Aura, said, "I'm learning color theory from our chief scientists, and as far as I understand it, there's not a good definition for how many colors this represents well." He added, "It's all sort of theoretical and comes down to how people perceive it. Everyone's a little different, so it's actually taken a lot of testing with a lot of people in a lot of different spaces and different lighting conditions in order to get where we are today." The frame automatically changes displayed photos once per day, typically at night.

The frame connects to the mobile application, which allows users to upload photos from a smartphone, web browser, email account, iCloud, or Google Photos. The application includes features for multiple users to upload photos to a shared digital library. Manually updating an image takes approximately one minute for hardware processing and rendering. The frame requires a USB-C charge about once per month. It automatically enters sleep mode when ambient lights are off or a room is unoccupied. The package includes wall mounting hardware.

No independent assessment was available for this report.