Dear NIX, Are Your Cloud Photo Frame Glitches Normal?

by Barrett

Recently I doubted the reliability of this new nixplay Cloud Frame. But shouldn’t a new tech product be given a second chance to make a good first impression? “Hello, tech support?”

Recently I doubted the reliability of this new nixplay Cloud Frame. But shouldn’t a new tech product be given a second chance to make a good first impression? “Hello, tech support?”

So I bought a nixplay Wi-Fi Cloud Digital Photo Frame a week ago to display some of my countless unseen family photos at home.

Aside from the NIX’s annoying branding decision to not capitalize the name of the product…(making it somewhat confusing to write about it in a grammatically correct way)
…I had some trouble getting the digital photo frame to work.

The frame should quickly receive its photos from NIX’s cloud once you send them there, but I found that actual performance may vary.

But before shipping the whole kit and kaboodle back to Amazon, I decided to give NIX an opportunity to troubleshoot my mediocre experience.

Help Me, NIX!
So I emailed their tech support team:

  • Subject: I’ve had varying results uploading photos to my nixplay Cloud Frame.
    On my first attempt, the new slideshows didn’t show up in the frame for a couple hours, and then they remained empty until the next day.  It wasn’t until that next afternoon when the photos actually showed up. 

    However, this morning, I uploaded a new slideshow to your cloud, and that one, along with its pictures appeared within minutes on the frame.  Also, every time I upload photos into a new album in your cloud, a few don’t make it, due to ‘server communication error.’ 

    Are these glitches ‘normal?’

nixplay_message submitted

Never on Saturday
Happily, tech support emailed back within a couple of hours.
Yes, they would be willing to talk with me.
At 2:17pm, a friendly nixplay nerd called me up to listen to my troubles.

I reviewed my middling experience with their Cloud Frame.
He zeroed in on the day my problems first occurred.

“Saturday?”

“Yes, Saturday.”

“Last Saturday?”

“Yes, that Saturday.”

“Aha!”
(He didn’t really say that.)

The problem:

  • Nixplay’s servers had an outage on Saturday… the very day I first tested my nixplay Cloud Frame.

Coincidence?… It would seem.
Bad timing?… Absolutely!

Faster than a Black Hole
I asked how long it should take on any other day to upload pictures to the frame.

“Minutes,” he replied.

Oh?

“Minutes,” he repeated.

(That’s less time than it took for a black hole to destroy the planet Vulcan in the recently adjusted Star Trek universe.)

Then he blurted out, “Sometimes even seconds.”

Uh huh.

Well, I guess the ill-timed server outage would explain the problem.

Later, I did a speed test on additional picture uploads to the frame.
His story held up.
It only took about 30 seconds.
(Impressive… most impressive.)

A Failure to Communicate
I then asked my new tech BFF about the ‘server communication error’ messages I’ve consistently received while uploading photos to their cloud, causing a few of them to disappear on their journey.

server communication error

He asked me if I was using Google Chrome as my web browser.
(No, I’m using Safari, thank you very much.)

He explained their platform is optimized for Google Chrome and suggested there might be a coding issue to blame for my Safari problems.

After hearing him say this, I began sensing some secret connection to Google. Perhaps NIX sees a Google-dominated universe powered by Google Chrome and Picasa.
Perhaps there’s more to it. Hard to know…

And there was clearly no sign of Flickr integration anywhere.
(just Picasa, Facebook and Instagram)
When I asked my tech bud about accessing my Flickr albums, he laughed nervously.

Cancel the Nix on the NIX
So I guess my nixplay Cloud Frame is working properly after all.
(It’s NIX’s servers that seem a bit dodgy. I hope that’s not too frequent a problem…)

So I’ve decided to keep my nixplay Cloud Frame.

  • As for the communications errors during photo transfers, I suppose it’s not really that big a deal to re-upload a few pictures. It’s just an extra step.
    (And what tech is totally perfect?)
  • My wife already loves the photos I’ve got rotating onto the frame…
    That’s a big win for the ‘HIG!’ (Home IT Guy)
  • And nixplay’s tech support was speedy and friendly.
    (Thank you NIX!)
  • And don’t forget the frame’s cool motion sensor, which enables the device to turn itself off when you’re not around!

For what it’s worth, I say,
GO FOR IT!

Add in some NIX to your life.
And let the photos flow…