Projector vs Aura Frames: the short answer

Aura Frames and Projector both put family photos on a screen at home, but they use different screens. Aura sells Wi-Fi digital photo frames, from about $149, that show a rotating slideshow of photos and short clips in one spot, like a kitchen counter or a nightstand. Projector turns the TV you already own into a private streaming channel for your family’s photos and full-length videos, on every TV in the family, for one subscription. Choose Aura for always-on photos in a single room. Choose Projector to sit down and watch your family’s videos together on the big screen.

Projector vs Aura Frames at a glance

Try Projector free: start with 15 videos or 5GB on the free plan.

About Aura Frames

Aura Frames is a New York company founded in 2012 by Abdur Chowdhury, formerly Twitter’s chief scientist. It makes Wi-Fi digital photo frames, including the 10-inch Carver, 9-inch Mason, 12-inch Aspen, and 15-inch Walden, plus an e-paper model called Ink. You set up a frame with the Aura app, and family members anywhere can add photos and short videos from their phones. Every frame includes free, unlimited cloud storage, and the frame cycles through a slideshow on its own. Aura has reported more than a million frames sold and is a perennial pick in gift guides, especially for grandparents. It is built for photos in one place in the home. Videos play as short clips of up to 30 seconds, and the frame is not designed for watching longer footage or for viewing on a TV.

Website: auraframes.com

About Projector

Projector is a private streaming service for your family’s videos and photos. It turns the memories scattered across phones, cloud accounts, hard drives, and digitized tapes into a personal channel that looks and works like the streaming apps you already use every night. You upload or sync your media once, Projector organizes it by the people, places, and events it contains, and you press play on the biggest screen in your home. Projector has native apps for Roku, Apple TV, Google TV, Amazon Fire TV, Samsung, and LG, plus phone, tablet, and web. Unlimited family sharing is included at no extra cost, so grandparents, kids, and cousins in other states can watch the same library. Your library stays private: it is never posted to a social feed or used for advertising, and you can name a successor to take over the account so the archive is passed down, not lost. Projector does not digitize physical media. Tapes, film, and slides are converted first by a digitizing service, then streamed in Projector alongside everything else. On the roadmap: an AI assistant that scans local and cloud storage, recognizes people and events, and builds a ready-to-watch library automatically.

Aura Frames pricing

One-time purchase | No subscription required | Free unlimited storage | Moderate to premium pricing

Aura sells frames as one-time hardware purchases. List prices below are typical; Aura and retailers discount often, especially in Q4.

• Carver (10-inch): About $149, or about $179 with a mat.
• Mason (9-inch): About $179.
• Aspen (12-inch): About $229.
• Walden (15-inch): About $299.
• Ink (cordless e-paper): About $499.
• Storage: Free, unlimited photo and video storage with every frame.

[EDITOR: Verify current frame prices at auraframes.com before publishing. Holiday discounts change them weekly from November through December.]

Projector pricing

Free plan | 14-day free trial | Moderate pricing

Every paid Projector plan includes the same features. You only choose how to pay.

• Free: 15 videos or 5GB of storage, so you can try streaming your own memories on your TV before you pay.
• Premium Monthly ($7.99/month): Unlimited streaming, storage, uploads, family sharing, and TV app installs. Cancel anytime.
• Premium Annual ($79.99/year): Everything in Premium, with a 14-day free trial. Works out to about $6.67 a month.
• Premium Lifetime ($799.99 one-time): Everything in Premium, paid once, with no renewals.
• Gift: Projector can be bought as a gift for a parent or grandparent at projectorstream.com/gift.

Aura Frames reviews

Aura Frames has about 220 reviews on Trustpilot with a TrustScore of 4.6 out of 5. Retail listings at Best Buy, Costco, and Amazon carry thousands more.

What reviewers praise

• Simple setup that works well for grandparents
• Responsive support, including replacement parts after the warranty ends
• Sharp, print-like picture quality

Common complaints

• Limited control over playlists and display settings
• No live phone support
• Some content can only be managed from the phone app

Read Aura Frames reviews on Trustpilot.

[EDITOR: To match the Picflow format, add 3 positive and 2 critical verbatim review quotes, each linked to its source review. Pull them yourself from the links above so they are current.]

Projector reviews

Projector has more than 450 ratings across Google Play, the Apple App Store, and Amazon, and more than 100,000 downloads on Google Play.

“Projector Stream is incredibly easy to use and makes sharing photos and videos effortless.” (App Store review)

“I recommend Projector to anyone who wants to consolidate endless memories into one easy to use app.” (App Store review)

“I love this service for watching and sharing your old family videos.” (Trish G., Projector customer)

[EDITOR: Link the rating count to the Google Play, App Store, and Amazon listings. Do not show Projector’s star average on this page or add AggregateRating schema for Projector until the store average is above 4.0. Update the count each quarter.]

Should you choose Aura Frames or Projector?

Choose Aura Frames if you want photos on display all day in one spot, like a kitchen or a grandparent’s nightstand, and you want a physical gift to unwrap.

Choose Projector if your family’s best memories are videos, from birthday parties to digitized tapes, and you want to watch them start to finish on the TV, on every family member’s TV, without buying a device for each home.

Use both if you want the full picture. Put an Aura frame in Grandma’s kitchen for the everyday photo slideshow, and give her Projector for movie night, when the whole family watches the full-length videos together on her TV.