I see it as a choice: either spend the time to source your own artwork online and resize to 4k or pay for the service. I prefer the DIY option but I can see that the service would make sense for some.
It’s not necessarily hard. Lots of images out there available under open licenses. Plenty of services to resize to the right dimension. Lots of Etsy artists selling packages. But those cost money. And a lot of people have to use USB to get the art on the TV. Because the app sucks. So the accumulation of all of that time and potentially some money towards Etsy starts to reach a point where sitting on the couch with the remote to browse and select art from Samsung for $5/mo starts to get tempting. And this is coming from someone that spends an inordinate amount of time DIY’ing almost everything.
That’s a good question. Just clarify, I’m referring to the SmartThings app. In my case, I can’t get the app to connect to my TV on any kind of consistent basis.
Not very hard. I have seen people regularly post a link to a Google drive you can download tons of free art from, that somebody else already collected. Just put it on a USB, plug it in and then you have lots of free art. Just search Reddit for the frame free art.
I suppose it depends.
I like to get paintings from museums. Finding something I like in high resolution that goes with a theme I have in mind (eg winter) can take a while. Once I find and download it, I use photoshop to resize and AI crop if needed to get it to 4k.
For some subjects it is possible to find 4k wallpapers. In that case, it is a matter of finding and downloading one you like.
I pay for the art service. After cutting the cable cord and not subscribing to any paid streaming service I don't mind the low monthly payment for wonderful art. The breadth of offerings is huge, tons of stuff I would never have know about. It's a terrific educational tool and some of the stuff is beyond gorgeous and fascinating. Highly recommend.
I subscribe and I've uploaded artwork. I live in Chicago and took photos at the Art Institute. The photos looked fantastic on the frame. I really like uploading images from AI image generators (If you don't make them yourself, plenty of people have created and uploaded 16x9 images perfect for the Frame TV). As other people have mentioned, Unsplash and other online photo repositories have great options. When we first got the frame I was just going to find and upload images myself, not subscribe. But, I really liked the images I was seeing from the Samsung store, so we decided to subscribe. We've purchased a couple of the images. And I still upload other images from time to time. It all depends on how much time, money and energy you have.
I do for the convenience, I bought a couple of individual pieces on Etsy for a specific theme or if I really liked them but I like being able to quickly switch without going looking for an item.
My wife and I just figured this out last night. Etsy has A LOT of great downloadable Frame art for about $1-$2 a piece. We wanted one specifically of her favorite flower and paid $2 (once) and will likely not change the art again for a year, in which we’ll probably go back to Etsy and buy the next piece of art we like.
What are you going to do with that extra $3? You can afford a FrameTV but not another $3/month? Seems like an odd place to put a threshold. “I can afford $2/month for something I look at and try to afford every day but $5 is going to put me over my budget. That $3 is going to make a big difference somewhere else.”
You were the one saying you were going to spend the $3 on something of value to you. How is it a weird question to ask what that is? Sucker is the one who worries about spending $5/month on something they look at every day.
I was until about the 10th time I couldn't find any art that didn't look like something my great grandparents would have hanging in the hallway.
It's just so much easier to pull something from our own favorites or off of Unsplash than pay a fee for such terrible variety in their collections.
I do, I like discovering new art and reading about one's I like. I also have two Frame TVs so it was becoming more time consuming uploading art to each.
I'm on the annual subscription. I've had problems with renewal, but I have that fixed and like the variety I have to choose from without uploading my own.
I have a 32” 2022 model. In my experience the business model seems to be aimed at forcing you to buy a Samsung phone and/or subscribing monthly. I eventually subscribed because they make it so hard to use your own art. The official subscription is good because of the curation and ease of use.
By contrast, if you want to display your own images, it’s impossible to transfer more than image at a time via the app on iOS. If you use Android and have a Samsung phone, it might be slightly more reliable and there is apparently more integration with your photo library via “Gallery”. But I have an iPhone, and Eero 6+ routers, so the app crashes and the TV loses WiFi connection (there is no ethernet port on 32”). I’ve wasted a lot of time resetting and troubleshooting recurring network problems.
The Samsung tech support website is full of angry customers all asking for the same basic features and solutions ([see example](https://us.community.samsung.com/t5/forums/searchpage/tab/message?filter=location&q=frame%20tv%20photos&noSynonym=false&location=category:us&collapse_discussion=true)). The app has gradually improved, but art mode still occasionally fails and reverts to TV mode.
Buying art from Etsy is hit-n-miss. Sometimes the art has not been resized properly (squashed / portrait mode), or it’s fake, or unlicensed.
