This is the sentimental, thoughtful Mother’s Day gift I give every mom in my life
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Moms are anything but monoliths, so shopping for them — especially when it comes to Mother’s Day gifts — can definitely be a challenge. You want to get them something they’ll actually use, that also celebrates who they are and their interests, while demonstrating your appreciation and love. That’s a pretty tall order. Fortunately, we’ve discovered one gift for moms that checks off every single box: an Aura digital picture frame.
I’ve gotten an Aura frame for my mom, my mother-in-law, my husband’s grandmother and even my best friend’s mom. They’re totally different people with various tastes, hobbies and styles, but they all absolutely adore and regularly use their Aura digital picture frame.
And since Aura frames are available on Amazon and eligible for Prime shipping, they make excellent last-minute Mother’s Day gifts that are still thoughtful and sentimental.
Aura Carver Digital Picture Frame
The brand’s most popular and affordable option, the Carver is a freestanding, 10.1-inch picture frame with a 1280 x 800 HD display. It features a useful swipe-controlled touch bar so you can easily navigate through your photos.
Aura Carver Mat Digital Picture Frame
This model features all the same specs as the Carver, but it has an elegant thin frame (perfect for minimalists) with a white mat, as opposed to the Carver’s textured design.
$149 at Amazon
$149 at Aura Frames
Why it’s a great Mother’s Day gift
It’s easy to set up
If you’re worried about getting Mom a tech gadget, don’t be: Setting up an Aura frame is a breeze. The entire process only takes a couple minutes, so you can work through it with Mom once (or do it yourself before gifting it) and never have to worry about tech support.
Simply download the intuitive Aura app, pair her phone to the frame and connect the frame to her home Wi-Fi network. Plus, Aura makes it really easy to gift a digital picture frame that feels personalized right out of the box: You can set up a video message, preload photos and even set up the Wi-Fi for them in advance.
Loved ones can instantly share photos and videos
Once the frame is set up, Mom can invite others to send photos and short videos to her frame from within the Aura app or via an online web uploader. We recommend using the app, which is compatible with Android and iOS phones. It even allows you to invite as many family members and friends as you’d like to share their memories with you. This makes it especially great for family members who live far away from one another.
My mom’s always reminding me to upload photos I post to social media to her frame, which only takes seconds since I have the app. Another thing we love about Aura’s digital picture frames is that you don’t need to worry about storage. Each frame comes with free unlimited storage, so there’s never a fear of running out of space for all your photos.
It has a high-quality smart display
From a purely aesthetic perspective, Aura’s digital picture frames are incredibly sleek and versatile. They blend into your space as any picture frame would, so they work with all types of decor styles. And in terms of quality, the Carver frame’s display is clear and sharp, and it shows off colors beautifully.
We also appreciate that it has minimal buttons. The only “button” is a touch bar on the top, which allows you to swipe through photos. A lot of the intelligence is built into the frame itself, which is what makes this a really fabulous gadget for Moms who aren’t too tech-savvy.
The Carver comes with a sensor that automatically adjusts the frame’s brightness based on how much light is in the room, and it can intelligently crop photos to fit its display. There’s also the Photo Match mode, which places two portrait photos side-by-side to fill the landscape frame, so you can avoid that wasted blank space on either end of your favorite photo. It can even play short videos (with sound!) and live photos, which start playing once they appear on the screen. If you prefer a portrait-orientation frame, we’d recommend the Aura Mason instead.
Aura Mason Digital Picture Frame
This 9-inch frame can be placed vertically or horizontally to display photos in whichever orientation best fits your space.
$169 at Amazon
$169 at Aura Frames
Bottom line
In many ways, Aura’s digital picture frames are a modern solution to family albums. Instead of developing photos after events or trips, organizing them into physical books and bringing them out to show people a couple times a year, you can instantly display these memories and revisit them throughout your day.
An Aura frame enables Mom to keep up with what her loved ones are doing, reminisce on memories with family and friends, relive travels and vacations, celebrate milestones and accomplishments, and take pride in her favorite hobbies and activities — sans the clutter. And that’s exactly why an Aura frame makes an excellent Mother’s Day gift idea for all the moms in your life.
Note: The prices above reflect the retailers' listed price at the time of publication.
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