Google Photos just made my Aura photo frame much worse
In September, Google announced some updates to Google Photos’ APIs. The changes go into effect this month. For the most part, it’s stuff I probably wouldn’t have noticed, like tweaks to the way apps can upload to or retrieve images from your Photos library.
One change in particular is really bumming me out: Google Photos no longer allows third-party apps to request access to your entire Photos library. From a privacy standpoint, that’s largely good — you wouldn’t want to accidentally give some fishy app unrestricted access to your personal images. But the update also breaks integrations with certain connected photo frames, including the Aura frame I’ve been using for a couple of years.
An unwelcome change
Prior to this month’s Photos API changes, Aura’s companion app let you grant your frames access to specific albums you’d created inside Google Photos. I’ve got tons of pictures in Google Photos, organized into dozens of albums that I add new images to on an ongoing basis. Aura’s Photos integration let me set my Aura frame to automatically pull images from any of these albums, keeping the frame up to date with new images as I organized them in Photos.
Starting today, that integration is going away. Any photos that have been added to Aura photo frames from Google Photos will still be there, but adding new images to formerly synced albums inside Google Photos will no longer push those images to Aura picture frames. Now, to add photos to your Aura frame from Google Photos, you have to select them from your library and share them manually.
That might seem like a small change, but depending on how you use your connected photo frame, it could break the experience you’re used to. That’s the case in my household: my wife and I are currently using shared Google Photos albums to display photos on a Pixel Tablet, a Nest Hub Max, and a Chromecast with Google TV — we each add photos to the same albums, which pushes them to various screens around our house. Until today, that list of screens included an Aura frame that’s set up in a hallway upstairs. An added step to get new pictures to that one screen is enough friction that I probably just won’t bother.
It’s not just Aura frames affected by the change; similar displays from companies like Cozyla are also impacted. Plenty of Google Photos users like me surely bought these frames for their convenient integration, and it’s a real shame that that functionality is being lost.
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There aren’t really solutions here
Aura points out to The Verge that its iCloud sync works much in the same way its Google Photos integration did up until today, with options to automatically sync your Favorites to your Aura frames. That won’t mean much to you if you’re an Android user, though.
If you’re affected by this change and you’re up for spending some money to get your Google Photos convenience back, your best bet may be to grab a Nest Hub and stick it where your Aura frame is. The Nest Hub Max has a 10″ display, same as Aura’s Carver frames, and being made by Google, comes with full Google Photos integration. That’s not a great solution, though. For one, the Nest Hub Max costs more than $200, which is a lot to spend because a software feature on your digital photo frame. It also looks techier than Aura’s frames, and comes with functionality you might not need or want. I wouldn’t benefit from a smart display in my upstairs hallway, where my Aura Carver frame currently sits.
Devices losing existing functionality because of some back-end change is always frustrating, and it’s a bummer for companies like Aura, too. These picture frames’ Google Photos integration is busted now because of an API change Google made, and there wasn’t anything Aura could’ve done to stop it. Either way, I’m probably not going to get much use out of my Aura frame going forward — and that’s a shame.