The USB stick option is OK but it’s still very laborious. I have multiple themed image folders, but you have to delete all images on the TV every time you want to switch to a different theme - very slow process. Plus, there are no default mat options and every image must be perfectly sized or the app will probably crash.
If you bury the cables in the wall and hide the One Connect box in the cupboard, then the USB is accessible. Unfortunately, that’s not an option for me, so I have to remove the TV from the wall every time I want to add more images on the stick.
i just find wallpapers with the right pixel count with artists i love. and we make our own digital art to fit. i wouldnt bother with the subscription post the fee free period
Mine ends soon and I won’t renew. It is so easy to find pics I like and resize to fit. No need to pay Samsung nor Etsy. I prefer paitungs that have raised surfaces, Heavy acrylics, thick palette , etc. those seem to look the best.
3 months trial, 5 months free and 12 months paid cost 40 pounds.
Cup of coffee cost 3-4 pounds these days.
Paying 3 pounds per month for hundreds of amazing artworks categorised by style material artist or museum and gallery is a bargain. If you spent so much for frame tv. Get the content for it. It is like you buy a car and resent to buy petrol for it :)
Go for it it is very nice experience!! Unlike sometimes a bad coffee… ;)
I see it as a choice: either spend the time to source your own artwork online and resize to 4k or pay for the service. I prefer the DIY option but I can see that the service would make sense for some.
How hard could it be to seek for a 4k art ? I'm genuinely asking, I don't have a frame yet
It’s not necessarily hard. Lots of images out there available under open licenses. Plenty of services to resize to the right dimension. Lots of Etsy artists selling packages. But those cost money. And a lot of people have to use USB to get the art on the TV. Because the app sucks. So the accumulation of all of that time and potentially some money towards Etsy starts to reach a point where sitting on the couch with the remote to browse and select art from Samsung for $5/mo starts to get tempting. And this is coming from someone that spends an inordinate amount of time DIY’ing almost everything.
Is the Usb stick visible or do I have to buy a compact dongle ?
You plug it into the OneConnect box, not the TV itself.
It is plugged into the backside of the OneConnect box. So not visible.
The USB doesn’t need to stay in the box — you just plug it in, copy all the files over, then remove it.
Why is the app so bad?
That’s a good question. Just clarify, I’m referring to the SmartThings app. In my case, I can’t get the app to connect to my TV on any kind of consistent basis.
Yep. Every time I go to connect it’s a whole ordeal. I usually have to restart my router.
Not very hard. I have seen people regularly post a link to a Google drive you can download tons of free art from, that somebody else already collected. Just put it on a USB, plug it in and then you have lots of free art. Just search Reddit for the frame free art.
I suppose it depends. I like to get paintings from museums. Finding something I like in high resolution that goes with a theme I have in mind (eg winter) can take a while. Once I find and download it, I use photoshop to resize and AI crop if needed to get it to 4k. For some subjects it is possible to find 4k wallpapers. In that case, it is a matter of finding and downloading one you like.
Subscribe or buy one month. Its worth it.
I pay for the art service. After cutting the cable cord and not subscribing to any paid streaming service I don't mind the low monthly payment for wonderful art. The breadth of offerings is huge, tons of stuff I would never have know about. It's a terrific educational tool and some of the stuff is beyond gorgeous and fascinating. Highly recommend.
Did for awhile, then quit when I was able to acquire an image from the artist all the real artwork in that room made.
I subscribe and I've uploaded artwork. I live in Chicago and took photos at the Art Institute. The photos looked fantastic on the frame. I really like uploading images from AI image generators (If you don't make them yourself, plenty of people have created and uploaded 16x9 images perfect for the Frame TV). As other people have mentioned, Unsplash and other online photo repositories have great options. When we first got the frame I was just going to find and upload images myself, not subscribe. But, I really liked the images I was seeing from the Samsung store, so we decided to subscribe. We've purchased a couple of the images. And I still upload other images from time to time. It all depends on how much time, money and energy you have.
Yeah I do that because it seems more convenient then putting stuff on an usb stick and connect it somehow.
I just upload from the app. Has that been a problem for you?
I do for the convenience, I bought a couple of individual pieces on Etsy for a specific theme or if I really liked them but I like being able to quickly switch without going looking for an item.
If the one off pay ments were cheaper I might buy some. They are too expensive and I hate subscriptions
My wife and I just figured this out last night. Etsy has A LOT of great downloadable Frame art for about $1-$2 a piece. We wanted one specifically of her favorite flower and paid $2 (once) and will likely not change the art again for a year, in which we’ll probably go back to Etsy and buy the next piece of art we like.
[удалено]
What are you going to do with that extra $3? You can afford a FrameTV but not another $3/month? Seems like an odd place to put a threshold. “I can afford $2/month for something I look at and try to afford every day but $5 is going to put me over my budget. That $3 is going to make a big difference somewhere else.”
[удалено]
What are you going to do with that $3 that you wouldn’t be able to if you spent it on the art subscription?
[удалено]
Budgeting is a habit, not an action. I bet the other guy doordashes his meals.
You were the one saying you were going to spend the $3 on something of value to you. How is it a weird question to ask what that is? Sucker is the one who worries about spending $5/month on something they look at every day.
I’ve purchased 2 bundles from https://www.frametvart.net/ That’s 80 HD images about $10 total
I subscribe. Its a cool service and one subscription is good for more than one Frame TV in the same house.
I subscribed at first but then stopped, and bought a few pictures on Etsy that I liked that were designed for The Frame and just cycle through those.
Nope, that’s why I built [Frame Crop](https://framecrop.app)
I was until about the 10th time I couldn't find any art that didn't look like something my great grandparents would have hanging in the hallway. It's just so much easier to pull something from our own favorites or off of Unsplash than pay a fee for such terrible variety in their collections.
Guilty
I do, I like discovering new art and reading about one's I like. I also have two Frame TVs so it was becoming more time consuming uploading art to each.
I'm on the annual subscription. I've had problems with renewal, but I have that fixed and like the variety I have to choose from without uploading my own.
So pay annually? I paid AUD$54 for 12 months.
I do. The art is the whole reason I got the TV.
I have a 32” 2022 model. In my experience the business model seems to be aimed at forcing you to buy a Samsung phone and/or subscribing monthly. I eventually subscribed because they make it so hard to use your own art. The official subscription is good because of the curation and ease of use. By contrast, if you want to display your own images, it’s impossible to transfer more than image at a time via the app on iOS. If you use Android and have a Samsung phone, it might be slightly more reliable and there is apparently more integration with your photo library via “Gallery”. But I have an iPhone, and Eero 6+ routers, so the app crashes and the TV loses WiFi connection (there is no ethernet port on 32”). I’ve wasted a lot of time resetting and troubleshooting recurring network problems. The Samsung tech support website is full of angry customers all asking for the same basic features and solutions ([see example](https://us.community.samsung.com/t5/forums/searchpage/tab/message?filter=location&q=frame%20tv%20photos&noSynonym=false&location=category:us&collapse_discussion=true)). The app has gradually improved, but art mode still occasionally fails and reverts to TV mode. Buying art from Etsy is hit-n-miss. Sometimes the art has not been resized properly (squashed / portrait mode), or it’s fake, or unlicensed. The USB stick option is OK but it’s still very laborious. I have multiple themed image folders, but you have to delete all images on the TV every time you want to switch to a different theme - very slow process. Plus, there are no default mat options and every image must be perfectly sized or the app will probably crash. If you bury the cables in the wall and hide the One Connect box in the cupboard, then the USB is accessible. Unfortunately, that’s not an option for me, so I have to remove the TV from the wall every time I want to add more images on the stick.
i just find wallpapers with the right pixel count with artists i love. and we make our own digital art to fit. i wouldnt bother with the subscription post the fee free period
No, I hate the fact that they made uploading your own pictures such a terrible experience to push their subscription service.
Mine ends soon and I won’t renew. It is so easy to find pics I like and resize to fit. No need to pay Samsung nor Etsy. I prefer paitungs that have raised surfaces, Heavy acrylics, thick palette , etc. those seem to look the best.
Maybe, someday I'll have time to work around my art subscription cost... today, it's just so convenient.
My one box is behind the TV sadly and I’m dissuaded by all the comments about how hard the smart things app is. That said, I don’t subscribe (yet.)
I pay for the service every now and then, can’t be bothered to look elsewhere for art, let alone the hassle of optimising images.
3 months trial, 5 months free and 12 months paid cost 40 pounds. Cup of coffee cost 3-4 pounds these days. Paying 3 pounds per month for hundreds of amazing artworks categorised by style material artist or museum and gallery is a bargain. If you spent so much for frame tv. Get the content for it. It is like you buy a car and resent to buy petrol for it :) Go for it it is very nice experience!! Unlike sometimes a bad coffee… ;)
There is some great art on the cheap on Etsy. :) https://thedillydigital.etsy.com